There is a lot of talk among the Labour candidates on how we need to be listening to our lost voters, centered around immigration. I think that while this is true, we need to be very clear on two matters: Firstly we must ensure that we know what the result of “listening” can and more importantly can’t entail; and secondly we need to ensure that we are not listening without hearing, and understand what it is that people are really saying to us.

First we must separate those who are simply a little xenophobic from those who have a more substantial beef with being left behind by the forces of globalisation of which immigration is a part of the story. Labour must never become a party that even considers pandering to xenophobia, however much we are told that this is the attitude of our lost vote. That doesn’t mean we can’t address the issues that underlie the public’s worries on immigration and we should cast off the timidity of our past to do so.

What does this mean in practical terms? It means a strong a directed argument in favour of government intervention in two key areas: Housing and Employment.

Labour must set out a national and regional strategy to build many, many more houses, at least 100,000 a year, and at least half of these must be affordable housing (affordable both to rent and to buy – there must be a revolution the funding of social housing provision working both with councils and with Housing Associations). Given the cuts the ConDem government have already unleashed in this area, this will be a policy that will offer voters a distinctively different offer. The case needs to be made that building is not just good for those who need the homes, but for our economy too.

Secondly we need to offer to close the employment loopholes that exclude agency workers from fair deals and protect the employment rights of all workers – immigrant or not – so there can’t be a financial incentive to employ and abuse immigrant workers.

We need to be clear that this won’t stop immigration, and that stopping it is not our aim, but it should alleviate some of the negative effects that are felt by the working class.

Tags: housing, immigration, listening, unemployment

This entry was posted on Friday, June 11th, 2010 at 14:01 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.