Calls to vote Labour in the Euro and local elections and, perhaps more particularly, in the 2015 general election, give rise to an awkward question for anti-racists. What would we be voting for? In a Channel 4 News interview on 14 May Krishnan Guru-Murthy pitted Chris Leslie (Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury) against Nicky Morgan (Tory Financial Secretary to the Treasury). The first question was: “Is the current level of immigration good for the economy?” Chris Leslie said, “Yes, I think so” – but then went on to say no. “The key here”, he said,
“is [that] Nicky promised before the general election – I don’t think it was a wise thing for her to do, but she promised – that they would keep that net migration down below 100,000, and it looks as though the government have dropped that plan now.”
After a bit of “Oh no we haven’t” pantomime from Morgan, Leslie then admonishes her:
“You promised it would be all down. The thing is you shouldn’t make promises that you’re not going to keep. It’s really important.”
I immediately wanted to tell Krishnan to quote Labour’s Roy Hattersley (1999 version) at Leslie. Roy Hattersley (1965 version, when he was Home Office Minister) had argued for tightening immigration controls on the grounds that “Integration without control is impossible, but control without integration is indefensible.” This convenient little formula was too neat to be true. 34 years later he acknowledged his mistake and explained why he now thought he had been wrong:
“If your immigration restrictions are too repressive you encourage bad race relations rather than encourage contentment and satisfaction, because you are saying, ‘We can’t afford any more of these people here’, and the implication is that there is something undesirable about these people.”
This is true of immigration controls in general, of course, not just the oddly named “too repressive” ones! But in any case Krishnan couldn’t hear me shouting at the TV screen and Labour remains indistinguishable from the Tories.
Anyway, I’m going out to vote for somebody or another because I don’t want to see UKIP gain any ground at all.
Bob Mouncer's blog 
Unfortunately, my view here of Labour and immigration has been vindicated – by Labour – in the aftermath of today’s vote. Not only did Ed Balls tell Dimbleby 3 times in a very short interview that immigration was one of the issues Labour had to be tougher on. He also said this, to the Tory Justine Greening: “On immigration your credibility has collapsed and you have weakened our borders.” Come back Roy Hattersley, all is forgiven – well, perhaps not!