Ed Miliband has told me that his party "got it wrong in a number of respects" over immigration and identified the issue as one reason the party "lost trust particularly in the south of England". However, he insisted that his friend and former speechwriter Lord Glasman was wrong to say that Labour had lied about the extent of immigration.
I travelled to Dover and Gravesend yesterday with Labour's leader - both places where Labour's vote collapsed by the end of its time in government. Asked why that had happened Mr Miliband said:
"I think the problem is that we lost trust and we lost touch particularly in the south of England. I think living standards is a big part of it, immigration is a big part too. I think maybe a combination of those two issues - most importantly."
I also asked him to respond to the comments of Maurice Glasman who he recently ennobled and who wrote in Progress magazine that "Labour lied to people about the extent of immigration and the extent of illegal immigration and there's been a massive rupture of trust."
He said:
"I don't think we lied but I do think we got it wrong in a number of respects. I think that first of all we clearly underestimated the number of people coming in from Poland and that had more of an effect therefore than we would otherwise have thought. And secondly, I think there's this really important issue about people coming into the country and the pressures on people's wages. People aren't prejudiced but people say to me look I'm worried about the pressure on my wages of people coming into this country, I'm worried about what it does to housing supply - all those issues. Now some of that is real and some of it isn't but I think you have to address not just tough immigration policy but underlying issues as well."
When I put to him Lord Glasman's suggestion that Labour had been "hostile to the English working classes" he paused and then changed the subject. My sense is that he may well share that analysis.
This is not the first occasion Ed Miliband has spoken of Labour mistakes on immigration. In his leadership campaign he spoke about the drop in people's wages due to the interaction of migration with flexible labour markets. But the timing of these comments - in the midst of an election campaign and just days after David Cameron's own pitch to limit immigration from outside the EU to the "tens of thousands" - and his unwillingness to challenge Maurice Glasman's critique makes them especially interesting.
The question is whether his promises of more training, apprenticeships and a living wage will re-connect Labour with the working class supporters who have abandoned it.
---
Here is the transcript of my interview with Ed Miliband:
NR: Southern seats seen massive drops in Labour support in recent years - what's the problem?
EM: I think the problem is that we lost trust and we lost touch particularly in the south of England. I think living standards is a big part of it, immigration is a big part too. I think maybe a combination of those two issues - most importantly. So that people were seeing people coming into the country, worrying about their own standards of living which weren't going up as they had been in the first part of the decade and holding us responsible for it.
NR: You mentioned immigration. A friend of yours, former speechwriter, Maurice Glasman said Labour lied to people about the extent of immigration?
EM: I don't think we lied but I do think we got it wrong in a number of respects. I think that first of all we clearly underestimated the number of people coming in from Poland and that had more of an effect therefore than we would otherwise would have thought. And secondly, I think there's this really important issue about people coming into the country and the pressures on people's wages. People aren't prejudiced but people say to me look I'm worried about the pressure on my wages of people coming into this country, I'm worried about what it does to housing supply - all those issues. Now some of that is real and some of it isn't but I think you have to address not just tough immigration policy but underlying issues as well.
NR: But as he said - and you know him well - as he said to you let's be honest about this Ed you lied about it?
EM: Well, err, the first time I saw it was when he said it - I don't think we did lie. I don't think that's the right thing to say.
NR: But did you mis-lead - if not deliberately. (EM interjects: no, no) Did people get the impression immigration was much lower than it turned out to be?
EM: Well no, I think people actually thought it was the opposite. I think what happened was that we thought there would be a certain number of people coming into the country from Poland - it turned out to be much larger - it did have an affect. And it's something I said very much during my leadership campaign. And look it's part of my leadership Nick - I'm not going to go round saying everything the last Labour government did was right - I think it was a good government, I think it made our country stronger and fairer in a number of respects but I think we got some things wrong as well.
NR: But his analysis and he used to write speeches for you - Labour were "hostile" to the English working classes - that you treated that anxiety about immigration as if sometimes it was racism or bigotry or ignorance and I sense you share a bit of that concern?
EM: Well, look I would say we, we, we did realise the scale of the problem. We talked about the points based system for immigration - we made that one of our key priorities. I think it's this mix of immigration and the impact on living standards. I think that's what.... we were still saying let's have flexible labour markets, maximum flexibility at work and that was, that was causing problems for people and that's why we need to re-think.
NR: But if your message to people is not look we don't want anybody to come to this country but we can help you in other ways what are you driving at with people? If they're saying to you we can't get jobs, I stopped a builder you passed there - we can't get jobs he said to me - I've been unemployed but I'm skilled. What is Labour saying to them if it's not saying we'll stop the immigration?
EM: Well let me give you a practical example, we said before the budget have a bankers' bonus tax and put the young unemployed back to work, get the housing industry moving, help support enterprise - practical differences, practical things that we could have done. I think the thing this government is getting wrong on immigration is that they've got big promises which I don't think are going to be matched by reality but they're not dealing with those underlying economic issues which I think caused a lot of the concern that people had.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2011/04/ed_miliband_we.html
crack politic processor politic processor crack processor crack politic political parties political candidates
No comments:
Post a Comment