European elections: What message for immigration?
Watched the results coming in until 1:30 last night, and the reporting on the outcomes from 7:30 this morning. Depressing though it was, my thoughts are that the election of two BNP and 13 UKIP MEPs have more to do with the disintegration of the centre left camp than a powerful ideological shift to the hard right.
The difficulties for people arguing for progressive immigration policies in this period come more from the changed tone of the political conversation in the UK, with the rise of more populist ways of thinking and acting and greater emphasis on the role of the individual politician with the sort of communication skills that allow her or him to give the appearance of talking directly to the concerns of the ‘little man/woman’ on the street.
This is a type of discourse which puts supporters of the rights of migrants at a severe disadvantage; at least in the short and medium term. Arguing that migration has a critical role to play in forging a fairer and more democratic world runs counter to so many of the intuitions which people have about themselves and their understanding of the world they live in. Anti-immigrant rhetoric will have more immediate purchase in this ‘national’ debate than the contrary argument.
Fortunately over the longer term the public conversation about migration is shaped by more than the hysterical messages yelled at us by a narrow-minded national press and a crisis-ridden parliamentary system.Resources of hope and experience exist in regions of the country and amongst sections of public opinion which have arrived at very different conclusions about the effects of migration on the towns and cities where they live and work.
The challenge for the period immediately ahead is whether these diverse groups can begin to present themselves as a bloc within British society which can provide the narrative needed to challenge the negatively-minded mainstream. We think they can, but we need to think much more strategically about how we build this progressive force, and come up with the projects which can transform ideas into concrete action.