On immigration

I hardly ever write about immigration.  I think we talked far too much about immigration between 1995 and 2005.  That's not because I thought our analysis and policies wrong all through that time - as it happens, I think we were largely correct in our analysis and policy responses in 1997-2001 and badly wrong from 2003-2005.  But, as I've remarked before, a political party's choice of topics is an important signal to the voters concerning what it cares about, and making immigration one of your central concerns identifies you as having an extremely right-wing set of policy priorities.  That doesn't mean you should never mention it at all, but I do think it means we should steer clear of any sustained focus on it for now, given how obsessed we've appeared with it in the recent past.

What has motivated me to write today has been all this discussion in the past few days of "40 years since the Rivers of Blood" and the many statements that Enoch Powell achieved quite the opposite of his intentions with that notorious speech.

Let me put a few cards on the table.  I have no intention of trying to support Powell here.  In my view "Enoch Powell" has long ceased to be the name of a historical individual, and has become that of an icon, a bogeyman.  Conservative politicians who, on occasion, try to say things along the lines of "Powell was right" are fools.  Those are battles they aren't going to win.  Furthermore, by saying things like that these mainstream politicians will appear to many to endorse the views of some unpleasant people who mean something quite different by "Powell was right".  I presume the instinct of such Conservative politicians is essentially noble - as they see it, they are trying to oppose the traducing of the memory of a great man by his enemies.  But the wise man knows when to withdraw.

Now, as it happens, I disagree with even the "what Powell really meant" analysis of his case.  I do not think that having extremely high turnover in one's population - lots of immigration and emigration - will of necessity lead to high social tension, violence and oppression.  That does not mean that I am an unambiguous supporter of "multiculturalism", in the sense that that dangerous term has come to be used recently - as meaning a belief in ghetto-isation with no attempt to develop a unified national culture.  As I have remarked previously, I find US-style "synthesis" ("melting pot") models of social integration an appealing route to consider further, whilst rejecting neo-assimilationism.

The above notwithstanding, I do want to stand up against the current "Rivers of Blood" discussion in one particular.  The BBC in most of its coverage, and Trevor Phillips today, have suggested repeatedly that "Mr Powell discredited any talk of [immigration] planning or control", and hence "gave rise to a 'migration policy in which government knew too little about what was going on'".  Even by the lax standards of modern journalism, these statements are extraordinary.

Up until 1962, all Commonwealth citizens had an unambiguous right to come to live and work in the UK.  Legislation in 1962 and 1968 restricted this somewhat, but the key measure was the 1971 Immigration Act, which meant that by 1972, holders of work permits, or people with parents or grandparents born in the UK could gain entry - essentially ending primary immigration from the Commonwealth.  That system found its ultimate end in the 1981 Nationality Act.  The campaign that Powell was running - the campaign against unrestricted immigration from the Commonwealth - was one in which he was eventually completely victorious.

Now as it happens, I don't think that that framework was as necessary or helpful as probably most Conservatives do.  But what I find absurd is that Powell can be so unreflectively attacked and dismissed by people who support the immigration controls that he succeeded in having enacted (i.e. they are the ones who in fact believe that "Powell was right") whilst at the same time declaring glibly that he failed!

One last thing: Isn't forty years now a rather long time ago?  Why must we keep on harking back to a debate conducted in another world - a world of rhetoric we can no longer understand and issues that everyone has forgotten?  What does any of this remotely have to do with debates about immigration from Poland or Lithuania?  Can't we now just let Powell and his speech and what it "really" meant rest in peace and get on with the debates of our own time?