I admit I don't often quote Telegraph columnists here, but this from Mary Riddell this morning is good:
This election, billed as a referendum on the economy, is hinging instead on discovering who we are. Finding a more honest framework for the immigration debate would be a start. So would an acknowledgment that mainstream politicians misread the national character.
English or Scottish, migrant or indigent, the British people are optimists at heart. In an age of authentic dread they have come to loathe the ersatz fear peddled by their leaders. Any political party hoping that pessimism will triumph will get its punishment next week.
That resonated. The SNP vote is not based on the economy.
Nor the UKIP vote.
Or support for the Greens.
Or even the Tories come to that, because that would be misguided for many given their track record if it was.
With Labour it may be harder to tell.
And for the LibDems the noise is all about what is not happening and not about what might be.
So maybe it's not 'the economy, stupid', after all.
Maybe we've learned that there are bigger issues that define the economy anyway.
Like hope, fear and vision.
No wonder the big parties have been in trouble. That message has not reached the Westminster bubble yet.
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I think that this is well observed.
But the answer to who we are really is far from clear. We’ve been manipulated and set at ach others throats for nigh on 5 years – I just hope that enough of us can finally see through the divide and conquer tactics of the Tories, UKIP and others.
An honest framework for talking about immigration would have to involve the “left” explaining why the most beleaguered working class in Western Europe needed five million new competitors in the space of thirteen years. Particularly when at no point during New Labour’s tenure were we anywhere near full employment – especially given Major’s cynical dumping of hundreds of thousands of people on Incapacity Benefit.
The left often frames the immigration debate in terms of “freedom” yet neglects to remember – probably because it is now overwhelmingly a middle class movement almost completely absent from the private sector – that freedom for workers comes with full employment – the ability to tell your boss, “stick your job, I can get another one”.
Where were the shortages between 1997 & 2010? And where are they now? We have at least five million people unemployed or underemployed. The NHS? Fine, migrant contribution is very welcome there. But why arent we training our own citizens first? The phasing out of State Enrolled Nurses was a massive blow to working class people not academic enough to go down the new degree based route.
Richard, whose work and energy I grately admire, says “diversity is strength”. In an ecosystem possibly, but my experience in travelling to fifty plus countries is that ‘melting pot’ societies are usually grossly unequal; an observation born out by the work of the left wing Oxford University development economist, Frances Stewart. If mass immigration and diversity have such inherent benefits, how does the left explain the United States? The US isnt a “melting pot”, it’s a seething mess.
For too long now, the middle class has forgotten about supply and demand in the labour market and it has hypocritically failed to recognise that if you champion and emphasise the identity of minorities, at some point, the majority will reassert its identity. Identity politics in my view has greatly facilitated the neoliberal project, further atomising society into individual actors. It has alienated the old left working class and has left the new left a deeply confused strand of intellectual thought.
In the face of the assault by transnational capital on sovereign states, the left’s well meaning but mistaken emphasis on multiculturalism plus its unthinking support for a pro business immigration policy (for it will be the business lobby which kicks up the biggest fuss if strict controls were ever reintroduced) has left this nation and many others in Western Europe hopelessly divided and highly confused about what their shared ideals are. Indeed you dont have to look very far too see many on the left questioning even whether British values exist. An enquiry they would never make of other cultures.
In short, a mess.
You sound like my friend Colin Hines
Hmmm, “Progressive protectionism” – looks interesting. Thanks, I’ll read his work with interest.
It isn’t easy voicing those views isnt easy when youre on the left so I’m grateful not to be shouted down as a xenophobe. I’m happy to have immigration – just not on the scale that we have in the last 15 years and not organised in that manner. Left to me I would match it to labour market shortages and then roll out the red carpet for those who came. As it stands however, we are basically aping the US.
But anyway, there is a lot of ruin left in this country yet. The British like the Vietnamese have mastered the art of bending with the wind. There are plenty of people in middle England who won’t tolerate what the Tories want to do – especially as job automation hits the professional classes. It’s going to be a fascinating ride.
Thanks for all your hard work, Richard.