A Free Left Blog

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has helped ignite another of those increasingly regular cyclones of protest from our liberal-left publications about virtually any talk about immigration. Cooper’s speech on ‘Labour’s approach to immigration’ addressed this sort of attitude head-on in her introductory passage, in which she said: “ On the one hand we now have an arms race of rhetoric involving the Tories and UKIP over immigration. UKIP are exploiting peoples’ fears, fuelling anxiety and division, and David Cameron is racing to catch up. Between them they promote the idea that immigration is all and always bad, and should always be stopped. On the other hand some liberal commentators seem to think talking about immigration at all is reactionary, and concern about immigration is irrational. They give the impression that immigration is all and always good, and should all be encouraged. Both sides shout at each other. Neither are right. And most people don’t agree...

This morning has brought a couple of different pieces in the newspapers about immigration which are worth a short comment. Firstly, in the liberal-left’s house rag the Guardian , former New Statesman and Independent on Sunday editor Peter Wilby has written an interesting piece on how the Labour Party could somehow banish immigration concerns by seeking to restore the “historic bargain” with its traditional working class supporters on wages (which stagnated during the last great phase of immigration during the last Labour government). Then in The Daily Mail , the liberal-left’s bête-noire, comes a front page story that England has now overtaken the Netherlands as the most crowded country in Europe (excepting tiny Malta), with 411 people per square kilometre, compared to 374 in 1997, and with an estimate of an increase to 460 by 2030. The [Hate] Mail’s journalism is often dismissed on the left as shrill and heavily biased, but besides the typical tabloid hyperbole and ...