Why I won't give a preference to any Labour leadership candidate who sends out a negative message on immigration

After a few months of the leadership campaign I have come to the decision that there are two candidates in the leadership election I cannot give a preference to on the ballot paper due to their views on immigration.

The first is Ed Balls.  It is with a heavy heart I do this as I feel he as been very good calling the Con Dems to account, but I cannot support a candidate who has come out with the following statements:

"What I've said is we should look at that free movement of labour directive to see whether or not it needs to be changed either to allow transition arrangements to be longer or also to prevent the practice where people can come and work in our country and then send benefits back to their own countries". UKPA

To be honest, I think Gordon's answer to Mrs Duffy showed he'd not been having the conversation, because what she said was the kind of things being said by Labour supporters, and in some cases former Labour supporters over the last year and a half. [This] was: 'Look, we're not racist, and we support our EU membership and we know that immigration's important for the NHS, but look what it's doing to my community, to my child's job prospects, to our housing queues'. Guardian

Secondly we have Andy Burnham.  Once again he has been good tackling the Con Dems, particularly on NHS reform.  But I will not support him because of statements like the following:

"We were in denial. We were behind the issue all the time, and myths were allowed to develop. There's still an ambivalence among some in Labour about discussing immigration. I've been accused of dog-whistle politics for doing so.

"But it was the biggest doorstep issue in constituencies where Labour lost. People aren't racist, but they say it has increased tension, stopped them getting access to housing and lowered their wages." Telegraph

While he said he would "avoid disowning our past" on immigration, he said: "Their [the electorate's] strong feeling was that we had our fingers in our ears and our hands over our eyes. We just didn't want to talk about it.

"For me the big task is for Labour to reconnect with people who are feeling this. They need to feel that Labour understands what they are saying and then will take steps to address it." Guardian

These two candidates worry me about the direction Labour would take if they became leader.  I don't deny that immigration is a doorstep issue, but this is mainly due to right wing tabloids blaming migration for everything from lack of housing and jobs to terrorism.

We have to establish a two pronged approach to this problem.  Firstly we have to have policies to increase and improve housing stock and tackle the areas which have high unemployment and deprivation.  Secondly we have to challenge the myths around immigration.

The easy solution is to agree with the likes of Mrs Duffy and try to appeal to those who feel immigration is an issue by lurching to the right and trying to out do the Tories on immigration.  But this is surely wrong and against the fundamental values of the Labour Party.

We have to move away from the New Labour rhetoric which resulted in David Blunkett accusing asylum seekers of "swamping" some British Schools (BBC News) and Phil Woolas putting out this dreadful leaflet during the general election:

Interim cap on non-EU migration bad news for Higher Education

There are many reasons why the Libservatives cap on migration is a badly thought out policy, but the reason which concerns me the most is the effect it will have on Higher Education.

Universities and colleges are already facing hardship, closing departments and making wide spread redundancies, and this is before the implementation of the 25% cut on the Department of Education announced in the budget.  With the cap on migration it will also limit the amount of non-EU students who can attend UK universities.  This will have a devastating effect on university funding if it loses the income from overseas tuition fees.

To quote the article from the BBC News article on the interim measures which are being introduced:

Tim Finch from the Institute of Public Policy Research, said the measures were just a stopgap and would have a detrimental affect on the higher education sector.

He added: "Do we really want to have restrictions on foreign students at a time when the higher education sector is facing funding cuts and is going to rely on the fees that those students bring in?"

According to the Guardian there are 250,000 non-EU students.  This wreckless move will have a devastating effect on higher education.  I hope when the full policy is implemented the government think twice about include non-EU students in their cap, or we may begin to see the closure of whole universities rather than just departments, as there will simply not be the demand out there for the current number of student places.

Still the nasty party

I spotted an article on Socialist Unity alerting me to the following hideous Tory leaflet on Conservative Home  It is the kind of material I would expect from the BNP, not a major political party. 

 

You can read the front of the leaflet here and the back here  

This leaflet plays to ignorance, racism and hatred.  The Tories deserve to lose the election on this one act alone.

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