Anthony Barnett (London, OK): I have long thought that migration should be treated as a serious, positive force. I'm proud that five years ago openDemocracy joined forces with Demos to publish People Flow, in which among other things Theo Veenkamp of the Dutch Ministry of Justice argued for linking migration and welfare. We ran a huge debate edited by Rosemary Bechler in which even Blunkett participated. No notice whatever was taken. Then in the run-up to the 2005 election there was a classic Blairite panic. It laid the basis of last week's Green Paper (opens as pdf). Here is what Tom Bentley, then Director of Demos, wrote at the time i.e., in 2005 :
“Finally Blair acts. No skills. No English. NO ENTRY.”
This is how the front page of Britain’s leading tabloid newspaper, the Sun, greeted the Blair government’s latest proposals for controlling immigration and asylum. Barely a week before, the Conservative opposition, led by Michael Howard, had launched a policy demanding strict quotas on newcomers. According to opinion polls, immigration is perhaps the only issue on which Howard’s stand is clearly more popular than Blair’s.
Here we go again. It’s not just in the United Kingdom. “Tough” approaches that mean greater “control” of the flow of migrants, with all the racist overtones, is proving popular across Europe. Now, in pre-election Britain, both main parties are colluding in a myth which exploits the fears of many voters, but which will do little in the end to allay them.
What is especially pathetic, not to say disappointing, about this, is that we saw it coming, we laid out the argument about what to do, and it seems to have had less impact than blowing in the wind.
So there are two issues: one is a true question of what is best done with respect to migration; the second is what needs to be done to increase the level of public debate and understanding and secure the nerve of politicians and press. In 2003 Demos and openDemocracy jointly published People Flow. Its research was based on two years of careful work, guided by the thinking and practical experience of Theo Veenkamp, the head of strategy in Holland’s Ministry of Justice, who earlier had been in charge of his country’s asylum programme and found himself forced to think through the issues from first principles.
The link takes you to Veenkamp's first openDemocracy article. I emphasize all this because I've just read David Goodhart's pompous and patronising Observer article about how all the "baby boomers" and their younger brethren and brethrenesses now filling the Cabinet (touch of ageist jealousy?) have "finally seen sense" on immigration. What he means is that he, Goodhart-alone, raised the editorial finger in Prospect and warned us all etc, etc, and now "finally" the rest of his cohort of leftist baby-boomers and our coattail generations are catching up.
Not so, Goodhart. Demos and openDemocracy were well ahead. Babies both may have been still in 2003, but well on the ball.
Why is it that if you are on the left and get it right you are all too likely to be written out of the Prospect/New Labour version of history? I have a notion... any others are welcome.
