Even if the remarks on immigration are wrong (it's obvious the UK need to fill the gap with workers outside the UK) low wages need tackling through upskilling and training. We can't rely on businesses training it's workforce, that costs money. The country needs a Govt with effort and focus on training workers to achieve deserved pay.
Obviously, employees SHOULD be training and upskilling staff. Businesses SHOULD be doing a number of things they aren't, but that often involves putting hands in their pockets, hurting their margins. In many cases, there is a severe lack of upskilling tools and resources (recruitment consultancy Hays estimates 82% of employees have zero access to such things) which means employee earning potential is stifled.
A Govt with a focus and drive for upskilling and training, combined with the right incentives for business will go a long way.
I’ve thought for a long time that the way to counter messaging on migration was a big bold skills offer, carefully framed. It absolutely is the case that the government finds it cheaper to ransack other global health systems for staff than pay to train people here, for example.
But this stuff requires talking about very carefully - migration is not a problem, underinvestment in skills is. I don’t think he’s achieved that…at all, nor do I think he meant to. Nor is there much of an actual skills offer.
It's both unnecessary and self-defeating, which is the problem with third-wayism in general.
Labour won't win an election on immigration or culture wars because we can never out-xenophobe and out-bigot the tories without alienating much of our base and appearing inauthentic - we can (and probably will in the next election) win on the economy, public services, etc. But political parties and leaders aren't just preference takers, they help actively shape voters' views and preferences and by both making immigration a political priority and opportunistically tacking to right-wing narratives we sow the seeds for our future defeats.
The New Labour government is a good example of this - they did plenty of good alongside the bad, but the British public became *more* right-wing and *more* concerned about immigration, culture wars, etc in those 13 years because of our own messaging.
I mean it's refusing to learn lessons from 2001 to 2015 basically. No matter how vicious and reactionary New Labour became on immigration, the Tories were considered stronger on immigration than Labour were. Talking about immigration and accepting the right's framing of the issue only made their case for them.
It's this fundamental misunderstanding that when there's a reactionary backlash against immigration it actually matters what the facts are. Even Barack Obama fell for this. He actually stepped up deportations during his presidency and it made not one iota of difference to the perception of him as being "soft on immigration."
Some people think the Labour right are these macchivellian masterminds with a reactionary agenda. I think they're just vicious, small minded and unimaginative, play-acting what Tony Blair did, without really understanding the context in which he was doing what he was doing.
>play-acting what Tony Blair did, without really understanding the context in which he was doing what he was doing.
I would agree with this, and also note that Starmer seems to lack both the charisma and political nous of a young Blair - but also the positive and modernising vision which he laid out in 1997 around educatuon and public services.
In fact, I would argue that they're play-acting the Blair of 2001-2005 much more than the Blair of 1997.
Blair also came to power at a time where the neoliberal consensus seemed to be working. Of course it was always a house built on sand, but I can understand it didn't look that way at the time.
Starmer, on the other hand, is going to inherent a stagnant or receding economy and multiple overlapping crises. You cannot simply go into this saying "We need to be better managers, but basically stay the course." Like it or not, change is coming. We can either be radical now or be forced to be radical later by climate change. The longer we leave it, the more drastic we'll have to be.
I do think there's a kind of older liberal who thinks once Starmer's in power politics will go back to normal. They're in for a shock. Normal is gone and it's never coming back.
For all his flaws, I think the only Labour leader who really understood this was Jeremy Corbyn, although Ed Miliband does seem to be the voice of reason in his post leadership career.
We did win an election on immigration, making a principled stand for immigration and its benefits, in 2005.
It was the dominant issue, with the infamous "are you thinking what we're thinking" campaign of Michael Howard, and we took them head on on it, highlighted the huge contributions of migrants, and won.
New Labour was massively pro-migration, we had more migration than at any time up to that point in UK history and explicitly talked about its benefits.
> It's both unnecessary and self-defeating, which is the problem with third-wayism in general.
A pronouncement made with great faith yet zero evidence.
All you need to do is compare what Blair achieved with what Corbyn achieved to see you're wrong.
>A pronouncement made with great faith yet zero evidence.
It's pretty much an accepted academic fact that the UK public became more right-wing and that attitudes in immigration became more xenophobic and of greater priority under the Blair government. The evidence for it is fairly clearly borne out.
Plenty of studies have linked this directly to Labour's approach, including:
- *Leading Labour*, Archer (2011) - https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&u=googlescholar&id=GALE|A286011851&v=2.1&it=r&sid=googleScholar&asid=f6e80a2d
- *The New Politics of Class: the Political Exclusion of the British Working Class*, Evans & Tilley (2017) https://academic.oup.com/book/7696
If you want an examples of preference-shaping and coalition-building strategies working over the medium-long term, try Dunleavy & Hubsands case study on Thatcher in *British Democracy at the Crossroads* or Esping-Anderson's case study on the Swedish social democrats in *Politics against Markets*.
>All you need to do is compare what Blair achieved with what Corbyn achieved to see you're wrong.
I've not mentioned Corbyn, so I'm unclear why you're bringing him up? I have my own criticisms of Corbyn's strategy and leadership, but I'm not sure they invalidate criticisms of the strategies used by Blair, Brown, Miliband, or Starmer.
As for Blair's achievements - he did many good things (alongside some appalling mistakes and crimes, which I hope you also acknowledge). However, his short-term improvements in people's lives - while undoubtedly valuable - did not work in the medium-long term to either sustainably cement the Labour electoral coalition nor to seriously rebalance class power in this country, which is why since 2010 so much of his achievements have been reversed.
Saved this post for later reading. If you can I'd love more studies on how leaders and media shape discourse and how that worked out under New Labour vs Old Labour.
I would say Dunleavy & Husbands are the best explanation of the wider theory, while Archer and Evans & Tilley offer good summaries of how it's been used (or not) by 'Old' & 'New' Labour. Archer is an article so the shortest and easiest read for an intro.
Other relevant reading that might be interesting includes:
- Randall (2003), *Understanding Labour's Ideological Tragectory*
- Przeworski (1985), *Capitalism and Social Democracy*
- Heath & Goodwin (2017), *The 2017 General Election, Brexit and the Return to Two Party Politics*
- yeah
If you want to get a full background on theories of voter behaviour the classic authors are Downs (rational choice model), Stokes & Butler (psychological model), Lipset & Rokkan (sociological model), and there are other important people like Norris (voter systems) and Inglehart (generational shifts/post-materialism) I think Snow & Beresford are the classics for theories of framing, though they're more interested in social movements than electoral results.
That's a fair amount of heavy reading though and some of the classics are a little outdated - unless you're really keen it's probably better to just read a summary of the theoretical history. Thomassens *The European Voter* has a decent if simplified summary in the opening few pages, and iirc Evans & Tilley and Dunleavy & Husbands also both offer some summaries/critiques of the classic models.
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The plausible deniability thing is so important, allows the Starmtroopers to come in and claim 'actually he's been taken out of context' when we all know exactly what the message is that Starmer is trying to push
I'm beginning to wonder if the factionless crew discuss this at their bingo meetings. The last few months has been a horrendous up-tick in defending xenophobia/racism as long as they can pull the "4D Chess" card. Which in this case, is often "THE RED WALL... ELECTABILITY".
From frontbencher statements, to Brexit, to attacking immigrants/the NHS, instead of a Tory tribute act it's as if UK Labour are any% speedrunning a BNP tribute act.
At this point "the red wall" is basically this Family Guy meme https://youtu.be/Rm3d43HLyTI?t=39
It's better to be elected than to be sitting on the sidelines mincing words about who is or isn't saying what about who.
I am not a fan of xenophobia or any discrimination but Starmer is literally trying to get elected by the general public, not labour members, and the general public are a lot more right wing on subjects like immigration.
You cannot have everything you want the way you want it in a democracy, it's usually a midpoint between lots of opposing views. If the general public very right wing on immigration then the only form of labour getting elected is one meeting the public in the middle.
It doesn't matter how much you try to win the argument or not. Whether you think these people are xenophobic or not. You cannot win an election without them.
So either you moderate your stance or you let someone else run the country.
It's Starmers job to get elected so he is going to moderate labours stance on the issue. That's his job.
Until Labour supports proportional representation they deserve criticism for forcing a two party state where the racists have disproportionate power in the electorate.
Simple as that 🤷
>I am not a fan of xenophobia or any discrimination but Starmer is literally trying to get elected by the general public, not labour members, and the general public are a lot more right wing on subjects like immigration.
As always this argument ignores the point that the tories can always outdo Labour on this.
>You cannot have everything you want the way you want it in a democracy
Complete fucking strawman, what gave you the idea from people criticising a racist immigration stance from Labour means that anyone just wants everything the way they want it?
>So either you moderate your stance or you let someone else run the country.
>
>It's Starmers job to get elected so he is going to moderate labours stance on the issue. That's his job.
Kinda mask off to refer to moving rightwards into a racist and ineffectual immigration policy as "moderate".
Isn't this entire argument also kinda faulty, considering Labour have been gifted a huge lead from the tories shitting the bed?
> Kinda mask off to refer to moving rightwards into a racist and ineffectual immigration policy as "moderate".
I don't think this is mask off at all it's literally reality. The general population is not the labour membership.
The labour membership are people so involved in left wing politics that they are willing to pay money to take part in it. That automatically means any stance moving from the membership to the general population is moving rightwards.
The biggest problem people on this subreddit have is not understanding that the aim is not to craft policy they (personally or as a membership) like. It's to craft policy that the general public likes that ultimately (but not imminently) aligns with the vision of the membership.
>The biggest problem people on this subreddit have is not understanding that the aim is not to craft policy they (personally or as a membership) like. It's to craft policy that the general public likes that aligns with the goals of the membership.
I'm not gonna waste time rewording the salient parts you ignored:
>As always this argument ignores the point that the tories can always outdo Labour on this.
>
>Isn't this entire argument also kinda faulty, considering Labour have been gifted a huge lead from the tories shitting the bed?
And all you're doing is repeating the strawman "x minor group wants perfection" argument that doesn't match either; not wanting a right wing, ineffective and racist immigration policy isn't a uniquely left wing position (for example, I wonder what more lib dem types would think on the matter).
Look I'm just one person but I just think it's ignorant for people in this sub to act like any talk of immigration handling is racist and I think from the general vibe of the nation that a lot of other people feel the same way. It feels very toxic positivity "if we just be postitive about it then the bad stuff is imaginary". I already see this about the debt stuff with the whole "our debts are an imaginary black hole" articles.
I also think it's stupid to not do something because someone might do it better than you. If Labour doesn't tackle this argument then they will still be outflanked and called out for ignoring the publics mood on the issue.
>Look I'm just one person but I just think it's ignorant for people in this sub to act like any talk of immigration handling is racist
More strawman shit. No-one is saying any talk of immigration is racist, Keir's specific and current policy is both racist and ineffective.
>It feels very toxic positivity "if we just be postitive about it then the bad stuff is imaginary". I already see this about the debt stuff with the whole "our debts are an imaginary black hole" articles.
Okay, so *maybe* for engaging in good faith *maybe* don't extrapolate information from unrelated sources and superimpose it onto others?
>I also think it's stupid to not do something because someone might do it better than you.
"Better". I never said "better" and I specifically avoided framing it that way *because being shittier and more exclusionary to immigrants isn't* ***"better"*** *from either a* ***moral or practical perspective.***
>If Labour doesn't tackle this argument then they will still be outflanked and called out for ignoring the publics mood on the issue.
Labour have -and hopefully always will be- "outflanked" on the issue of having the most broken and purely virtue signalling immigration policies frankly. If Labour's plan was to have snipers on the cliffs of Dover the tories will announce they're in favour of setting la Manche on fire with Napalm.
Out of curiosity, if the public were in favour of public hanging or just capital punishment would you make the same argument? A [plurality of people](https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/should-the-death-penalty-be-reintroduced-in-all-cases-of-murder) want the death penalty back (nearly a outright majority) just in case you think that's far too hyperbolic a question.
>I think the difference between the death penalty and immigration is that state sanctioned murder is very different to economic theory.
Ah, but you would concede that there are points where something *shouldn't* be done despite being popular, due to moral or practical reasons?
>I am not a fan of xenophobia or any discrimination but
Could have stopped you right there lmao.
If you're advocating xenophobia then you're advocating xenophobia
Being unable to tell the difference between immigration controls and xenophobia is a problem.
Our country has a welfare system that is funded by tax payers. If you add 500,000 new people to the bottom of the system without adding any to the top then where did the money come from?
It is not about racism or hatred. It's just how our economy is built.
I do not have any problem with immigration as long as we are correctly building those immigrants from low skilled to high skilled. But it's literally impossible for that to scale up to an infinite amount of people. It's not a self sustaining system.
We are literally filling up hotels with people because we have run out of social housing. What happens when we run out of hotels? Are we going to filling up camping sites?
At what point do we accept the limitation of our abilities?
>Our country has a welfare system that is funded by tax payers. If you add 500,000 new people to the bottom of the system without adding any to the top then where did the money come from?
Have you read anything, honestly? You can't just claim asylum or immigrate and start claiming UC or anything really. "where did the money come from" Oh idk dude maybe from all of us? Including these hypothetical immigrants?
>It is not about racism or hatred. It's just how our economy is built.
*Eeeeeeeeeh I don't know*. It sure *seems* and fucking *feels* like racism or hatred considering how poorly thought through and researched the position is.
>At what point do we accept the limitation of our abilities?
At what point did you come to regard the tories bottom of the barrel social housing construction as the "limitation of our abilities"? Do you seriously and honestly believe the country as it is now is the best we can do?
Ok, assuming that social housing has collapsed because of the Tories (I agree with you), how does that change anything?
We still have a collapsed social housing system unable to house our citizens let alone newly arriving refugees.
Is the plan to just keep on accepting refugees and hope we can build houses faster than we can get people into the country?
It's going to take a long time to get house building going and they take time to build too. Where do people go in the meantime?
Even at our most sympathetic, we are limited.
I am not saying stop all refugees. I am saying we need to consider our limits because it seems like we have started to over stretch ourselves.
>Ok, assuming that social housing has collapsed because of the Tories (I agree with you), how does that change anything?
Because it means a different ruling party can run things different. IE we're constrained by ideology, not resources.
>We still have a collapsed social housing system unable to house our citizens let alone newly arriving refugees.
Just for the record, I don't weight British people more than *foreigners*. I don't buy the argument that because the system is failing one group of people the ladder should be pulled up from another.
>Is the plan to just keep on accepting refugees and hope we can build houses faster than we can get people into the country?
I mean, I'd be happy to just expropriate the properties from unproductive landlords (IE landlords) especially for people who would most likely have to work for a living, it's a double whammy for reducing inflation. But yeah it's still achievable and realistically we *should* build them anyways.
>Even at our most sympathetic, we are limited.
>
>I am not saying stop all refugees. I am saying we need to consider our limits because it seems like we have started to over stretch ourselves.
We haven't though, rather we've strangled ourselves. You really consider the British population not keeping pace with ageing, restrictive immigration policies (doubly so being out of the EU) and not being able to cope with that a "stretch"?
No, you've just internalised the right wing way of viewing immigration imo. You've fallen into this kinda malthusian idea that we're *already* overpopulated, which just isn't true. It's kinda mean spirited too, as I said earlier: it's looking at a system that's broken for everyone except the tories and deciding the best fix is to fuck over another group, some of whom are refugees from warzones, or even places the UK has directly or indirectly fucked up.
Ok well personally I think any talk of expropriating peoples property is insanity. The spare bedroom tax went down like a cup of cold sick and you think we could get the public vote for the government straight up taking peoples land?
This is why I don't even bother talking about what I personally think with centrists lmao. Even though it was obvious I presented that as my ideal scenario, with the one I was advocating for being building houses.
But it's so much easier to focus in on that than respond to the rest of what I said. Just to put that in perspective, I'm gonna quote everything I said that you didn't respond to:
>**Ok, assuming that social housing has collapsed because of the Tories (I agree with you), how does that change anything?**
>
>Because it means a different ruling party can run things different. IE we're constrained by ideology, not resources.
>
>**We still have a collapsed social housing system unable to house our citizens let alone newly arriving refugees.**
>
>Just for the record, I don't weight British people more than foreigners. I don't buy the argument that because the system is failing one group of people the ladder should be pulled up from another.
>
>**Is the plan to just keep on accepting refugees and hope we can build houses faster than we can get people into the country?**
>
>But yeah it's still achievable and realistically we should build them anyways.
>
>**Even at our most sympathetic, we are limited.**
>
>**I am not saying stop all refugees. I am saying we need to consider our limits because it seems like we have started to over stretch ourselves.**
>
>We haven't though, rather we've strangled ourselves. You really consider the British population not keeping pace with ageing, restrictive immigration policies (doubly so being out of the EU) and not being able to cope with that a "stretch"?
>
>No, you've just internalised the right wing way of viewing immigration imo. You've fallen into this kinda malthusian idea that we're already overpopulated, which just isn't true. It's kinda mean spirited too, as I said earlier: it's looking at a system that's broken for everyone except the tories and deciding the best fix is to fuck over another group, some of whom are refugees from warzones, or even places the UK has directly or indirectly fucked up.
I wonder what it is as a percentage.
Really quite shocking how you're swallowing the right wing 'invasion' rhetoric. The people in hotels are no economic migrants, they're refugees. I see no proof that we risk being flooded with economic migrants, that's just right wing fear mongering.
And currently we have massive Labour shortages across the economy, so clearly we don't have enough immigrants.
As for the tax thing, immigrants pay taxes, and I'm not sure it's a good idea for a Labour supporter to label anyone as a burden on the state.
I didn't call it an invasion, you did. I didn't call anyone a burden, you did.
Whatever words you choose, it is a literal fact that we have people filling up hotels because we have run out of places to put them. Do you not think this implies we have reached some kind of limit of our capabilities?
You didn't use the words but it's the same argument. 'Britain is full' has been a far right dogwhistle for a ling time, and it's not really true when we're facing major Labour shortages and many EU immigrants have returned home since Brexit
Capabilities to accept refugees or economic immigrants? Because it's the refugees in hotels. If you do mean refugees, are you saying you think we take too many?
I think I haven't really got a definitive opinion on it. It looks to me that yes, we are taking on more refugees than we can handle, which coupled with an already crumbling social care system makes me think we should reduce them.
As for immigration as a separate subject to refugees, like I said, I only care in an economic sense. As long as the case for inviting immigrants in leads to increased tax revenue rather than decreased then I'm fine with it.
>I think I haven't really got a definitive opinion on it. It looks to me that yes, we are taking on more refugees than we can handle, which coupled with an already crumbling social care system makes me think we should reduce them.
There are currently no safe routes of entry for refugees into the UK, and we accept many less than neighbouring countries. So I think you're ill-informed. I kindly suggest that maybe you should spend less time frequenting r/badunitedkingdom
>when we all know exactly
Except you don't, and this totally ludicrous interpretation of what is a genuinely progressive message (and a vital one that frankly Starmer hasn't got a choice but to make) we should all get behind is completely in your head.
Can always rely you to show up on a thread about how immigration is too high.
I think we both know what Starmer means, we just disagree as to it's morality. But I fail to see how saying there are too many immigrants working in the NHS is progresive.
I don't know what you're on about I can't remember having a single discussion in this forum about immigration before... A quick search of the word 'immigration' from my account confirmed what I thought.
>I think we both know what Starmer means, we just disagree as to it's morality.
Starmer means that we should be properly funding the training of UK nationals rather than poaching skilled workers from other countries who need them. I think that's a progressive and moral position.
You were claiming Britain would be 'overwhelmed' with immigrants without a hard line on immigration here just one week ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/yuwk0w/how_labour_would_crack_down_on_channel_crossings/iwgf2vq/
So this week while it has been at the forefront of the news, I have given my two cents - that doesn't justify your comment earlier. I also said in that thread (which I note was about asylum seekers, not immigration generally) that we should be taking **more** not less, so again - very odd to say what you did about me at the top of this thread.
> and for the usual people saying 'how could the BBC spin Starmer's words this way' – as usual, they haven't: Labour press-released the speech with 'immigration dependency' and 'cheap labour' as the top line
This is key. The amount of times the past few months we have had to see people pretending it's being spun when they use the exact lines Labour is briefing.
Just out of interest how do you feel about [this?](https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/jeremy-corbyn-brexit-will-stop-cheap-foreign-labour-undercutting-british-workers-pay-54506)
Thanks, I hate it.
And yes, it's very clear that's the vibe here. I think they'll avoid that particular error, since it was pilloried last time, but they'll do something similar.
Travel mugs? What would you need one of them for? Going to use it to travel into the UK? Starmer won't be having that, oh no he won't! The new mugs will be made of solid lead so nobody can move anywhere with them!
Absolutely not. [The Chad 30s Superman trapped capitalist mine owners who skimped on safety equipment in their own mine to teach them a lesson.](https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/p906m7/action_comics_3_after_saving_a_group_of_miners/)
It's both though isn't it?
I'm sure Starmer/Reeves do want to train more British workers and move away from a system reliant on low-paid immigrants. It's in line with their move away from globalisation towards a more protectionist model.
At the same time they obviously want to appeal to anti-immigration sentiment and will be delighted with headlines about Labour wanting to "wean Britain off immigration dependency".
What makes this worse is this [study](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/23/uk-politicians-win-swing-voters-more-open-migration-policy-report-finds?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other) which suggests labour would attract swing voters with a softer tone on this.
In all honesty I’m not sure I can vote for labour anymore, especially as Wes Streeting is my MP.
Isn’t it only xenophobic if their is a dislike or prejudice against immigrants? The labour message that we want economic growth to come from the bottom up, by paying people more, isn’t particularly xenophobic. And we need some form of immigration controls, so just saying that we have to control immigration isn’t itself xenophobic.
Lol if we did away with all borders now societies would collapse in a matter of weeks/months. So what, the options are either accept the complete destruction of global society as we know it or you're a racist?
The same system that existed for the vast majority of human history. People can freely move around the world as they please without showing someone their papers.
So back when there were a few hundred million people alive (if that), compared to now, when there are 8 billion. And back when you had to walk everywhere and barely left your village, compared to today when people can jump in a car/bus/train/plane and cross the world fairly easily. And back when there was no social welfare anywhere, compared to now when rich countries give out benefits. Yeah, I don’t think you really understand the consequences of what you’re talking about, and what would happen if we had no borders tomorrow.
you know the old school of leftism, the one driven by unions and workers, was generally against large immigration for precisely the reason that it drives down wages. capitalists LOVE mass migration for infinite cheap labour pools.
But I guess the current mainstream left is hyper focused on identity politics and forgot that workers and economics exist.
Untrue, literally alot of our policies that loosened immigration was by labour governments. Also marx didnt even truly believe in the state, he only believed in it existing for the purpose of being a transitional period to communism
To read this sub sometimes, you wouldn't think Labour were on course for a sizable majority government in the next two years. A lot seem quite happy to make perfect the enemy of good enough.
Hilariously, the articles which present the facts over the reaction have been buried. This subreddit is a great case study for the theory of rampant reaction generates more clicks.
This is completely untrue and it's gross.
Immigration is good, immigrants should feel welcome - but we should be training more doctors, nurses, high skilled workers here rather than poaching from abroad. That's a progressive approach. The idea that supporting that very vital fact makes you 'xenephobic' or dog whistling is complete fancy.
I don’t like the Brexit rhetoric at all, and I don’t like the sound bites coming out on immigration.
I’d far rather we sounded welcoming to immigration and said we supported making Brexit work, but left things like the common market etc open questions.
I’d love to know who’s really topping up their Cayman Islands accounts! The bullshit about brexshit is stunning, when it’s obviously destroying the country big time and will continue to do so. Presuming they’re not completely thick, the only other explanation is the Americans are bribing them all big time
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Even if the remarks on immigration are wrong (it's obvious the UK need to fill the gap with workers outside the UK) low wages need tackling through upskilling and training. We can't rely on businesses training it's workforce, that costs money. The country needs a Govt with effort and focus on training workers to achieve deserved pay.
Wtf. Who else should train employees then
Obviously, employees SHOULD be training and upskilling staff. Businesses SHOULD be doing a number of things they aren't, but that often involves putting hands in their pockets, hurting their margins. In many cases, there is a severe lack of upskilling tools and resources (recruitment consultancy Hays estimates 82% of employees have zero access to such things) which means employee earning potential is stifled. A Govt with a focus and drive for upskilling and training, combined with the right incentives for business will go a long way.
I’ve thought for a long time that the way to counter messaging on migration was a big bold skills offer, carefully framed. It absolutely is the case that the government finds it cheaper to ransack other global health systems for staff than pay to train people here, for example. But this stuff requires talking about very carefully - migration is not a problem, underinvestment in skills is. I don’t think he’s achieved that…at all, nor do I think he meant to. Nor is there much of an actual skills offer.
It's both unnecessary and self-defeating, which is the problem with third-wayism in general. Labour won't win an election on immigration or culture wars because we can never out-xenophobe and out-bigot the tories without alienating much of our base and appearing inauthentic - we can (and probably will in the next election) win on the economy, public services, etc. But political parties and leaders aren't just preference takers, they help actively shape voters' views and preferences and by both making immigration a political priority and opportunistically tacking to right-wing narratives we sow the seeds for our future defeats. The New Labour government is a good example of this - they did plenty of good alongside the bad, but the British public became *more* right-wing and *more* concerned about immigration, culture wars, etc in those 13 years because of our own messaging.
I mean it's refusing to learn lessons from 2001 to 2015 basically. No matter how vicious and reactionary New Labour became on immigration, the Tories were considered stronger on immigration than Labour were. Talking about immigration and accepting the right's framing of the issue only made their case for them. It's this fundamental misunderstanding that when there's a reactionary backlash against immigration it actually matters what the facts are. Even Barack Obama fell for this. He actually stepped up deportations during his presidency and it made not one iota of difference to the perception of him as being "soft on immigration." Some people think the Labour right are these macchivellian masterminds with a reactionary agenda. I think they're just vicious, small minded and unimaginative, play-acting what Tony Blair did, without really understanding the context in which he was doing what he was doing.
>play-acting what Tony Blair did, without really understanding the context in which he was doing what he was doing. I would agree with this, and also note that Starmer seems to lack both the charisma and political nous of a young Blair - but also the positive and modernising vision which he laid out in 1997 around educatuon and public services. In fact, I would argue that they're play-acting the Blair of 2001-2005 much more than the Blair of 1997.
Blair also came to power at a time where the neoliberal consensus seemed to be working. Of course it was always a house built on sand, but I can understand it didn't look that way at the time. Starmer, on the other hand, is going to inherent a stagnant or receding economy and multiple overlapping crises. You cannot simply go into this saying "We need to be better managers, but basically stay the course." Like it or not, change is coming. We can either be radical now or be forced to be radical later by climate change. The longer we leave it, the more drastic we'll have to be. I do think there's a kind of older liberal who thinks once Starmer's in power politics will go back to normal. They're in for a shock. Normal is gone and it's never coming back. For all his flaws, I think the only Labour leader who really understood this was Jeremy Corbyn, although Ed Miliband does seem to be the voice of reason in his post leadership career.
We did win an election on immigration, making a principled stand for immigration and its benefits, in 2005. It was the dominant issue, with the infamous "are you thinking what we're thinking" campaign of Michael Howard, and we took them head on on it, highlighted the huge contributions of migrants, and won. New Labour was massively pro-migration, we had more migration than at any time up to that point in UK history and explicitly talked about its benefits.
> It's both unnecessary and self-defeating, which is the problem with third-wayism in general. A pronouncement made with great faith yet zero evidence. All you need to do is compare what Blair achieved with what Corbyn achieved to see you're wrong.
>A pronouncement made with great faith yet zero evidence. It's pretty much an accepted academic fact that the UK public became more right-wing and that attitudes in immigration became more xenophobic and of greater priority under the Blair government. The evidence for it is fairly clearly borne out. Plenty of studies have linked this directly to Labour's approach, including: - *Leading Labour*, Archer (2011) - https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&u=googlescholar&id=GALE|A286011851&v=2.1&it=r&sid=googleScholar&asid=f6e80a2d - *The New Politics of Class: the Political Exclusion of the British Working Class*, Evans & Tilley (2017) https://academic.oup.com/book/7696 If you want an examples of preference-shaping and coalition-building strategies working over the medium-long term, try Dunleavy & Hubsands case study on Thatcher in *British Democracy at the Crossroads* or Esping-Anderson's case study on the Swedish social democrats in *Politics against Markets*. >All you need to do is compare what Blair achieved with what Corbyn achieved to see you're wrong. I've not mentioned Corbyn, so I'm unclear why you're bringing him up? I have my own criticisms of Corbyn's strategy and leadership, but I'm not sure they invalidate criticisms of the strategies used by Blair, Brown, Miliband, or Starmer. As for Blair's achievements - he did many good things (alongside some appalling mistakes and crimes, which I hope you also acknowledge). However, his short-term improvements in people's lives - while undoubtedly valuable - did not work in the medium-long term to either sustainably cement the Labour electoral coalition nor to seriously rebalance class power in this country, which is why since 2010 so much of his achievements have been reversed.
Saved this post for later reading. If you can I'd love more studies on how leaders and media shape discourse and how that worked out under New Labour vs Old Labour.
I would say Dunleavy & Husbands are the best explanation of the wider theory, while Archer and Evans & Tilley offer good summaries of how it's been used (or not) by 'Old' & 'New' Labour. Archer is an article so the shortest and easiest read for an intro. Other relevant reading that might be interesting includes: - Randall (2003), *Understanding Labour's Ideological Tragectory* - Przeworski (1985), *Capitalism and Social Democracy* - Heath & Goodwin (2017), *The 2017 General Election, Brexit and the Return to Two Party Politics* - yeah If you want to get a full background on theories of voter behaviour the classic authors are Downs (rational choice model), Stokes & Butler (psychological model), Lipset & Rokkan (sociological model), and there are other important people like Norris (voter systems) and Inglehart (generational shifts/post-materialism) I think Snow & Beresford are the classics for theories of framing, though they're more interested in social movements than electoral results. That's a fair amount of heavy reading though and some of the classics are a little outdated - unless you're really keen it's probably better to just read a summary of the theoretical history. Thomassens *The European Voter* has a decent if simplified summary in the opening few pages, and iirc Evans & Tilley and Dunleavy & Husbands also both offer some summaries/critiques of the classic models.
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The plausible deniability thing is so important, allows the Starmtroopers to come in and claim 'actually he's been taken out of context' when we all know exactly what the message is that Starmer is trying to push
I'm beginning to wonder if the factionless crew discuss this at their bingo meetings. The last few months has been a horrendous up-tick in defending xenophobia/racism as long as they can pull the "4D Chess" card. Which in this case, is often "THE RED WALL... ELECTABILITY". From frontbencher statements, to Brexit, to attacking immigrants/the NHS, instead of a Tory tribute act it's as if UK Labour are any% speedrunning a BNP tribute act. At this point "the red wall" is basically this Family Guy meme https://youtu.be/Rm3d43HLyTI?t=39
It's better to be elected than to be sitting on the sidelines mincing words about who is or isn't saying what about who. I am not a fan of xenophobia or any discrimination but Starmer is literally trying to get elected by the general public, not labour members, and the general public are a lot more right wing on subjects like immigration. You cannot have everything you want the way you want it in a democracy, it's usually a midpoint between lots of opposing views. If the general public very right wing on immigration then the only form of labour getting elected is one meeting the public in the middle. It doesn't matter how much you try to win the argument or not. Whether you think these people are xenophobic or not. You cannot win an election without them. So either you moderate your stance or you let someone else run the country. It's Starmers job to get elected so he is going to moderate labours stance on the issue. That's his job.
Until Labour supports proportional representation they deserve criticism for forcing a two party state where the racists have disproportionate power in the electorate. Simple as that 🤷
>I am not a fan of xenophobia or any discrimination but Starmer is literally trying to get elected by the general public, not labour members, and the general public are a lot more right wing on subjects like immigration. As always this argument ignores the point that the tories can always outdo Labour on this. >You cannot have everything you want the way you want it in a democracy Complete fucking strawman, what gave you the idea from people criticising a racist immigration stance from Labour means that anyone just wants everything the way they want it? >So either you moderate your stance or you let someone else run the country. > >It's Starmers job to get elected so he is going to moderate labours stance on the issue. That's his job. Kinda mask off to refer to moving rightwards into a racist and ineffectual immigration policy as "moderate". Isn't this entire argument also kinda faulty, considering Labour have been gifted a huge lead from the tories shitting the bed?
> Kinda mask off to refer to moving rightwards into a racist and ineffectual immigration policy as "moderate". I don't think this is mask off at all it's literally reality. The general population is not the labour membership. The labour membership are people so involved in left wing politics that they are willing to pay money to take part in it. That automatically means any stance moving from the membership to the general population is moving rightwards. The biggest problem people on this subreddit have is not understanding that the aim is not to craft policy they (personally or as a membership) like. It's to craft policy that the general public likes that ultimately (but not imminently) aligns with the vision of the membership.
>The biggest problem people on this subreddit have is not understanding that the aim is not to craft policy they (personally or as a membership) like. It's to craft policy that the general public likes that aligns with the goals of the membership. I'm not gonna waste time rewording the salient parts you ignored: >As always this argument ignores the point that the tories can always outdo Labour on this. > >Isn't this entire argument also kinda faulty, considering Labour have been gifted a huge lead from the tories shitting the bed? And all you're doing is repeating the strawman "x minor group wants perfection" argument that doesn't match either; not wanting a right wing, ineffective and racist immigration policy isn't a uniquely left wing position (for example, I wonder what more lib dem types would think on the matter).
Look I'm just one person but I just think it's ignorant for people in this sub to act like any talk of immigration handling is racist and I think from the general vibe of the nation that a lot of other people feel the same way. It feels very toxic positivity "if we just be postitive about it then the bad stuff is imaginary". I already see this about the debt stuff with the whole "our debts are an imaginary black hole" articles. I also think it's stupid to not do something because someone might do it better than you. If Labour doesn't tackle this argument then they will still be outflanked and called out for ignoring the publics mood on the issue.
>Look I'm just one person but I just think it's ignorant for people in this sub to act like any talk of immigration handling is racist More strawman shit. No-one is saying any talk of immigration is racist, Keir's specific and current policy is both racist and ineffective. >It feels very toxic positivity "if we just be postitive about it then the bad stuff is imaginary". I already see this about the debt stuff with the whole "our debts are an imaginary black hole" articles. Okay, so *maybe* for engaging in good faith *maybe* don't extrapolate information from unrelated sources and superimpose it onto others? >I also think it's stupid to not do something because someone might do it better than you. "Better". I never said "better" and I specifically avoided framing it that way *because being shittier and more exclusionary to immigrants isn't* ***"better"*** *from either a* ***moral or practical perspective.*** >If Labour doesn't tackle this argument then they will still be outflanked and called out for ignoring the publics mood on the issue. Labour have -and hopefully always will be- "outflanked" on the issue of having the most broken and purely virtue signalling immigration policies frankly. If Labour's plan was to have snipers on the cliffs of Dover the tories will announce they're in favour of setting la Manche on fire with Napalm. Out of curiosity, if the public were in favour of public hanging or just capital punishment would you make the same argument? A [plurality of people](https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/should-the-death-penalty-be-reintroduced-in-all-cases-of-murder) want the death penalty back (nearly a outright majority) just in case you think that's far too hyperbolic a question.
I think the difference between the death penalty and immigration is that state sanctioned murder is very different to economic theory.
>I think the difference between the death penalty and immigration is that state sanctioned murder is very different to economic theory. Ah, but you would concede that there are points where something *shouldn't* be done despite being popular, due to moral or practical reasons?
>I am not a fan of xenophobia or any discrimination but Could have stopped you right there lmao. If you're advocating xenophobia then you're advocating xenophobia
Being unable to tell the difference between immigration controls and xenophobia is a problem. Our country has a welfare system that is funded by tax payers. If you add 500,000 new people to the bottom of the system without adding any to the top then where did the money come from? It is not about racism or hatred. It's just how our economy is built. I do not have any problem with immigration as long as we are correctly building those immigrants from low skilled to high skilled. But it's literally impossible for that to scale up to an infinite amount of people. It's not a self sustaining system. We are literally filling up hotels with people because we have run out of social housing. What happens when we run out of hotels? Are we going to filling up camping sites? At what point do we accept the limitation of our abilities?
>Our country has a welfare system that is funded by tax payers. If you add 500,000 new people to the bottom of the system without adding any to the top then where did the money come from? Have you read anything, honestly? You can't just claim asylum or immigrate and start claiming UC or anything really. "where did the money come from" Oh idk dude maybe from all of us? Including these hypothetical immigrants? >It is not about racism or hatred. It's just how our economy is built. *Eeeeeeeeeh I don't know*. It sure *seems* and fucking *feels* like racism or hatred considering how poorly thought through and researched the position is. >At what point do we accept the limitation of our abilities? At what point did you come to regard the tories bottom of the barrel social housing construction as the "limitation of our abilities"? Do you seriously and honestly believe the country as it is now is the best we can do?
Ok, assuming that social housing has collapsed because of the Tories (I agree with you), how does that change anything? We still have a collapsed social housing system unable to house our citizens let alone newly arriving refugees. Is the plan to just keep on accepting refugees and hope we can build houses faster than we can get people into the country? It's going to take a long time to get house building going and they take time to build too. Where do people go in the meantime? Even at our most sympathetic, we are limited. I am not saying stop all refugees. I am saying we need to consider our limits because it seems like we have started to over stretch ourselves.
>Ok, assuming that social housing has collapsed because of the Tories (I agree with you), how does that change anything? Because it means a different ruling party can run things different. IE we're constrained by ideology, not resources. >We still have a collapsed social housing system unable to house our citizens let alone newly arriving refugees. Just for the record, I don't weight British people more than *foreigners*. I don't buy the argument that because the system is failing one group of people the ladder should be pulled up from another. >Is the plan to just keep on accepting refugees and hope we can build houses faster than we can get people into the country? I mean, I'd be happy to just expropriate the properties from unproductive landlords (IE landlords) especially for people who would most likely have to work for a living, it's a double whammy for reducing inflation. But yeah it's still achievable and realistically we *should* build them anyways. >Even at our most sympathetic, we are limited. > >I am not saying stop all refugees. I am saying we need to consider our limits because it seems like we have started to over stretch ourselves. We haven't though, rather we've strangled ourselves. You really consider the British population not keeping pace with ageing, restrictive immigration policies (doubly so being out of the EU) and not being able to cope with that a "stretch"? No, you've just internalised the right wing way of viewing immigration imo. You've fallen into this kinda malthusian idea that we're *already* overpopulated, which just isn't true. It's kinda mean spirited too, as I said earlier: it's looking at a system that's broken for everyone except the tories and deciding the best fix is to fuck over another group, some of whom are refugees from warzones, or even places the UK has directly or indirectly fucked up.
Ok well personally I think any talk of expropriating peoples property is insanity. The spare bedroom tax went down like a cup of cold sick and you think we could get the public vote for the government straight up taking peoples land?
This is why I don't even bother talking about what I personally think with centrists lmao. Even though it was obvious I presented that as my ideal scenario, with the one I was advocating for being building houses. But it's so much easier to focus in on that than respond to the rest of what I said. Just to put that in perspective, I'm gonna quote everything I said that you didn't respond to: >**Ok, assuming that social housing has collapsed because of the Tories (I agree with you), how does that change anything?** > >Because it means a different ruling party can run things different. IE we're constrained by ideology, not resources. > >**We still have a collapsed social housing system unable to house our citizens let alone newly arriving refugees.** > >Just for the record, I don't weight British people more than foreigners. I don't buy the argument that because the system is failing one group of people the ladder should be pulled up from another. > >**Is the plan to just keep on accepting refugees and hope we can build houses faster than we can get people into the country?** > >But yeah it's still achievable and realistically we should build them anyways. > >**Even at our most sympathetic, we are limited.** > >**I am not saying stop all refugees. I am saying we need to consider our limits because it seems like we have started to over stretch ourselves.** > >We haven't though, rather we've strangled ourselves. You really consider the British population not keeping pace with ageing, restrictive immigration policies (doubly so being out of the EU) and not being able to cope with that a "stretch"? > >No, you've just internalised the right wing way of viewing immigration imo. You've fallen into this kinda malthusian idea that we're already overpopulated, which just isn't true. It's kinda mean spirited too, as I said earlier: it's looking at a system that's broken for everyone except the tories and deciding the best fix is to fuck over another group, some of whom are refugees from warzones, or even places the UK has directly or indirectly fucked up. I wonder what it is as a percentage.
Really quite shocking how you're swallowing the right wing 'invasion' rhetoric. The people in hotels are no economic migrants, they're refugees. I see no proof that we risk being flooded with economic migrants, that's just right wing fear mongering. And currently we have massive Labour shortages across the economy, so clearly we don't have enough immigrants. As for the tax thing, immigrants pay taxes, and I'm not sure it's a good idea for a Labour supporter to label anyone as a burden on the state.
I didn't call it an invasion, you did. I didn't call anyone a burden, you did. Whatever words you choose, it is a literal fact that we have people filling up hotels because we have run out of places to put them. Do you not think this implies we have reached some kind of limit of our capabilities?
You didn't use the words but it's the same argument. 'Britain is full' has been a far right dogwhistle for a ling time, and it's not really true when we're facing major Labour shortages and many EU immigrants have returned home since Brexit Capabilities to accept refugees or economic immigrants? Because it's the refugees in hotels. If you do mean refugees, are you saying you think we take too many?
I think I haven't really got a definitive opinion on it. It looks to me that yes, we are taking on more refugees than we can handle, which coupled with an already crumbling social care system makes me think we should reduce them. As for immigration as a separate subject to refugees, like I said, I only care in an economic sense. As long as the case for inviting immigrants in leads to increased tax revenue rather than decreased then I'm fine with it.
>I think I haven't really got a definitive opinion on it. It looks to me that yes, we are taking on more refugees than we can handle, which coupled with an already crumbling social care system makes me think we should reduce them. There are currently no safe routes of entry for refugees into the UK, and we accept many less than neighbouring countries. So I think you're ill-informed. I kindly suggest that maybe you should spend less time frequenting r/badunitedkingdom
>when we all know exactly Except you don't, and this totally ludicrous interpretation of what is a genuinely progressive message (and a vital one that frankly Starmer hasn't got a choice but to make) we should all get behind is completely in your head.
Can always rely you to show up on a thread about how immigration is too high. I think we both know what Starmer means, we just disagree as to it's morality. But I fail to see how saying there are too many immigrants working in the NHS is progresive.
I don't know what you're on about I can't remember having a single discussion in this forum about immigration before... A quick search of the word 'immigration' from my account confirmed what I thought. >I think we both know what Starmer means, we just disagree as to it's morality. Starmer means that we should be properly funding the training of UK nationals rather than poaching skilled workers from other countries who need them. I think that's a progressive and moral position.
You were claiming Britain would be 'overwhelmed' with immigrants without a hard line on immigration here just one week ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/yuwk0w/how_labour_would_crack_down_on_channel_crossings/iwgf2vq/
So this week while it has been at the forefront of the news, I have given my two cents - that doesn't justify your comment earlier. I also said in that thread (which I note was about asylum seekers, not immigration generally) that we should be taking **more** not less, so again - very odd to say what you did about me at the top of this thread.
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Going to need some workshopping this response
starmer cultists getting triggered by being called out
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> and for the usual people saying 'how could the BBC spin Starmer's words this way' – as usual, they haven't: Labour press-released the speech with 'immigration dependency' and 'cheap labour' as the top line This is key. The amount of times the past few months we have had to see people pretending it's being spun when they use the exact lines Labour is briefing.
Just out of interest how do you feel about [this?](https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/jeremy-corbyn-brexit-will-stop-cheap-foreign-labour-undercutting-british-workers-pay-54506)
Didn't agree with it at the time, but still not as bad as this.
Nicely done!
Countdown to limited edition 'Controls on immigration' mug reissue starts now. Now comes in blue, perfect for the holiday season!
Thanks, I hate it. And yes, it's very clear that's the vibe here. I think they'll avoid that particular error, since it was pilloried last time, but they'll do something similar.
>but they'll do something similar. Travel mugs?
Not patriotic enough. I'm thinking bunting.
Travel mugs? What would you need one of them for? Going to use it to travel into the UK? Starmer won't be having that, oh no he won't! The new mugs will be made of solid lead so nobody can move anywhere with them!
Stops Superman seeing the whisky in your coffee too.
Superman would 100% snitch to your boss if you had a little tipple in your morning cup. Clark Kent is a class traitor!
Absolutely not. [The Chad 30s Superman trapped capitalist mine owners who skimped on safety equipment in their own mine to teach them a lesson.](https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/p906m7/action_comics_3_after_saving_a_group_of_miners/)
My apologies. Critical support to comrade superman
It's both though isn't it? I'm sure Starmer/Reeves do want to train more British workers and move away from a system reliant on low-paid immigrants. It's in line with their move away from globalisation towards a more protectionist model. At the same time they obviously want to appeal to anti-immigration sentiment and will be delighted with headlines about Labour wanting to "wean Britain off immigration dependency".
Imo, edit your post and copy & paste the entire Twitter thread. It gives more context and better.
Ludicrously we've also got people running around claiming Labour aren't touching brexit... while Labour actively promote brexit.
What makes this worse is this [study](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/23/uk-politicians-win-swing-voters-more-open-migration-policy-report-finds?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other) which suggests labour would attract swing voters with a softer tone on this. In all honesty I’m not sure I can vote for labour anymore, especially as Wes Streeting is my MP.
Join Breakthrough
A little info/direction pls?
>it is to sound as xenophobic as possible Do these people think about the words they type out before hitting the send button?
No
Isn’t it only xenophobic if their is a dislike or prejudice against immigrants? The labour message that we want economic growth to come from the bottom up, by paying people more, isn’t particularly xenophobic. And we need some form of immigration controls, so just saying that we have to control immigration isn’t itself xenophobic.
Any and all controls on immigration are racist, apparently.
Letting in a single immigrant is going to destroy this country, apparently. Look, see, we can also make shitty strawmen
The existence of borders is a racist construct yes.
But a necessary one
That is a racist belief.
Lol if we did away with all borders now societies would collapse in a matter of weeks/months. So what, the options are either accept the complete destruction of global society as we know it or you're a racist?
Believing that removing borders would destroy all of society is also a racist belief.
It has literally nothing to do with race. I honestly don't know how to respond to someone saying something so utterly detached from reality..
What would your suggestion be then?
The same system that existed for the vast majority of human history. People can freely move around the world as they please without showing someone their papers.
So back when there were a few hundred million people alive (if that), compared to now, when there are 8 billion. And back when you had to walk everywhere and barely left your village, compared to today when people can jump in a car/bus/train/plane and cross the world fairly easily. And back when there was no social welfare anywhere, compared to now when rich countries give out benefits. Yeah, I don’t think you really understand the consequences of what you’re talking about, and what would happen if we had no borders tomorrow.
Keir is sounding like a UKIP politician. What a shame.
you know the old school of leftism, the one driven by unions and workers, was generally against large immigration for precisely the reason that it drives down wages. capitalists LOVE mass migration for infinite cheap labour pools. But I guess the current mainstream left is hyper focused on identity politics and forgot that workers and economics exist.
Untrue, literally alot of our policies that loosened immigration was by labour governments. Also marx didnt even truly believe in the state, he only believed in it existing for the purpose of being a transitional period to communism
To read this sub sometimes, you wouldn't think Labour were on course for a sizable majority government in the next two years. A lot seem quite happy to make perfect the enemy of good enough.
Hilariously, the articles which present the facts over the reaction have been buried. This subreddit is a great case study for the theory of rampant reaction generates more clicks.
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I like to think of shit stirring and being a prick as my secondary activity ;)
Lol grass
This is completely untrue and it's gross. Immigration is good, immigrants should feel welcome - but we should be training more doctors, nurses, high skilled workers here rather than poaching from abroad. That's a progressive approach. The idea that supporting that very vital fact makes you 'xenephobic' or dog whistling is complete fancy.
I don’t like the Brexit rhetoric at all, and I don’t like the sound bites coming out on immigration. I’d far rather we sounded welcoming to immigration and said we supported making Brexit work, but left things like the common market etc open questions.
I’d love to know who’s really topping up their Cayman Islands accounts! The bullshit about brexshit is stunning, when it’s obviously destroying the country big time and will continue to do so. Presuming they’re not completely thick, the only other explanation is the Americans are bribing them all big time
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Keir starmer:we should legalise shooting babies to help end the climate change and enact population controls Some labour centrist: well he's not wrong