Dominic Grieve: Labour's left it too late to get a grip on immigration

Writing for the Evening Standard today, Dominic Grieve strongly criticises Labour's approach to immigration since 1997, noting the problems it has created. He argues that if Labour has now finally come to a more realistic view, it is only through finally heeding Conservative arguments they have been ignoring for years. Labour has no credibility remaining on the issue.

It is notable that prior to joining the Shadow Cabinet this summer, Dominic Grieve worked as hard or harder than any Conservative MP (notably with Christina Dykes) to build a stronger relationship between the Conservatives and ethnic minority groups. His strong words on this issue therefore carry particular credibility.

Labour's record of failure: "Net immigration has quadrupled under Labour, fuelled both by the lack of transitional controls on new EU member states and a failure to control economic migration from outside the EU. Britain is on course to have the largest population in the EU, with the Office for National Statistics predicting that half of this surge will come from immigration... A YouGov poll last year found that the public regarded the failure to control immigration as Tony Blair's greatest failure in office."

Immigration makes only the most marginal contribution to GDP per head: "The Government has consistently overstated the economic advantages by emphasising only the contribution of newcomers to overall GDP, when, as the Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs points out, it is the impact on GDP per person that counts, and immigration has had only the most marginal impact on that measure."

The disadvantages of high levels of immigration:

• "The Governor of the Bank of England says uncertainty about immigration numbers makes the job of setting monetary policy more difficult."
• "The strain on public services is even more acute. Our schools face immense pressures caused by the different needs and languages of children from immigrant families, particularly in urban areas. Almost half-a-million primary school pupils do not speak English as a first language."
• "The failure to manage economic migration properly has put further pressure on transport and housing. The regular complaints about overcrowding on the Underground in London reflect the fact that our capital now has 800,000 more inhabitants than in 1997, with no adequate thought given to infrastructure development to keep pace with growth."
• "One chief constable has publicly complained that immigration has added to policing pressures and increased the requirement for translation services, without his force being provided with the requisite resources to cope."
• "A report published by the Communities and Local Government Select Committee last July warned that the pressure on resources as a result of immigration "increases the risk of community tensions escalating" and that the pace of change in some areas has resulted in migration becoming "the single greatest public concern in Britain, overtaking concerns on crime and terrorism"."

Conservatives have lead on this issue: "We have been calling for a points-based system for years. The Government is now trying to introduce one. However, we have also made clear that a points-based system is pointless without an overall limit on the numbers of people coming to the UK. Ministers roundly rejected that approach until now, it appears.

"If Mr Woolas is serious about putting proper limits on economic migration, then I welcome this volte-face. But to be credible, after more than a decade of uncontrolled immigration, ministers need to be crystal clear about what their policy now is and candid about their past mistakes, not just float ideas in newspaper interviews which they then row back on less then 24 hours later."

Conservatives alone can be trusted on immigration: "Is the Government that spent 12 years storing up the problems with a failed approach to immigration really capable of sorting the mess out? I doubt it. We need the kind of fundamental change in approach that cannot be delivered through spin but only by a change in government.

"A Conservative government will set immigration policy within a wider strategy that meets the changing demographic make-up of Britain, taking full account of its impact on our population and maximising the economic advantages while mitigating the costs and risks. We have pledged an annual limit on economic migration to Britain. We have set out policies to avoid the abuse of our rules by those promoting sham marriages from abroad. We have called for newcomers to be proficient in a basic level of English, because it is vital for cohesive communities. And we have set out detailed proposals for a dedicated Border Police Force, with the remit, powers and capacity to secure our border controls to stem the crime that thrives on porous borders."

3pm: Peter Whittle sees vindication for Sir Andrew Green and MigrationWatch in the changed political consensus.

Comments

[Malcolm Dunn]

Agree with everything Grieve writes but shouldn't it have been Damian Green taking the lead on this?

[Sammy Finn]

I'm so glad we have ended our near silence on this.

I greatly fear BNP gains at the Euro elections.

So long as the big parties don't address these important issues voters will move to the extremes.

[Sammy Finn]

If the party went by that rule Malcolm David Cameron would never say anything - - always leaving everything to George Osborne on the economy, William Hague on foreign affairs etc etc

[James Lees]

Looks like one complaint by the immigration industry and the Minister has changed his mind:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/minister-denies-limit-on-migrants-from-outside-eu-966917.html

We need an honest debate otherwise the debate will only be had by the dishonest. Labour needs to learn not to listen to those who brand all debate as "braying packs" and worse etc

[David_at_Home]

Immigration can never be controlled until we cease to give an automatic right for EU nationals to live and work here. Would be third world immigrants will simply enter the EU through another country and then find their way here. Also, what do the Tories think will happen when Turkey joins the EU?

[IRJMilne]

"shouldn't it have been Damian Green taking the lead on this?"

Adding to the earlier response to this comment, Dominic Grieve is the Shadow Home Secretary, and the Home Secretary has overall responsibility for immigration, so it is hardly as if Liam Fox or Theresa Villiers were writing on immigration.

[Patrick Ratnaraja]

David_at_home is absolutely right. There are more immigrants from Europe than non-european Countries.

[Helen]

Is there any way the Conservative Party and its various members can be made to understand that immigration is an EU competence and nothing British ministers or shadow ministers might say or promise will make the slightest bit of difference? Even if you do not keep up with documents that come out of the EU, you cannot have forgotten what happened when Michael Howard started swaggering about immigration during the last election. A great big put-down by the Commission. What does it take?

[John Moss]

We need to re-think the rights of all immigrants, EU or not, to use state funded education and health services and to draw welfare benefits.

If you had to pay, say, £2,000 in when you first arrived in order to use the NHS or send you child to a state school, only getting it back when you had paid in that much in tax, then much of the "benefit shopping" which happens would stop.

If we had a genuinely contributory system of National Insurance for out of work benefits and pensions, then there would be an almost immediate end to the culture of everythng for free provided you can get here.

These are fair rules which should be applied equally to everybody. We are seen as a soft-touch in Europe and beyond because we don't.

[David]

If you are in the EU, the UK government has no control over EU immigration and almost no control over the rest. It's as simple as that.

[rugfish]

Open-door immigration will bankrupt the country and when it's bankrupted the economic migrants will move to another country and bankrupt it untill we're all as poor as each other. The only choices available are: -
1 - Learn about becoming abanrupt before it happens in order to cope.

2 - Become an economic migrant yourself. Or

3 - End the lunacy of open-door immigration which emanates from being a full member of the European Union.

[Patsy Sergeant]

I find this whole topic profoundly depressing these days. Some of the people who have to bear the heaviest responsibility for where we are at the moment, are people who were able to immigrate to this country between fifty and eighty years ago. Because they were able to make their homes here, they have felt they must not prevent ANYBODY else coming to live here. Quite a few people with this opinion have reached positions of influence, and therefore been able to prevent a curb on immigration when it would have been comparatively easy. NOW.....

[Mark Fulford]

I don’t see the problem, I don’t hear the problem, I don’t feel the problem. In fact, I just don’t get it.

Who here can genuinely say that immigrants have had a direct adverse impact upon their life?

[Malcolm Dunn]

In my council work I have seen some very direct effects Mark including the need for increased housebuilding, traffic, the lack of summer jobs for undergraduates,and pressure on schools and healthcare provision. You did ask.

[David]

In the past immigration was a few hundreds or thousands at a time, it was with the agreement of the British government, and the people coming here knew they would have to make their own way.

Now potential immigration is literally without limit!

[Opinicus]

Helen@13:49
You are of course right but given these remarks and the VAT drop which is possibly illegal under EU law, dare one hope that DC is setting things up for a real row about the EU.

I would take back everything I've written these last two years. The bakers would sell out of humble pie.

Sounds too much like Shaw's definition of a second marriage.

[rugfish]

Quote:

http://blogs.news.sky.com/discussions/show.html?plckForumPage=ForumDiscussion&plckDiscussionId=Cat%3a746f9309-1bb1-4b07-ad11-647f5ba16800Forum%3aa285816a-6923-4e95-8d40-07c6642f0154Discussion%3a8ac1c27a-c09c-47f8-a69a-e9e4a7cd0cf5&plckCategoryCurrentPage=0

Phil Woolas backtracts from any limit on immigration, even from his 70m which would have been a further 10m itself. He grabbed some headlines, knowing the majority of people don’t like their immigration policy, then has to admit there will be no limit to change in policy.

An extract from Leo Mckinstry’s comment piece today.

The political outlook of the Government was perhaps most accurately reflected in the report of its official commission into “the future of multi-ethnic Britain”, published in 2000.

Chaired by the Labour peer Lord Parekh, the commission argued that the concept of Britishness had “racist connotations” and that the British nation should be replaced by a multi-cultural entity called “a community of communities”.

A “community of communities” is what labour want to replace Britain with, ie not a society, not a country with a common set of laws and principles. A deliberate attempt to fragment and break up society, no social cohesion. Looks like they have achieved what they set out to do.

[Sammy Finn]

Mark,

In many schools the teachers are struggling with children of very uneven English.

[David]

So, the question is why doesn't Dominic Grieve admit he could do nothing about the level of immigration even if he wants to?

[Dontmakemelaugh]

"Writing for the Evening Standard today, Dominic Grieve strongly criticises Labour's approach to immigration since 1997, noting the problems it has created. He argues that if Labour has now finally come to a more realistic view, it is only through finally heeding Conservative arguments they have been ignoring for years. Labour has no credibility remaining on the issue".

Absolute hypocritical tosh from Dominic Grief:

It was generally agreed by the Tory hierarchy after Howard lost the last GE that it should stop banging on about the EU and immigration (not that it ever did bang on about anything). It has been pointed out in a previous comment, that Howard (disgracefully) failed to stand up to the EU commissars slapping him down over his soon then forgotten immigration policy. Far from the Tories being firm on immigration and the EU they dumped IDS - he would have been - and then followed the BBC line and EU line

Dominic Grief, the shadow minister for something or other, fresh from rejecting 42 days for interrogating suspect terrorists, appeared surprise, surprise on BBC Question Time last week (probably a reward). He was asked a question regarding Islam phobia, the BNP and victim status. Bearing in mind that even Trevor Phillips has spoken out against the dangers of multi-culturalism, Grief failed to mention the link between immigration and the BNP (the word immigration I never heard mentioned by any on the panel).

The ridiculously named Conservative Party at the whim of the ardent and once self- proclaimed eurosceptic Liam Fox, shadow minister for something or other, wants a large part of Asia Minor – Turkey – to join the EU and thereby eventually to be free for its citizens to live in England (forget about Scotland, it will probably be independent). No doubt, Kosovo and the rest of the Balkans will follow. Cameron goes along with all of this and when he, Fox and Grief talk about immigration for them limits do not apply to the EU or entry through its large backdoor – I am happy to be corrected. Here are a couple of paragraphs from today’s Telegraph:

By Madeleine McDonag: “If we were talking about historic errors that are now acknowledged, Mr Woolas's about-turn - curiously, one that has not been echoed by his boss, Jacqui Smith - would be welcome. But we're set to make things worse. One of Tony Blair's proudest achievements in office was that he bullied the EU into accepting Turkey's candidacy for membership. In this, he was supported by the Tories.
Yet Turkey is a country with only three per cent of its land mass in Europe and a population of more than 80 million and rising. Let me spell out the consequences. Any EU citizen has the automatic right to live and work in other member states. The upshot is that eventually, several million Turks will, if the Government gets its way, be perfectly entitled to come to Britain. Will anyone bet me they won't?
So Mr Woolas wants to contain the population within 70 million, does he? You and whose army, Phil?”

Woolas has done another about-turn – he was only kidding - and so will Dave, Grief and Fox have to do an about turn on immigration and the EU if they are to get my vote.

Read Melanie Phillips on Woolas.

[Iain]

Only in the stupid British state could such a program be promoted at such a time...

Plan to promote migrant working
A campaign to promote migrant labour to employers has been outlined in a report by the East of England Development Agency (EEDA

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7678930.stm

[AS]

Dominic Grieve is not good enough to be Home Sec of this country. Dave should have removed him in the reshuffle after the Conference and brought in the hugely impressive and intelligent Michael Gove as Shadow Home Sec. Eric Pickles or Redwood could have shadowed Balls in Education.

[rah]

This is very good stuff. An intelligent approach which will resonate with many people. Exactly where the Conservatives should be. Dominic Grieve and Damian Green make a formidable team on immigration.

[Opinicus]

@rah

Schluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurp

[RichardJ]

"Who here can genuinely say that immigrants have had a direct adverse impact upon their life?"

Well, the high crime rate amongst some immigrants e.g. West Indians will have had an adverse impact on some people. Whether that's a fair justification for halting further immigration is debatable but it answers your point in the affirmative.

To ask you a question, why do you think all opinion polls on immigration show public support for tougher limits?

[RichardJ]

"Who here can genuinely say that immigrants have had a direct adverse impact upon their life?"

Also forgot to mention - anybody who got blown up on 7/7. Or anybody who has to live in segregated and suspicious neighbourhoods. These are clear downsides which I'm amazed you haven't noticed.

[Malcolm Stevas]

Mark Fulford:
"Who here can genuinely say that immigrants have had a direct adverse impact upon their [sic] life?"
Me. Apart from those things about which RichardJ usefully reminds us, significant parts of my country haven't felt like mine for a long time. Though I live in rural England, I travel widely, and driving through (especially) great swathes of North or South London, I feel like an alien in my own country. This is more upsetting than I can say. Last week I was in Kingston upon Thames. Christ...
Don'tmakemelaugh quotes Madeleine McDonagh in the Telegraph, on Turkey, and this is a point which needs more than merely to be "addressed" by Dominic Grieve and the rest of Cameron's merry crew, particularly since the Tories acquiesced for decades in mass immigration by alien peoples whose radically different cultures have contributed so much to the disintegration of our own. Visit Germany and don't just accept the news-media's cosy version of German-Turks, talk to ordinary people about their opinion of the transformation of large tracts of urban Germany into Asiatic, Islamic enclaves.

[rugfish]

I watched an interesting discussion last night on Russia Today's "Spotlight" programme, where an interview was conducted with American: Pro-Globalisation Lawyer Daniel Klein, and Russian: Alla Glinchikova, Anti-globalisation Sociologist, Deputy Director, Russian Institute for Studies on Globalisation and Social Movements.

http://www.russiatoday.com/spotlight/release/1651/video

About 15 minutes into the 25 minute slot Klein was asked whether globalisation was driven by money or people, and he said it was driven by money. What about people and their views? He was asked. Klein replied peoples opinions don't count.

Alla Glinchinkova described a previous visit she'd taken to India and recalled staying at a 5 star hotel and walking outside to find a street full of people "living and sleeping on the street".
"How can you say globalisation has improved their lives?", she asked.

Klein's reply was that 70 years ago Indians were still living on the streets but the mortality rate had improved.

I don't know who to congratulate for the UK's part in this globalisation because they all seem to be blameless, saying 'its a global issue', not taking a blind bit of notice of the people ( as per Daniel Klein's addmission ), and really, I wonder why we bother with politics at all if a 'global elite' are making decisions without us ?

Another piece on another showing of Spotlight screened earlier this year which I wrote about here :-

http://rugfish.blogspot.com/2008/09/most-dangerous-man-in-world.html

Strobe Talbot, president of the Brookings Institution and former Director of the Yale Centre for the Study of Globalisation, at Yale University, said the only way we can run the world is with uni-polarism and multi-polarism won't work.

Globalisation is double speak for uni-polarism which is double speak for New World Order which is double speak for people and their opinions don't matter because we're in a global economy with hungry people sleeping on the streets or others living a life of slavery to debt in a multicultural society which we're told by most politicians is wonderful.

One day, I guess people will be asked to vote but since we're all indoctrinated to believe globalism is wonderful and no party is able to speak out about it, then I don't think I'll bother unless my opinion stands a chance to actually count for something other than a perpetuation of a debt ridden British public and streets full of beggars which haven't changed in 70 years and never will unless we face facts that globalism, uni-polarism, New World Order or multiculturalism is not working.

[Teck Khong]

Patsy Sergeant [October 20, 2008 at 16:38], not actually.

Many immigrants share my sanguine view that marked controls are necessary to preserve social harmony, even to the extent of an embargo, and reject the suggestion of 'since-I-am-in-stuff-the-others-who-want-to-come' attitude.

There is really no other solution than to not only stem but to reverse the excessive tide of immigration for a whole range of reasons, even with a full consideration of the benefits and disadvantages of such a stand.

Lest we forget, patriotism also come in other colours apart from white.

[rugfish]

They say they need immigration to continue because we need 'skilled people', but they never tell us what skills they're talking about.

Except the other night the news demonstrated an INDIAN restaurant owner who said he'd tried to get indigenous cooks, given them menu's and showed them how to cook their stuff but it "doesn't taste the same".....

So when it boils down, the UK has 6 million immigrants here, truck loads of illegals, we're swamped in our culture, all our laws are upside down and we hate European immigration policy and want to smash the union, because some twonk doesn't know how to make a curry !!

Unless someone can tell me how foreigners possess better skills, better education and better work ethic than an Englishman I think the whole lot stinks because I know how to cook a decent curry and I'm not even a chef !!

Apparently we're the most crowded nation on earth per sq mile of space....no source but it was on News 24 recently.

Now then, I want to know this !

One: How many cooks does it take to make a curry.

Two: Why do cooks travel in familiy units and all stay in kitchens so we can't see them while their families are wandering around the place filling up our NHS, doctors surgeries, maternity wards and hospitals, schools, buses, streets, and tube stations ?

Three: Why don't they all speak English and adopt our culture if we have the grace, decency and respect to eat their delicious curries ?

[Teck Khong]

rugfish [October 21, 2008 at 15:39],

There are of course many ways to cook a curry, but it isn't the curry that's the problem. It is the politically correct way of limp politicians that is both tasteless and making us sick.

[Labourer]

Teck Khong said:

"There is really no other solution than to not only stem but to reverse the excessive tide of immigration for a whole range of reasons, even with a full consideration of the benefits and disadvantages of such a stand."

Good for you, Dr Khong - I appreciate the strong stance you're taking.

Unfortunately, too many immigrants take the attitude that because they were let into the country, they have no moral right to refuse entry to the rest of the world; or, less benignly, they wish to keep the door open to permit future free entry from their country of origin, or they believe that Britain will be improved by making it as diverse (i.e. as non-indigenous British) as possible.

If I were living in another country, I'd take the view that, since my host country has offered me hospitality, I don't have the right to invite as many gatecrashers as I wish, and would rather leave the right to invitation for my host alone to exercise.

Having said this, not all immigrants take an open borders view - just over half polled have said they believe immigration is too high. And, in the final analysis, the real culprits are the politicians - from all major parties, from the cultural Marxist left and the free market fundamentalist right - who permitted mass immigration in the first place.