Around Whitehall, Hazel Blears and Phil Woolas are increasingly known as the good cop/bad cop pair when it comes to immigration.
The communities secretary uses moderate language, prefacing any speech with the assertion that migration has significant benefits for this country.
On the other hand, Woolas, the immigration minister, was brought in specifically to beat the drum, to counteract accusations from the Conservatives that Labour is ‘tough in rhetoric, soft in practice’. His call for ‘British jobs for British graduates’ is just one example.
Then there was the row with the Office for National Statistics, which he accused of having ‘sinister motives’ in reporting that one in nine UK residents was born abroad.
In reality, though, the two ministers are not that far apart. They both know that, as Woolas has said, immigration is ‘the second biggest issue in communities… we have to bloody well talk about it’.
They agree, too, that immigration policy is about reassuring the public by showing that the state is in control — that it is ‘managing migration’.
The fact that they do not seem to be able to do this is preying large on their minds with the approach of the local and the European elections.
There is widespread agreement that, at local level, issues such as housing and unemployment could play into the far Right’s hands. To this end, the British National Party has been busily exploiting these insecurities fuelled by the economic downturn.
Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, is even standing in the European elections as a candidate for the northwest of England, which takes in both Blears’ Salford constituency and Woolas’s Oldham one. And some commentators give him a fair chance of succeeding.
There are some worrying figures around. An Ipsos/Mori poll showed that a mere 6% of voters thought migration was a major issue in 1998. Ten years later, that figure had risen to 42%. What’s more, the BNP now holds 12 seats on the council in Barking & Dagenham, six in Stoke, and one on the London Assembly.
Yet Trevor Phillips, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, believes the government’s problem lies precisely with the lack of data. The claims and counter-claims, for instance, over whether Romanians or Somalians are indeed being housed by local authorities at the expense of young British families need to be nailed once and for all.
The government has made much of its points-based immigration system, which targets specific skills shortages but has the overall aim of deterring migration. Yet it remains reliant and largely silent on EU migrants who do the jobs the Brits are no longer willing to do, such as strawberry picking and toilet cleaning.
At the same time, it has taken the easy option of appealing to base fears. Last week Woolas raised the spectre of a new Sangatte, claiming that an Anglo-French detention centre could be built near Calais to stop all those illegal immigrants making their way into the country. He was promptly slapped down by his French counterpart who said he did not know what Woolas was talking about.
But it sends the message, without any proof, that this is a problem one way or another. ‘Do not worry, we won’t let the UK become overrun by asylum seekers who come and take away all our houses and jobs.’ It is a risky strategy and one that has led several times to Woolas being accused of pandering to the far Right.
The Conservatives, of course, take a similar and predictable line, issuing a press release last week talking about ‘uncontrolled immigration’, without backing up this claim.
Last week, Blears announced a £50 tax to be levied on economic migrants and international students coming to study in the UK. The aim is to raise £70m over two years, with the revenue being spread between local authorities. It was not an especially controversial announcement. If anything, most commentators were underwhelmed, suggesting it was a drop in the ocean compared with the £250m local government has said it needs to deal with migration.
But nor did it make much sense, since it was demanding a token fee from the migrants who are most likely to be paying taxes anyway or the students who pay large fees for the privilege of studying here.
Blears said that it was not a cynical manoeuvre to gain political advantage. She also said that this was not about demonising migrants but about dealing with the practical problems that arise from migration. ‘It is the responsibility of government to respond,’ she said. By introducing such measures it can ‘push back the extremists and their pernicious lies’.
It is not immediately obvious how this will help in any meaningful way. Perhaps instead the answer lies somewhere between the good cop/bad cop, with some help from the evidence-based data that Trevor Phillips says is necessary. And without playing into the hands of the far Right who are only too pleased when the government does their job for them.
Victoria Macdonald is political correspondent for Channel 4 News
