This is the ONE issue that will derail the new Labour government
How the public mood on one issue is starting to move
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If there is one issue that holds the potential to completely derail Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the new Labour government then it is immigration. And one person who has also recognised this is none other than Tony Blair.
In the days since Labour’s election victory, Blair, the most successful leader in his party’s history, has already warned Labour to make sure it controls illegal migration, law and order, and avoid ‘any vulnerability on wokeism’.
Pointing to the rise of Nigel Farage and Reform, Blair said:
“Here is where British politics has much in common with European politics. Indeed, all over the western world, traditional political parties are suffering disruption. Where the system embeds the two main parties, the disruption is internal. Where the system allows new entrants to emerge, they are running riot everywhere. Look at France or Italy. Cultural issues, as much if not more than economic issues, are at the heart of it. Reform has pillaged the Tory vote in this election, true. But it poses a challenge for Labour too. We need a plan to control immigration”.
Blair is right to say this, even if he was the Labour leader who first opened the door to mass immigration, thereby setting the stage for Nigel Farage and Brexit.
He can now see what many of us can see: that the new Labour government is deeply vulnerable on this issue, an issue millions of ordinary people care about but which Labour’s radically ‘woke’ left activists either do not see as an issue or celebrate as an unalloyed net positive for Britain, when, clearly, it is no such thing.
And we can also see, only days into the new government, how Labour is already making the wrong moves, not only rejecting Blair’s idea of introducing identity cards so we can better track who is in the country but making other bad decisions, too.
Keir Starmer has already declared Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda plan ‘dead and buried’, thereby removing any potential deterrent to would-be people smugglers and illegal migrants while putting no viable alternative in place.
Starmer’s spokesman, too, has already indicated the Labour government will allow more than 100,000 illegal migrants who are already in the country to apply for asylum, thereby, in my view, creating a huge incentive for many more to come.
Labour’s new Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, who just watched Nigel Farage’s Reform party finish second in her own northern seat, has also refused to say the Labour government is committed to Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats”.
And the Labour government is already pressing ahead with its proposed ‘solution’ to the illegal migration crisis by establishing a ‘new UK Border Security Command’ to ‘tackle the gangs’ —a move which for reasons I’ve already outlined (see here and here) is unlikely to stop the gangs or the small boat invasion at all. In fact, I’ve yet to meet a single expert who thinks Labour’s plan on illegal migration will work.
Furthermore, the very man tipped to be appointed by Labour to tackle the small boats, Neil Basu, has previously said he is "proud to be woke", compared Suella Braverman to Enoch Powell, has suggested diversity and inclusion are the most important things in policing, spoken positively about the revolutionary group Black Lives Matter (BLM), and openly opposed a ‘No Deal’ Brexit.
Is this the kind of appointment to restore public confidence and trust, not just in how the small boats crisis is being managed but our police and government departments?
The small boats, meanwhile, are still coming. So far this year, the total number of illegal migrants who have crossed the Channel has reached a new record of 13,600, which is 3% higher than the same point in 2022 and 8% higher than in 2023.
But what really matters in all this, a point I suspect Tony Blair has also noticed, is that the public mood on immigration is now also changing, even if very few people in the Labour Party and the expert class seem to have noticed.
Look at the trends in regular surveys of how the British people are thinking and feeling about immigration and you will find things are on the move.
What these surveys, by YouGov, show, is that at exactly the same time as a more pro-immigration Labour government is taking power the British people are becoming noticeably more concerned and sceptical about the unfolding immigration crisis.
For a start, the salience, or perceived importance, of this issue to ordinary people has been steadily but consistently rising, which is one reason Nigel Farage and Reform did so well at the general election, with this issue the key priority for Reform voters.
Nationally, since 2019, the percentage of Brits who now say immigration is one of the top issues facing the country has doubled, rising from 22% to 40% today, making it the third most important issue for all voters, the most important for conservatives and close to becoming the number two issue for the working-class —a big chunk of which just left the two big parties for Nigel Farage and Reform.
Or consider another question: has immigration over the last decade been good or bad for Britain? The share of Brits who think immigration has been ‘bad’ for the country also just reached …
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