Starmer's Labour has become the low-immigration party

Something significant happened this week. Labour confirmed its position as a party advocating lower immigration than the Conservatives.

- JOHN RENTOUL

When a Redfield and Wilton opinion poll this month asked which party could be trusted to handle immigration, and 31 per cent of people said Labour, while only 24 per cent said the Conservatives, this reflected disillusionment with the government rather than approval of the opposition.

Public opinion believes that immigration is too high, and so when the figures reached successive record levels, as they have since the 2021 numbers were reported early last year, disapproval of the government followed. It is true that attitudes towards immigration have become more liberal since the Brexit vote. It is also true that public opinion is favourable to many categories of immigrant – nurses, care workers, skilled workers, Ukrainians, Hong Kongers, Afghan translators and cocombatants, some students, “genuine” refugees. Yet a clear majority of the British people think that the total should come down, and criticise the Tories for their failure to deliver on their promise.

Labour’s advantage on this issue is historically exceptional, just as it is on tax. The Tories, more so than Labour, are perceived as the high-tax party, which is a natural response to the Tories presiding over a tax burden at a 70-year high, while Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, carefully avoids proposing tax rises except on non-doms, private equity funds and the parents of children at private schools.

But this week, Labour did more than simply offer bland platitudes on immigration policy. The party had previously dropped its support for free movement across Europe since we left the EU single market, and adopted the meaningless formula of a points-based system, which tells us nothing until we know how many points would-be immigrants are awarded for what.