Labour's immigration policy

Not enough of anything

This week the British Labour government launched a new immigration policy. This bears the fingerprints of the Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, but the announcement was led by the prime minister Sir Keir Starmer. All the party’s senior leaders were present. This is a big deal for the government; its reputation could stand or fall by it. It is also rather baffling at first sight. Immigration isn’t (directly) part of the government’s much-heralded five major priorities, and it looks like a panic reaction to Reform’s strong performance in last week’s elections, and Labour’s weak one. Just what is all this about?

The first point to make is that the idea that immigration is too high, and that the country needs stricter policies to restrict it, is widespread, and probably has majority support - though the polling becomes a lot less clear when specific policies are considered. It is a top issue for Reform, and Reform-inclined voters - but concern goes wider than that. The government, and Ms Cooper in particular, clearly think it is a matter of general competence - and that view seems to be shared across the political spectrum. The Lib Dems have been notably cautious. The curious thing is that Sir Keir is leaning in to Reform’s language. He talked the danger of the country being an “island of strangers” - echoing Enoch Powell, as he may not have realised; businesses are “addicted to cheap labour”; and the previous government had indulged in “a squalid experiment in open borders” leading to “incalculable damage”. Detailed polling, of which the government will be well aware, shows that Reform is not picking off many Labour voters, and that the party suffers a greater risk to its left, which will find the language annoying. It still feels a need to ape Reform language.

But the new policies will make no impression on voters inclined to Reform (“Reform curious” in the new jargon). They are used to politicians who talk tough on immigration, and under-deliver, which this policy is destined to do. The government wants to reduce immigration from sky-high recent levels, but will content itself with net immigration of hundreds of thousands. Besides, Reform politicians are good at conflating policies on legal migration with the illegal sort - and especially those very conspicuously arriving on small boats. Here the government is restricted to some mild damage-limitation; it will be easy to paint that as abject failure. So why is Labour taking this line? I think it is to keep pressure up on the Conservatives. The government wants to keep showing up that party’s failures, and its chronic failure to deliver anything after Brexit. It does not want the Tories to win their existential struggle with Reform. It really it wants the two parties to still be locked in a mutually-weakening war when the next general election comes. But if, as looks more likely, Reform prevails, Labour probably fancies its chances of rallying liberals to its cause, much as Mark Carney did for the Liberals in Canada.

But how will tougher immigration laws affect wider government achievement? Governments are stuck in a policy trilemma: they can have at most two of lower/stable taxes, maintaining/improving public services and lower immigration - but not all three. The government’s raison-d’etre is to maintain public services, and improve them if possible. It is desperate not to raise taxes any further. So cutting immigration is a problem. It is as addicted to low-cost immigrant labour as any business. That, of course, is one reason why the impact of the policies will not be as much right-wing politicians demand. Labour hopes that the relatively limited scope of the reforms will help it avoid the worst economic impacts of reduced immigration.

They are particularly sceptical of lower-wage labour (again aping Reform-Tory language by calling it “low-skilled”). Lower-waged immigrants are more likely to put pressure on public resources, especially if they bring families (something the last government tried belatedly to limit). Indeed agitators, such as Matt Goodwin (as that is what he has now morphed into), claim confidently that such immigrants are a net drain on the public. This is of a piece with perhaps the bravest aspect of the (otherwise un-brave) economic policy revealed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves: raising the costs of cheap labour through increases to the minimum wage and changes to the National Insurance regime. They really want Britain to be a higher-wage, higher-productivity society by making cheap labour uneconomic.

Another thought sits behind this. Britain has a large number of people of working age who have withdrawn (or never entered) the workforce - and are not actively seeking employment. A Conservative spokesman suggested that this was as high as 5 million people. This is associated with claims of poor mental or physical health, and access to benefits. Alas public information on this group is pretty weak. Some suggest that these can be brought into the workforce by changes to the benefit system, more support and (less often spoken of) higher pay. Others say that their problems go much deeper, and that they are victims of austerity policies that cut services investing in the health of people, and especially young children. Childhood obesity and autism, for example, has spiked. And then throw in the influence of social media, everybody’s explanation for every ill. Alas the thought that our shallow politicians and lightweight public servants trying to successfully draw down this motley army of the despairing, to replace eager workers from overseas, is itself depressing. What is in prospect is acts of cruelty that will fail to deliver anything like the hoped-for results.

Two aspects of public policy are put into question. The first is the government’s hopes of a massive programme of investment in housing and other infrastructure. Industry types suggest that this is impossible without a continued flow of overseas labour. I don’t know how seriously to take this. The building industry is notoriously bad at actually building things and developing productivity, as opposed to buying and selling lan). The government claims to have a massive programme of training under way. The second is social care, especially of the elderly, of which there are growing numbers. This is bankrupting local government, and yet the government just adds to the costs. This policy change will increase costs further, without giving the local authorities extra money. And the government has continued the long tradition of kicking longer term policies for social care into the long grass.

And so Sir Keir’s government is continuing its adoption of inadequate policies to tackle deepening problems, and hoping that economic good luck will get them through to the next election. That is bad enough, but I see no sign that anybody else is offering anything better. The right is descending into outright fantasy; the left is content to gripe about government policy without offering convincing solutions. No wonder the public is fed up.