The demonisation of decency   - Melanie Phillips

Daily Mail, 11 April 2005

The stoical, phlegmatic British may be slow to anger. But when they are roused they are implacable, a national characteristic politicians ignore at their peril.  

It was no surprise, therefore, that Michael Howard chose to set immigration at the very forefront of his electoral stall yesterday, on the opening day of the campaign after the royal wedding and the obsequies for the Pope.

For he knows that public fury about immigration could bring Tony Blair down. As a weekend poll showed, some 69 per cent want tougher controls or a halt to immigration altogether. On this single issue the Tories are streets ahead, and Labour has little chance of redressing the situation.

To the horror of Tony Blair, he has discovered that voters' hostility on the subject is drowning out everything else that Labour is saying.

This is because the enormous rise in immigration since he took office is simply changing the face of the country -- as yesterday¹s report by Migration Watch makes plain -- and putting key public services under intolerable strain. Colleagues are advising him that his policy on this issue needs to be much clearer and tougher.

Indeed, it could hardly be less clear and less tough. Labour has done everything possible instead to conceal the true scale of immigration. It has played down or even denied the huge numbers who have already come here or are projected to do so. And it has persistently failed to get the crisis under control, with policy changes that amount to little more than window dressing.  

By contrast, the Tories are very clear. In saying that Parliament would set an annual limit for the number of immigrants, pull out of those treaty provisions which prevent Britain from controlling immigration and policing asylum and establish round-the-clock border police, they have thrown Labour firmly onto the back foot.

This is because the immigration crisis can only be tackled by such root-and-branch measures (although the proposed quota for asylum-seekers may have to be rethought, since it appears to conflict with the moral duty to admit genuine refugees).

As a result, Labour¹s response yesterday was demonstrably feeble. Wheeling out Charles Wardle, a discredited former Tory minister who had the whip withdrawn, was a cheap shot clearly born of desperation. Indeed, neither he nor Alan Milburn had anything to say except vaguely protest that the Tory policy was unworkable.

The plain fact is that, whatever details need to be fine-tuned, setting a cap on immigration is the only policy which would work to bring down the numbers.  

But Labour refuses to go down this road for one overwhelming reason. It actually wants to encourage immigration < a fact which it is anxious to conceal.  

Ministers have repeatedly said they envisage no upper limit to the number of new immigrants. And as Peter Lilley pointed out in a recent pamphlet, although it has paid lip service to controlling illegal entrants the Government has actually been encouraging mass immigration by systematically making it easier without ever informing the public of such a momentous change of policy.  

Of course, immigrants have brought great benefit to this country and enhanced its culture, of which they have become a welcome and integrated part. Most immigrants are hard working, law-abiding people. But if too many arrive in an uncontrolled manner, the structures of society in an already overcrowded island cannot cope, and the integration of such newcomers into the host community becomes much more difficult.

For the fact is that current rates of immigration are simply unsustainable for a country of this size, amounting to a new city the size of Birmingham every five years. In addition, taking in so many people from very diverse backgrounds will transform this country¹s identity and character.

By any normal reckoning, it is not only legitimate but essential that such a fundamental change be debated openly and honestly. But of course, Labour won¹t put this policy to the public because it knows that people wouldn¹t tolerate it for an instant. Instead, the left tries to shut down debate altogether by smearing anyone as a racist for voicing such concerns.

While Mr Blair carefully refrains from such gutter politics, some of his supporters have no such scruples, accusing Michael Howard of using immigration to 'play the race card'. Yesterday Peter Hain continued in similar vein, accusing the Tories of 'scurrilous, right-wing ugly tactics'.

But concern about mass immigration has nothing to do with race. Much of it is simply about justice, since most asylum-seekers are not genuine refugees but trying -- at present, with considerable success -- to bust immigration law.

People are aghast that both the character and smooth running of their country should be compromised by admitting unsustainable numbers of newcomers. And to be called racist for saying so is to add insufferable insult to injury.  

Moreover, many of the immigrants in contention are white people from Eastern Europe. The argument is not about the desirability or otherwise of immigrants but the numbers who are coming in.

Indeed, some of the most vociferous critics of the immigration crisis happen to be ethnic minorities and even recent immigrants, who understand that illegal scams and unlimited numbers threaten the national values that they found attractive in the first place.

To suggest that any such criticism is racist is effectively to entertain no policy other than open borders and totally unlimited immigration. But no one but a handful of extremists would actually argue this. The stench of hypocrisy on this issue is overwhelming.

The purpose, of course, is to stifle debate. Smearing people as racist is the left's favourite weapon of intimidation. But in deploying it in this way, they are insulting millions of decent British voters, who are not only deeply concerned about the scale of immigration but find themselves demonised as racist even for thinking such things.

They are incandescent that the issue has become a no-go area for public debate. Indeed, this effective disenfranchisement is one of the reasons why they are so dangerously disillusioned with politics. After all, what is the use of politicians who are too cowed by political bullying to address the extraordinary fact that, in the face of a terrorist threat, the country has lost control of its borders?

By tackling the issue head-on -- and crucially, using the language of values in calling the asylum shambles 'inhumane' and 'unjust' -- Mr Howard was not only protecting himself from the taint of racism. He was also signalling to the beleaguered majority that at last they have a champion who will stand up for mainstream decencies against the lies and smears of political correctness.  

Mr Blair thought that on immigration, as on so many other issues, he could pull the wool over people's eyes. He has made a major error.

For it touches some of the deepest feelings of the British people about fair play, bullying and the make-up and orderliness of their country. They know they are being taken for a ride, and that something of inestimable value is being lost.

And they know something else too -- that the issue is not just about immigrants. It is nothing less than the demonisation of decency. That's why Mr Blair is right to panic; for to all these most serious of charges, he simply has no answer.

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