[A-List] The Policy Network: immigration worries

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

We haven't heard much from Mandelson's pan-EU outfit for a while, but
they've just launched a new magazine, "Progressive Politics", which
leads off with some heart-searching stuff by Mandelson about the threats
to Third Way hegemony in Europe, and suggests that tough immigration
laws would be the answer. How progressive.

Among the contributors to this august publication are Charles Leadbeater
(ex-CP, now Demos, Blair "blue skies" thinker with John Birt et al),
Anthony Giddens (LSE director), Bill Clinton, James Rubin (New Democrat
foreign policy wonk and ex-asst Secretary of State under Clinton),
Pascal Lamy (European Commission), David Held (LSE professor) and
Anthony McGrew (Southampton University).

See http://www.policy-network.org/h_journal.phtml


New Labour gurus warn Blair to get tough on immigration

Anne Perkins, political correspondent
Friday September 13, 2002
The Guardian

Peter Mandelson and Philip Gould, gurus of Labour's modernisation, have
joined forces to warn that the party will only avoid the fate of its
European counterparts if it adopts tough policies on immigration.

In a controversial analysis of electoral defeats across Europe, they
argue that parties of the left lost power because they had failed to
modernise enough. They call for a rethink of immigration policies to
reflect the fears and insecurities of some of Labour's core vote.

But Mr Gould, Tony Blair's political strategist, admits: "Disconnection
and cynicism with the political processes appears to owe something at
least to the sheer professionalism of modern politics."

He adds: "But campaigning renewal does not mean campaigning reversal. We
need to find ways of campaigning that win trust and hearts, but that
also win elections."

He outlines four explanations for the left's defeat: ex haustion from
years in government, a "governmental" outlook that favours defending the
status quo, a failure to find a way of "owning" the economy and a lack
of clear areas of difference with other parties.

In what could be a blueprint for the next Labour election campaign, Mr
Gould says: "Change is never finished. No progressive task is ever
finished. Parties of the left should never stop being insurgents."

Analysing the rise of the extreme right over the past two years, both
men warn that the immigration issue must be addressed. Mr Gould says
that, like crime, it is feared most by the left's natural constituency
among the unemployed, the marginalised and the traditional working
class.

"It is not the comfortable middle classes who have most to fear from
migration, but those at the cutting edge of vulnerability." They must be
made to feel that their fears are being addressed, he says.

He calls for a clear sense of mission to counterbalance the uncertainty
which feeds the right, a continued emphasis on the economy and what he
describes as "authenticity".

He also denies that the professionalism of campaigning that has been
attacked as, in his words, "hollowed out" is a problem in Britain.

Peter Mandelson warns: "It is so tempting for the left - and often too
comfortable and easy withn our own ranks - to sideline crime,
lawlessness and anti-social behaviour as political issues that have been
manufactured by the right.

"But the last two years should bring home to all of us the gravity of
this mistake. Progressives have to come to terms with rightwing
populism."

He also renews his warning of the dangers of disunity, which scarred
Labour's years in opposition and which is being heard again now.

The analysis appears in a new magazine, Progressive Politics, which Mr
Mandelson edits. It also includes contributions from Bill Clinton and
the author of the Third Way, Antony Giddens.