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In his new party political broadcast (PPB) on immigration, Ed Miliband says: "Millions of people in this country are concerned about immigration. And if people are concerned about it, then the Labour Party I lead is going to be talking about it... It's not prejudice when people worry about immigration, it's understandable. And we were wrong in the past when we dismised people's concerns."
People's "concerns". That's what seems to drive the immigration debate (or what passes for a debate) in this country. Concerns.
Remember David Cameron's speech on the subject in April 2011? "This time last year, we said we would listen to people's concerns and get immigration under control. Today I can confidently say that we are getting there."
Or Tony Blair's speech on immigration in 2004? "There are real concerns; they are not figments of racist imagination; and they have to be tackled precisely in order to sustain a balanced and sensible argument about migration."
Well I'm sorry to have to say this but I for one am fed up about people's "concerns" on this particular political issue. Our elected politicians won't, or perhaps can't, say this but the fact is that the great British public doesn't have a clue about immigration. Why then should we base our immigration policies on public opinion, and people's "concerns", when those very same people are so woefully uninformed and ignorant about the true levels of immigration into the UK? The levels of benefits that migrants - especially asylum-seekers - receive? Their proficiency with the English language?
In February 2011, reporting on an international survey carried out by Transatlantic Trends, the BBC's Mark Eaton observed:
"Asked to estimate the proportion of foreign-born people living in the UK, the average guess is 29.4%. The true figure according to OECD data is 10.8%, lower than Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Canada and the USA. When informed of that, the proportion of British respondents thinking it was 'too many' fell from 59% to 46%..."
See what happens when you give people information about immigration? Accurate information, that is?
Yet ignorance on this subject abounds - and is cynically exploited by the likes of Theresa May, Nigel Farage, Sir Andrew Green and, of course, Richard Desmond. Consider the evidence collated by Rob Ford of Manchester University for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Migration:
"Research shows that the British public generally holds an exaggerated view of the scale and impacts of immigration in the UK, consistently estimating numbers of migrants or asylum seekers in excess of official statistics... In 2002, the average public estimate of migration levels was more than double the actual level."
So why give such weight to the opinions of people who, let's be blunt, don't know what they're talking about? Why fetishise ignorant and prejudiced views and spin them as 'legitimate concerns'? Would we stop trying to tackle climate change if polls showed the public thinks it isn't real or isn't a threat? Of course not: we'd redouble our efforts to try and educate and inform the public of the facts. Why can't we treat the arguments around immigration in the same way?
Wait, says Miliband in his PPB, voters think the the pace of change is too fast; "people," he argues, "can see their wages undercut".
In fact, as Ford reveals:
"Public attitudes towards migration are generally not driven by direct experiences. When voters are asked if migrants have a negative impact nationally (on jobs, crime, local services), around 60-70% say yes.
"When asked about the same impacts locally only around 10-20% reports a problem (IPSOS-MORI, 2008; YouGov, 2009). Voters seem to perceive migration as something which causes problems elsewhere."
So why not, as the leader of a centre-left, progressive political party in one of the world's wealthiest countries, challenge this false and pernicious idea? Why not correct the claim that millions of migrants struggle with the English language, when the official figures suggest otherwise?
Why not reject the charge that low-skilled migrants from eastern Europe have had a significant and negative impact on 'native' wages, when most academic studies suggests otherwise?
Yes, Miliband's message on migration is more nuanced and progressive than those of his predecessors, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Yes, the Labour leader isn't a cynical populist (and is, in fact, the son of two refugees). Nonetheless, wittingly or unwittingly, he and his party continue to operate and communicate within a frame set by the anti-immigrant right. All the talk is of threats, costs and controls, rather than opportunities, benefits and contributions.
Well, what else can we do about the anti-immigration views of the voters, cry the Labour right? What do we do with their "concerns"?
As my former colleague, Daniel Trilling, author of the excellent new book on the far right, Bloody Nasty People, tweeted last Friday, in the wake of the Eastleigh result:
"One way to 'take voters concerns on immigration seriously' is to make a strong pro-immigration, anti-racist case."
Indeed. (Oh, and let's be clear: lots of anti-immigration members of the public aren't of course motivated by racism, xenophobia and/or fear of 'the other'... but..um, er... lots are. Sorry.)
It shouldn't need repeating but the job of a politician is to try and lead and shape public opinion - not just blindly follow it. Especially on an issue where most voters simply don't have access to the facts and end up getting the numbers wrong time and again.
The message from the opinion polls on immigration for politicians - especially of the Ed Miliband liberal-left variety - is that the voters need informing, not indulging. I can't help but be reminded of one of my favourite lines from The West Wing - from spin doctor and pollster Joey Lucas to deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman:
"You say that these numbers mean dial it down. I say they mean dial it up. You haven't gotten through. There are people you haven't persuaded yet. These numbers mean dial it up. Otherwise you're like the French radical, watching the crowd run by and saying, 'There go my people. I must find out where they're going so I can lead them.'"
Follow Mehdi Hasan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mehdirhasan
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Maybe you have a agenda here ? I for one disagree with most of your posts and your politics.
Same here....
Forget the immigration figures fed to the British public by the political party's. I can see with my own eyes the impact that huge immigration has on our country. Without going into all the obvious things like housing, services, schools, et etc, theres the increase in crime. Only yesterday Huff reported " Scotland Yard figures published yesterday showed that 27,725 Romanian citizens have been arrested for serious offences in London over the past five years including ten for murder, 142 for rape and 666 for other sex offences.....thats over 1 in 3 Romanians arrested!
The number of Romanians arrested is second only to that of Poles, 34,905 of whom have been detained since 2008, including 84 for murder.
Lithuanians were the third most frequently arrested foreign nationals in the capital (LONDON) with 18,594
Ignore the people as we know best. . .
Pleased to see the consistency of the left in telling us all what to do, think & what to spend our money on ..
- Animal Farm . .
To the political director of the Huff Post ..your article talks much of uninformed people and many figures are quoted. How much better it would be if you researched why people have to immigrate..once this is made known then perhaps people would stay and demand what they are entitled to in their countries. The world is ruled by psychopaths that 1% of the population not governed by a conscience who grab everything....Take the two multimillionaire Russians slugging it out in the UK courts..Why are these people allowed to rob ordinary Russians of their own resources. The bankers, the leaders who manipulate the press into writing stories like this one.To misinform people. It isn't really about immigration is it? it's about people forced to leave their homelands because of corrupt individuals who everyone is hoodwinked into believing are their leaders..and they just get richer. We all have a right to be on the planet but only a handful of people own everything..It's time the structures that support these people were removed..Having ordinary people squabbling about immigrants is missing the point..
Perhaps in future I will just ignore any blogs from Mehdi Hasan.
the same Mehdi Hasan that can be found on YouTube saying as follows: ‘The kuffar, the disbelievers, the atheists who remain deaf and stubborn to the teachings of Islam, the rational message of the Koran; they are described in the Koran as “a people of no intelligence”, Allah describes them as not of no morality, not as people of no belief – people of “no intelligence” – because they’re incapable of the intellectual effort it requires to shake off those blind prejudices, to shake off those easy assumptions about this world, about the existence of God. In this respect, the Koran describes the atheists as “cattle”, as cattle of those who grow the crops and do not stop and wonder about this world.’
On a separate occasion, jabbing his finger as he speaks with some force, Mr Hasan is recorded as saying: ‘Once we lose the moral high-ground we are no different from the rest of the non-Muslims; from the rest of those human beings who live their lives as animals, bending any rule to fulfil any desire
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/douglas-murray/2012/08/peter-hitchens-vs-mehdi-hasan/
We live in a democracy in which politicians (in order to win elections) have little choice but to cater to the misguided fears and prejudices of the voters. Any candidate who does not do so will fail to be elected, and therefore have no chance to influence public policy. The winning candidate, having aligned him or herself with the popular paranoia, has no choice but to remain committed to it or be thought 'weak' and a 'turncoat'.
Sadly, this results in many government policies - including immigration, taxes, benefits, crime, drugs, healthcare, foreign policy and human rights - being based on popular myths and prejudice rather than on evidence and fact.
In the USA, an organization called the Pew Charitable Trusts routinely conducts surveys on public knowledge of politics and current events. The scores from all groups are depressingly low, but survey after survey, year after year, conservatives score higher than moderates, who score higher than liberals.
Hasan provides no evidence to suggests that people who favor less immigration are more poorly informed than those who favor more, and fails to show that enlightenment on all of the consequences of immigration would lead people to support more immigration.
Mehdi's point isn't that "those who want to reduce immigration are more ignorant than those who want the staus quo or to increase it." It's that the entire topic of immigration is so overlaid with misinformation, myth and prejudice that expecting the general public to be able to make any sort of informed judgement - FOR OR AGAINST - is impossible.
This means that any government should ensure that there is a good public understanding of the available information before introducing policies based on people's current "gut feelings". Surely we can both agree that a well-informed electorate is a Good Thing for democracy?
Well perhaps, you should consider informing the populace rather than dismissing it in an authoritarian way. For years when people spoke of immigration the first words thrown at them were that they were racist bigots.
Perhaps if things were explained without fear of imprisonment people would be more aware and you Sir would not feel so smugly superior.
furthermore I think it patronising & rather insulting to assume that if I don't share your views I am " woefully uninformed and ignorant " to have any concerns. Shame really as I generally agree with an awful lot you say.
If we had lived in a real democracy instead of this contemporary feudal system run by a corporate plutocracy, then it would be logical to assume that all of this country’s infrastructure, central bank wealth, governmental assets etc were nothing other than the collective wealth of our citizenry. The collective wealth of our country is like a fraction with the population representing the numerator whilst the denominator represents the sum total of the wealth or resources. Increase the numerator and the fraction equates to less.
Assimilating millions of impoverished migrants contributes only to the already obscenely rich and powerful plutocracy, by increasing their profits through lower employment costs and ensuring that the consumer pool that they distribute their products and services within is augmented. The social and financial subsidy of these migrants is then forced onto the public who in turn also increasingly find themselves disenfranchised by an inability to access social housing and employment etc. This is what is responsible for the rapid decline in living standards and the Labour and liberal parties are the ones who are intent on driving the ordinary citizen into the ground .
The collective wealth of our country is like an equation with the population representing the divisor and the dividend representng the sum total of the wealth or resources. Increase the divisor and the fraction of the dividend equates to less.
"The OECD says the very top of British society – the 0.1% of highest earners – accounted for a remarkable 5% of total pre-tax income, a level of wealth hoarding not seen since the second world war.
Such disparities, the thinktank said, could not be blamed on globalisation but a trend in labour and social policies in rich nations that had helped the wealthy."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/dec/05/income-inequality-growing-faster-uk
If I look out of my window more than 75% of my neighbours are immigrants.
Quite frankly Hasan has not got a clue - I take it he is a climate change denier too..?