Immigration: the battle heats up

To say that “the Tories got it wrong on immigration” has to be the understatement of the decade. They screwed it up so badly that even Keir Starmer is safe to have a pop at them. The Labour Party is making hay with the fact Olukemi Badenoch lobbied for more immigration.

Anyone else pointing this out would be par for the course, but when all sides are pointing it out, it may well be that Badenoch’s credibility is fatally undermined for the rest of her stint as Tory leader. This will keep coming back to haunt her. If I were in charge of Labour’s social media, I’d be tweeting the clip every week.

This follows Starmer having accused the Tories, last week, of running a deliberate “open borders experiment”, which suggests Starmer knows that immigration will be the key battleground in the run up to the next election. He assumes Reform will make a play to demolish the Red Wall for good.

He is, however, getting a little ahead of himself. Having scrapped the Rwanda deterrence scheme, and with no sign of “smashing the gangs”, Starmer is looking at a record year for Channel crossings. The number of asylum seekers living in hotels has soared under Labour. Neither party can speak with credibility on immigration.

This then leaves the field wide open for Reform, only the party seems to be developing problems of its own. Reform’s official position is Net Zero immigration, while Rupert Lowe has today called for a two year freeze on immigration. Neither approach is likely to quel rumblings that Farage is going soft and taking the party towards the centre. There is a strong appetite on the right for much more radical immigration policies.

None of this, however, seems to register with Farage who, true to form, thinks he’s doing a sterling job. What could be better than securing defections from two high profile Tory hasbeens? Who cares what Twitter malcontents think?

The problem for Farage, though, is that it’s not just a few Twitter malcontents. In recent interviews Farage has all but disowned his core supporters, and they’ve noticed. Only Rupert Lowe MP is making friends at the moment, and he seems to be ploughing his own furrow. His rhetoric is what the members want, but he’s the only one they’ll get it from. Farage seems too desperate for media approval.

It seems that these irreconcilable approach can coexist for long. Lowe will have to tone it down or go quiet, which will not go unnoticed. The danger for Reform here is that for every new convert, an existing supporter might be moved to stay at home at the next election.

Meanwhile, it seems the media is not letting allegations about Reform MP, James McMurdock, drop. Tim Montgomerie is seen chucking him under bus within the first day of switching to Reform. One wonders if this is a Tory wrecking stunt. Either way, my prediction that Reform would go into the next election with fewer MPs looks like it will hold up. With Farage being Farage, a dust -up is a matter of when, not if.

That said, I don’t exclude the possibility of Reform making big wins at the next election, but by the time we get there, I wonder if it will represent any of its base at all. If, as has been suggested, Reform invests heavily in data science at the next election, it could move far away from being an insurgent party, to become an awkward coalition with as many internal conflicts as the Tories.

The wildcard in all this, though, is what Labour will do in the interim. Once again, Sam Bidwell is making a useful contribution, outlining how the “open borders experiment” can be reversed. Under the current immigration rules, he remarks, most migrants on work and family visas will be eligible for Indefinite Leave To Remain (ILR) status after just five years. ILR status holders have a right to live and work indefinitely in the UK — and gain access to additional support from the state, in the form of services like universal credit. If ILR rules are changed then the recent influx need not be permanent. Bidwell believes the Home Secretary could change the standard eligibility criteria for ILR from five years to fifteen.

It will, of course, require more than that, but this is something Labour can do without much pushback from their own party, and it would be unopposed by Badenoch. It looks like an easy win for Labour. Says Bidwell, “The question is one of political will, and sincerity of conviction. If Keir Starmer and his colleagues are serious about addressing uncontrolled mass migration, then they have a duty to lay these changes before Parliament. If this experiment really has been a mistake, then why should the British people live with the impacts for decades to come?”.

This is the kind of research and campaigning we should be seeing from Reform, but it’s going to take more than just Rupert Lowe plugging away on his own. They could open the door for Labour to make such a move and take credit for it - but that requires a level of political acumen far beyond that of Farage.

Either way, barring the small boats problem, it is conceivable that with only marginal corrections, Labour could bring down immigration quite substantially. They would struggle to do worse than the Tories. To be able to campaign on that record would leave Badenoch, who campaigned for more immigration, floundering. That then requires the Tories to substantially up their game, meaning that both parties could outflank Reform as it moves closer to the centre. Starmer’s rhetoric of late is the opening salvo in a bidding war.

What’s clear is that Refrom’s muddled, incoherent approach to immigration cannot be sustained as far as the next election. Just a few months ago I was on my own pointing to the lack of an intellectual foundation, but there is now a chorus of similar complaints coming from all sides. That chorus will only grow louder the more Farage dithers. He is in danger of losing his ground troops and keyboard warriors. In that event, others will surely profit. There will be no mainstream parties with a serious grip on the issue.