LEADERSHIP in politics is about facing up to responsibilities. And one of the most serious responsibilities any government has is to manage migration. How we handle immigration defines us as a nation.
We have a responsibility to provide a secure refuge for the persecuted and a duty to maintain a society open to new talent. We have a responsibility to manage the numbers coming into our country at a rate which maintains good community relations. And we have a responsibility to ensure that the system which allows people to make a new life here reflects the best of British values — fair play, humanity and respect for the rule of law.
But all those responsibilities can be discharged only if we have control of our borders. And, tragically, this Government has lost control of the immigration system. After eight years in power, Labour is incapable of policing who comes, who stays and on what terms.
The consequences of this chaos are tragic. Instead of offering a haven to those most in need, our asylum system has created a twilight world in which people-smuggling flourishes. The vast majority even of genuine refugees are forced to enter our country by deception, often at the hands of criminal gangs. People who are not genuine refugees are prepared to pay thousands of pounds and risk their lives because they know they are unlikely ever to be deported.
The deaths of Chinese men and women packed into a lorry at Dover and swept away in the seas of Morecambe Bay have shown just how inhumane our system is. It would be deeply irresponsible not to argue for change when the status quo means perpetuating human misery.
The failure of Labour to think strategically, and responsibly, about immigration is shown most dramatically, however, in its persistent refusal to accept the need to control the numbers. David Blunkett said that he saw “no obvious upper limit” to immigration. Charles Clarke has refused to accept the need for any publicly agreed limit. He told Newsnight on Monday evening that the current, unprecedented, rate of around 150,000 additional people settling in Britain each year was “about right”.
A government that has strategies to control supermarket trolleys and chewing gum on pavements won’t accept the need for any control over the number of extra people we want to invite to live in Britain.
Controlling the rate at which we allow new people into the country is vital to ensuring that we continue to benefit from immigration. Uncontrolled immigration places a strain on good community relations. The Government’s own Community Cohesion Panel has pointed out that, when it comes to securing public assent for new migration, “the pace of change is simply too great at present”. And the current level of immigration is placing a particular strain on our most vulnerable communities. As the same panel pointed out: “The pressure on resources in those (disadvantaged) areas is often intense and local services are often insufficient to meet the need of the existing community, let alone newcomers.”
It would be deeply irresponsible not to argue that there is a better way of doing things when the current system risks increased communal tension and resources being spread too thin.
The Government’s failure to control numbers also underlines its failure to accept responsibility for policing just who has come to Britain. That is perhaps the greatest irresponsibility of all — leaving our system open to abuse by organised crime and terror.
As a former Home Secretary and, more particularly, as the child of immigrants, I feel I have a responsibility to see our immigration system restored to health. That is why one of my very first speeches as Leader of the Opposition took on the racists of the BNP and made the case for managed migration. And that is also why we have devoted great care to devising policies which will tackle the immigration crisis.
We were the first to propose a rational, points-based system for economic migrants, so we could maximise the benefit to our country from new workers. We were the first to propose proper security at our ports with a 24-hour watch on points of entry. And we are the only party prepared to take the really hard, but wise, action necessary to restore control of our borders. Only the Conservatives will take back powers from the EU, escape from outdated treaties which tie our hands and set a limit on the numbers Britain accepts.
Our measured, detailed, tested proposals which build on the success of Australia in controlling immigration have been attacked by the Prime Minister as “opportunist”.
Psychologists have a concept they call “transference”. It means that individuals expend a great deal of energy accusing others of sins of which they themselves are really guilty. In the same article in Monday’s Times which the Prime Minister accused us of opportunism he mentioned how his pollsters had told him that immigration was a “hot issue”. I regard control of our borders as a grave responsibility. Mr Blair sees it as a hot polling issue.
Mr Blair’s latest announcement on asylum comes, of course, after years of failure to show that he sees immigration as a priority. He announced the “final phase” of his asylum reforms in 2003. At that time the Prime Minister was arguing for asylum-seekers to be processed overseas in transit centres.
Since then two ministers have resigned for mismanaging immigration issues. Plans for transit centres are now ridiculed, even though they were once the centrepiece of government strategy. And now, 15 months after his reforms were supposed to bring “finality” and just weeks after Conservative plans won widespread approval, Mr Blair has launched a new set of proposals. I don’t know whether his conduct on this, most sensitive, of issues counts as rank opportunism. But it certainly reflects a fundamental lack of seriousness.
The questions I hope voters will ask when they look at how each of the parties hopes to tackle immigration is quite simple. Who acts responsibly, who takes this seriously, who has a record of commitment to resolving these problems, how can we help those most in need and how can we restore control of our borders? I am happy for my party to be judged on that, sober, basis. And I will leave the overwrought mudslinging to others.
