Latest / The Fourcast / Is immigration pushing Labour toward electoral wipeout?

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Is immigration pushing Labour toward electoral wipeout? · The Fourcast

0:00
At the top of Labour, they feel that they can't win an election
0:03
if it is a immigration general election, if they've taken small
0:08
boats and these hotels off your television screens, then they're
0:13
in play and somehow they can crawl back from the abysmal
0:16
ratings that they have at the moment.
0:18
But if those issues and that anger is at the top of people's
0:21
minds, if it is the most salient issue come the next general
0:24
election, I think there are people at the top of the Labour
0:27
Party that think they might as well pack their bags and not
0:30
even turn up. Hello and welcome to the
0:33
forecast. Is the government's immigration
0:35
strategy doomed to fail? Despite the tough language, the
0:39
one in, one out deal with France and the rapid closure of asylum
0:43
hotels, Labour continues to plunge in the polls.
0:46
So why is it going so badly? Has Keir Starmer, as many of his
0:50
critics charge, played directly into Nigel Farage's hands by
0:55
elevating immigration? Or is there a long term plan
0:58
that could yet pay off? To discuss, I'm joined by our
1:01
community's editor Darshna Soni, who has just been in France
1:04
meeting asylum seekers sent back under the new scheme, and by our
1:08
political editor Gary Gibbon in Westminster.
1:11
Gary, let me start with you. The latest polling has Labour in
1:14
a dire situation. To what extent is immigration to
1:19
blame for that? It's in play.
1:22
It's not everything. When you ask voters to identify
1:26
the issues that have driven them away from Labour, people who
1:30
voted Labour in 2024, immigration is is up there.
1:34
Winter fuel allowance used to be the number one thing they
1:36
mentioned quite often. Now it's cost of living.
1:39
It's in play. It's a very top player in this
1:42
dynamic and it's a dynamic which, as you say, is looking
1:44
dire for Labour at the moment. And and and why is that?
1:48
Is it because it doesn't appear to have a clear vision on this?
1:52
Labour built an enormously broad coalition of voters at the last
1:56
election. Shallow, but broad.
2:00
And that included a lot of people whose natural inclination
2:04
hadn't been Labour over the years.
2:06
A lot of them were previous Conservative voters, people
2:08
who've now hopped to reform their their attitudes, their
2:12
outlook, their priorities were not necessarily a perfect match
2:16
for the traditional Labour sell. And they have broken away from
2:22
the iceberg. The problem for Labour is
2:24
they've broken away in significant numbers and they're
2:26
also having a lot of fracturing on the other side.
2:28
The voters seem to deeply dislike Labour at the moment and
2:32
immigration is one of the components of that.
2:35
And Darshney, you've been looking at their current way of
2:38
trying to to tackle the immigration issue.
2:40
You know, the last government had Rwanda.
2:42
This government has one in, one out.
2:45
You've been looking at these early days of that policy.
2:47
How is it working from what you've been finding?
2:49
Well, it's interesting that this was announced to much fanfare
2:53
back in July. The government made a big deal
2:55
out of this and said that this was going to help deter people
2:59
crossing the Channel in small boats.
3:01
Now, so far there's only been a small number.
3:03
It is only a pilot, but it's really interesting.
3:06
We've been to France and met some of those, mainly young men
3:09
who have been deported and the picture that they painted was of
3:14
a system that's still quite chaotic, it's still not working
3:16
as it should be. So for example, we met people
3:19
who had come to England and they were detained straight away.
3:24
They were held in detention for around 58 days.
3:27
Some of those that I spoke to and they weren't told why they
3:31
had been singled out, but they told us they had been given the
3:35
impression that they'd be able to apply for asylum in France.
3:39
Once they get to France, it's a very different story.
3:42
So for example, we got footage of the hostel where they're
3:44
staying. It's a very cramped place.
3:47
There were around 40 people sleeping in one room.
3:50
They were told that actually under the Dublin Convention they
3:53
won't be able to play, they won't be able to apply for
3:56
asylum in France. So actually a lot of them that
3:59
we spoke to are now trying to get back to England.
4:01
So it just all adds to this perception of the Home Office
4:05
being out of control. And you mentioned the Dublin
4:08
Convention, which makes us all think back to those days of
4:10
Brexit, which in many ways triggered or seemed to to
4:14
inflamed the current immigration debate.
4:18
Explain how it's working and and why it's relevant to these men.
4:24
It's a really important point and it's something that's cited
4:27
by a lot of people who are seeking asylum.
4:30
We went to Calais as well and almost everybody that we met
4:33
there said that because of Dublin they were trying to get
4:36
to England because Dublin doesn't apply.
4:38
So under the Dublin Agreement, EU EU countries had agreed that
4:44
migrants could be sent back to the first country they entered
4:47
in Europe and their asylum claim will be processed there.
4:50
So as many migrants do, for example, if you're coming and
4:53
you're travelling the route from Libya across the Mediterranean,
4:56
you might land in Italy, then you might make your way to
4:58
France and then to England. Under this arrangement you can
5:02
get sent back, for example to Italy.
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A lot of people say they only cross through these countries,
5:07
obviously because they had to on their way to a place of safety,
5:10
and they're worried that if they get sent back to some of these
5:13
countries, they may eventually be deported to their countries
5:15
of origin. They feel, rightly or wrongly,
5:18
that Britain has a much more sympathetic immigration system
5:22
to people from certain countries like Eritrea or Sudan where
5:26
there has been a civil war since Brexit.
5:28
That doesn't apply here, which is why, for example, the Prime
5:31
Minister tried to dub these boat crossings the Farage boats.
5:34
They're saying that it all started because of Brexit.
5:36
Now the only country that we have a returns deal with is
5:40
France under this one in one out scheme and.
5:44
It's one of the reasons why the men are saying to you they want
5:46
to get back here. Yeah, it is a big factor.
5:49
And we met people who had settled, for example, in Germany
5:52
for many years. Now suddenly in Germany, the
5:54
political tide has turned there. They're getting much more
5:57
strict. And they're saying that even
5:59
though people have settled there for a number of years, waiting
6:01
for their asylum claims to be sorted, they're now being told,
6:04
no, you can't stay here. And that's happened to people
6:07
from a number of different countries.
6:09
And a lot of people said to me that England is their last
6:13
chance and that's why so many are desperate to get here.
6:16
I mean Gary, stop the boats Rwanda, one in one out.
6:20
All those short snappy 1 liners don't really get to the
6:23
complexity of this issue for successive governments.
6:27
If this policy ends up being one out, the same one back again as
6:32
Darshner suggests it might how? How problematic would that be
6:35
for the Labour government? Oh, enormously problematic.
6:38
Labour MPs are in anguish about these headlines.
6:42
The idea that you can be sent out of the country and then come
6:45
straight back on a on a boat again, yeah.
6:50
I don't think they have enormous confidence in the a lot of
6:53
Labour MPs in the returns. Those of them who are
6:56
particularly concerned about immigration issues and sit in,
6:58
for instance, red wall seats where these issues can often be
7:02
more prominent, more salient for voters higher up their list of
7:06
priorities. They're looking to Shabana
7:08
Mahmoud to do a lot of other things, what you might say,
7:12
reform leaning, conservative leaning policies to try and get
7:18
a grip of what they see as an enormous problem.
7:21
And they're, they're interested and you get the impression that
7:23
elements of the government are interested in removals to
7:29
adjacent third countries to country of origin.
7:31
So maybe some exploratory talks going on in the background soon
7:35
with countries in Africa that maybe have some sort of more of
7:39
a population issue that they welcome additional people coming
7:43
to their country, maybe trying to come to deals with some of
7:47
those countries and encourage people to go back there.
7:52
Also looking, I strongly suspect at the source of policy which
7:57
Italy has combined with Albania to do, where you set up a camp
8:03
in a third country and you send failed asylum seekers there.
8:09
And that is something which Keir Starmer thought he might be onto
8:13
a winning ticket with Albania on.
8:15
But Albania said, no, we're not having yours.
8:17
We're just doing a deal with Italy, no other country.
8:21
They don't want to appear as a dumping ground.
8:24
They have their own country's image to think about.
8:25
They that was one of the arguments that came out from
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Albania. But there are other countries
8:30
and you get a strong sense that the exploratory talks are going
8:32
on a lot in the background, exploring that.
8:34
And these these camps, if you have a look at some of the
8:37
footage there, they've got air conditioning units on the side
8:40
of a very small room. So it it, it would feel a lot
8:45
like some sort of prison in a hot climate.
8:48
And it's not quite clear what happens to people once they've
8:50
arrived there. Well, you know, what is their
8:52
next destination? What's the path of their life
8:54
beyond this? But nonetheless, this is stuff
8:57
which at the top of government is being considered and
8:59
pondered. So yeah, one in, one out, not
9:03
looking like it's going to change the dial for Labour on
9:07
the politics of of illegal migration, but other areas are
9:11
being looked at and they're quite hard line some of them.
9:15
I mean, Darshner, part of the difficulty for all the
9:18
politicians presumably is that immigration, asylum, they've all
9:23
become inextricably linked with this idea that, you know, it's a
9:28
0 sum game with people who are struggling very specifically,
9:32
not just a broad working class, but the white working class.
9:35
I mean, what are you finding on the ground?
9:40
So here in the UK, what's interesting is that it has
9:43
become one of the most defining and divisive issues of our
9:47
times, and small boats in particular.
9:50
They're just such a visual representation of this problem
9:54
and it does make people very angry.
9:56
So yesterday, for example, we looked at this report that the
10:00
Home Affairs Select Committee did about the amount of money
10:02
being spent on asylum. And if you are in a town and you
10:06
are struggling with the cost of living and you feel like you
10:09
can't get a point, an appointment at the doctor's
10:11
surgery and you feel that, you know, your kids school is
10:14
overcrowded. These things might not
10:16
necessarily be linked to asylum, but that link has been made in
10:19
certain narratives. And people are watching the
10:22
headlines. They're seeing the images of
10:23
these boats coming in. And then they're hearing that
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the amount of money that we're spending on asylum has gone up
10:29
from something like 4.5 billion, it has tripled now to £15
10:35
billion. And this is at a time when we're
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hearing that Rachel Reeves is struggling to balance the books,
10:40
that taxes might have to go up, that businesses might be hit.
10:44
So this is this is fuelling resentment when these things
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keep being linked and there are people out there who are angry
10:50
and they just see successive government, successive home
10:53
secretaries unable to get a grip on the situation.
10:57
But it's interesting, isn't it, that often that anger is
11:00
directed at asylum seekers and migrants rather?
11:04
I mean, you could reasonably be really furious at the government
11:07
for the terrible contracts that they've had on these asylum
11:10
seekers. You could be reasonably enraged
11:13
by the private companies making money.
11:15
But it's often this idea as, as I found myself, you know, in
11:20
parts of Middlesbrough where people will say they get
11:22
everything and we get nothing. So that is a huge issue and
11:26
that's what was so interesting about this Select Committee
11:28
report. The amount of profit that these
11:31
private companies are making doesn't get talked about.
11:35
And some of the terms of those contracts, I mean, there was a
11:38
lot of criticism yesterday because people were saying that
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when these contracts were set up, the civil servants
11:42
responsible for overseeing it didn't understand how private
11:45
contracts work. Within those contracts there are
11:48
no clauses, for example, no penalties for the companies if
11:52
they provide substandard accommodation.
11:54
And although we constantly hear this narrative that asylum
11:58
seekers are in plush hotels, that they are given free
12:00
housing, I've visited a lot of this housing all over the
12:04
country. I've been to a lot of these
12:06
hotels and some of the conditions are grim inside,
12:09
especially in some of the Hmos when they're dispersed from
12:13
hotels out in the into the communities.
12:16
Yes, they have got a roof over the head and they are given a
12:18
weekly allowance whilst their claim is heard.
12:21
But by no means are they living in luxury.
12:24
And I know that many people in government get frustrated at the
12:27
fact that they haven't been able to communicate this.
12:29
And the narrative is that people are, you know, living a life of
12:33
Riley, that they are living in luxury and that they aren't
12:37
working when actually they're not allowed to work.
12:39
That is a huge issue for many of these asylum seekers.
12:43
And that is a very real problem for the government isn't it,
12:46
That narrative, if you can't, you can Fact Check it all you
12:48
like and you can say to people they don't get iPhones, you
12:51
know, they're not living with big wide screen televisions,
12:55
perhaps they're living, as Darshana suggests, sometimes
12:57
quite grim existences. But at the same time, you know,
13:01
that narrative has taken hold, Gary.
13:02
And what does a Labour government do about it?
13:06
Yeah, they they try to reduce the salience of the issue
13:09
because I think at the top of Labour they feel that they can't
13:12
win an election if it is a immigration general election.
13:16
They can win an election if they have neutralized the issue, if
13:19
they've made people think there is real progress happening, if
13:22
they've taken small boats and these hotels off your television
13:27
screens, then they're in play and somehow they can crawl back
13:31
from the abysmal ratings that they have at the moment.
13:34
But if those issues and that anger is at the top of people's
13:37
minds, if it is the most salient issue come the next general
13:40
election, I think there are people at the top of the Labour
13:43
Party that think they might as well pack their bags and, and
13:46
not even turn up because it it could be very, very grim indeed.
13:51
It's interesting how they're trying to trying so many
13:54
different levers Labour to neutralize this issue.
13:58
And sometimes they do it with a little whiff of what you might
14:02
call opposition politics, not necessarily the most worked out
14:08
policy document in front of you, considering the many, many
14:12
officials that lurk in Whitehall and could Polish these things
14:16
up. Today we've been hearing about
14:19
barracks being used. When you probe a little about
14:21
how ready those plans are used for people who are currently in
14:26
hotels, fairly small number of them being talked about, two
14:29
areas being talked about. But when you probe, it doesn't
14:32
sound as though it's incredibly worked out.
14:34
And then of course we had another, we had a speech from
14:36
Keir Starmer just before the Labour Party conference when he
14:39
was talking about digital ID. And again, it didn't sound like
14:44
the thing was remotely worked out.
14:46
It has applications potentially across the whole realm of of
14:50
people's lives. But he, he was selling it in
14:53
some big way as part of the solution to illegal migration
14:58
and yet the thing hadn't been fully worked out.
15:01
So they are busy, they are shoving stuff out the door.
15:06
It isn't always, to mix my metaphors, fully cooked, But
15:12
yeah, they don't, they don't have a solution.
15:13
They're trying to put a lot of levers.
15:14
Remember the conventions, we haven't talked about those, the
15:18
ECHR, the Refugee Convention, They're interested in trying to
15:22
get changes to the way courts interpret those.
15:25
And they think they have allies in Europe to help on those
15:28
fronts as well. The sort of thing, though, that
15:30
Labour governments would never have counted in the past.
15:32
Now in play and and and you. Talk about them, them trying to,
15:36
to, to workout where they should be on this, You know, it is
15:40
their strategy. In the end, you say, to remove
15:42
the salience. Is it in a way to desperately
15:44
try to not talk about it? Because a big part of the
15:47
problem, you know, we saw Keir Starmer with his Islands of
15:50
Strangers speech, which many of his own MP said had echoes of
15:54
Enoch Powell. And he was forced to say that he
15:56
he was sorry about the use of that language.
15:59
You then had a sort of about turn with him calling reform
16:03
plans to end indefinite leave to remain racist.
16:06
And politicians don't generally like to to be as definitive as
16:11
that. It's it's hard to see where
16:14
Labour sit compared to the much more definitive position, say of
16:18
reform and now a resurgent Green Party.
16:21
It's very. Interesting those moments you
16:23
talked about there on Keir Starmer's journey on this issue,
16:26
the Island of Strangers speech. I remember sitting under under
16:31
his nose as he delivered it and asking him afterwards.
16:34
You know that that that didn't sound like you, but he delivered
16:37
nonetheless, recanted of it later.
16:39
And then when he came off the stage after that speech you've
16:42
just referred to at the Labour Party conference when he attacks
16:46
reform, he said to someone in the wings as he came off the
16:51
stage, that was me. I felt what he was saying was I,
16:54
I felt good about that. Most people are too young to
16:57
remember Mike Yard, an impressionist who would say, and
16:59
this is me at the end of all his impressions and pull off an
17:02
imaginary mask. He, he clearly felt that he was
17:04
saying something that was true to himself that he felt
17:06
comfortable with. Certainly the case watching his
17:09
party in the hall at Liverpool, that they felt comfortable with
17:13
it. They were basking in it and
17:15
applauding it. They loved the fact that he was
17:17
actually going for reform rather than, as he sometimes can sound,
17:22
some people aping them. Whether this all means there's
17:26
an absolute shift in Labour policy, well, you know, he just
17:30
constructed an entire reshuffle around trying to get Shabana
17:35
Mahmoud in as home secretary and moved a lot of other pieces on
17:39
his chess board to make that happen.
17:41
And he was doing that because she represents a harder line
17:45
approach and might just implement some of those policies
17:48
I was talking about a moment ago, which go way, way outside
17:52
Labour's conventional comfort zone.
17:54
So which is the real key? We still, I mean, he's, he's
17:56
still sort of mid Mike Yarwood. He's, we're not really quite
18:00
sure where he's going with this, but he was definitely more
18:03
comfortable singing that song at party conference.
18:08
I'm definitely old enough to remember who Mike Yarwood is,
18:10
even if nobody else is Darshna. I mean, on the ground, I know
18:14
it's very difficult, but on the ground, you know, the government
18:18
may hope to to take the air out of the balloon if you like.
18:23
Reformer, not going to want to do that on the ground.
18:26
The communities that you talk to, do you think immigration
18:30
will remain a really, really difficult, important issue for
18:35
them? I think it will at the minute,
18:38
as long as we keep seeing the images of those boats coming
18:41
over, as long as we keep hearing about Home Office chaos.
18:45
I mean, whilst we were filming in Paris on Friday, you couldn't
18:50
make it up. That's when we got news about
18:53
the immigrant sex offender from the Bell Hotel being
18:55
accidentally released. I mean, it was like some sort of
18:58
farce. As soon as we, you know, these
19:00
kind of stories just keep it up there and they just add to this
19:05
impression of incompetence. And I've spoken to a lot of
19:08
people who have said the Tories couldn't get a grip of it.
19:11
Now Labour can't get a grip of it.
19:13
We might as well try reform. People who wouldn't necessarily
19:16
vote for reform or say that they don't agree with for reform on
19:20
all of their policies now feel that they might be the only ones
19:24
or they they should be given a chance because everybody else
19:27
has tried but failed. And, you know, there are all
19:30
sorts of people who feel that sometimes we as journalists give
19:33
it too much prominence and we're feeding that narrative.
19:36
And there's, you know, but in that climate, it is in the
19:39
headlines every single day. It is a talking point.
19:42
And as long as people are making that link, that is a worry for
19:46
the government. As Gary said, I mean in.
19:48
In a sense, what, what this debate has become in, in in many
19:52
parts of the country has been very focused around, you know,
19:56
what maybe 10 years ago would have been defined as a broad
20:00
working classes. Now very specifically, many
20:02
people would say for specific reasons being defined as white
20:05
working class and what they are not getting and what they are
20:08
losing out on. And that is a, an area of
20:11
problem for the government, isn't it?
20:13
It's a. It's a.
20:13
It's a huge problem and, and they're very focused on it
20:16
inside #10 I think they think there's a section of the what we
20:22
might call white working class vote that they picked up in, in
20:28
the last general election which is lost to them forever.
20:31
Which is much, which is, which has moved from the Conservatives
20:34
temporarily used Labour as a tool with which to get the
20:37
Tories out and has now hopped away from a very long hop over
20:42
to Reform, not coming back. There are others who are more
20:45
biddable, who are similar but not as strident in their views
20:51
and maybe not as despairing, maybe not as utterly
20:54
pessimistic. And Labour thinks if they can
20:56
neutralize this issue, bring bring the election back to
20:59
issues like public services where they Labour don't think
21:03
Nigel Farage is as strong, that there's a chance of pulling back
21:06
that segment of votes and Arshan 1.
21:08
Of the other things that perhaps is a consequence of, of where
21:12
this debate has gone, you know, people talk about it as a toxic
21:15
debate in, in, in many parts of the country.
21:17
People say that, you know, talking about valid concerns.
21:21
There's a, there's a very thin line sometimes between that and
21:24
out and out racism. And I just wonder, you know what
21:27
again you're seeing from your reporting on the ground.
21:29
It's an interesting. Debate isn't it because often
21:33
when I travel to different areas, people will start
21:36
speaking to me and they will always say I'm not racist.
21:40
Before you've even started the conversation or before you've
21:43
even asked them about their views or anything.
21:45
People, there is a perception that talking about this will be
21:50
will somehow earn you the label of being a racist.
21:53
And you know, we hear it from politicians all of the time.
21:57
Nigel Farage has made a big thing about this.
21:59
There was the issue with Sarah poaching talking about
22:01
advertising. And it was interesting.
22:04
Gary was saying about Keir Starmer feeling comfortable now
22:07
taking on reforms. It's interesting how quickly W
22:10
Streeting came out at the weekend and used the R word.
22:12
He actually used racism when he was talking about this.
22:14
So it's one of those interesting things that people feel very
22:18
uncomfortable. And I think still talking about
22:20
it and the politics around it has been very, very toxic.
22:23
It's tied up with things like the issue of the flags, how
22:26
black and Asian people are made to feel at the minute, that
22:28
whole debate about whether it is patriotism or whether it's an
22:31
obvious symbol that brings back memories of the 70s and 80s and
22:35
the National Front and so on. So it is a very difficult, toxic
22:38
debate at the moment, not helped by social media, some of the
22:42
influence of people from America that we're seeing playing out
22:45
here. It is just a very, very toxic
22:47
time. And people feel that some of the
22:51
language and some of the way that we speak to each other
22:54
about it has just become very, very difficult.
22:56
And Gary, just. To finish, I mean if as you've
22:58
talked about, you know, they hope to take the salience out of
23:01
this, this subject, how likely is that it's all very.
23:06
Well, for Labour to say they want to reduce the salience of
23:10
immigration and get people talking about cost of living and
23:12
public services, but they they haven't got a great tune to
23:15
whistle yet on those two. And that is one of the reasons
23:19
why Labour is in such a miserable place in the polls and
23:23
staring potentially at horrible results next May.
23:27
So yeah, they have to get that side of things working.
23:31
That's their avowed intent. But so far it's not producing
23:36
many goods. And of course, we have the
23:38
budget coming up at the end of November, which might just make
23:43
life even more difficult for quite a few people.
23:45
Gary Gibbon. Darsh Nasani, both of you,
23:46
thanks very much for talking to me today.
23:48
That is it for this episode of The Forecast.
23:51
Until next time, goodbye.