Blue Labour is not the answer

You can't outbid Farage on immigration

POD! This week’s Abundance Agenda podcast is a good one. Martin and I talk about Sadiq Khan’s dramatic YIMBY U-turn, get very mad at golf courses, and dig into why the economics of wind power is broken. Plus, we speak to Sam Richards from Britain Remade about why planning reform is good for workers. Listen on Apple, Spotify or Substack.

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HELEN LEWIS EVENT! On July 29th I’m going to be “in conversation” with the amazing Helen Lewis. Details/tickets here.

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So this is grim.

As expected, the government has announced a suite of draconian new migration policies, dressed up in the sort of rhetoric that makes upscale, cosmopolitan elites like me extremely uncomfortable.¹

For example, earlier this week the Prime Minister described the current immigration regime as “A one-nation experiment in open borders,” which echoes a bit too close to the old BNP language of immigration as a “multicultural experiment” for my liberal tastes.²

Anyway, putting aside the fact that Keir Starmer – a Kentish Town human rights lawyer – is a somewhat unconvincing messenger for this approach, I personally find the “Blue Labour” schtick pretty nauseating.

And this isn’t just because I’m a naive idealist who sees us as global citizens with a shared humanity – it’s also because I’ve personal experience of the benefits of immigration.

Specifically, my partner is a dual Canadian and Dutch citizen. We met because she was living in London, and the life we’ve built together over the last fifteen years was only possible because the law at the time allowed her to move and settle here.

And sure, I know that realistically she’s very much doing immigration on easy mode. Even if we had Prime Minister Farage, she wouldn’t have any problems with her residency status, because she’s PhD-educated, in a well-paid job, and so on. But still, the ugly rhetoric gives me a visceral sense of how it must feel to be in a much more precarious position – and of how an arbitrary criteria drawn up by a faceless bureaucracy can profoundly alter the course of someone’s life.

However, despite my personal sob story, I don’t think it is only my discomfort that makes me hugely sceptical of such a theatrically tough approach to migration.

Despite being someone who is normally an apologist for the Starmer regime, I do sincerely think that in terms of both policy substance and how it is being communicated, this isn’t going to achieve what the government wants.

So here’s why Blue Labour is not the answer this time – and what would be a better approach to migration.