UK Labour Party whips up anti-immigrant sentiment

[Lord Beria3]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/08 ... p-a19.html

Britain’s Labour Party has staked its political fortunes on an overtly anti-immigrant campaign for “British jobs for British workers.”

Shadow Minister for Borders and Immigration Chris Bryant gave a speech last Monday in which he derided “the negative effects migration can have on the UK labour market.”

Trailing his speech in the previous day’s Sunday Telegraph, Bryant singled out “unscrupulous employers whose only interest seems to be finding labour as cheaply as possible, will recruit workers in large numbers in low wage countries in the EU, bring them to the UK, charge the costs of their travel and their substandard accommodation against their wages and still not even meet the national minimum wage.”

Labour is naturally opposed to increasing the wages of all workers, immigrants included. Bryant’s mistake was that, whereas the ruling elite back anti-immigrant rhetoric as a means to divert attention from their own responsibility for the growing economic crisis, they do not want this to cut across the necessary flow of immigrant labour into the country that is indeed used to continually lower wages and conditions, setting new benchmarks for all workers.

A Times editorial, “Labour Pains—An ill-informed attack on big companies’ recruitment of foreign workers backfires”, described Bryant’s speech as “bad economics couched in inflammatory terms”. The speech was a “failure to acknowledge that labour from overseas can improve the efficiency of the economy”, it warned.

Bryant is a former Conservative Party member and an elected officeholder in the Oxford University Conservative Association. He made his speech after a number of backbench Labour MPs had complained that during the last weeks, party leader Ed Miliband had failed to put forward any coherent policies.

Labour is being told to jump by the ruling class—on imposing austerity and in whipping up anti-immigrant sentiment to create a scapegoat for the impact of savage cuts. Its response on both issues is to ask, “How high?”

By the planned 2015 general election, the intention is there will be no distinguishable differences between the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour.

Miliband’s leadership has already been marked by a pronounced rightward shift. He is a supporter of the “Blue Labour” tendency, which promotes anti-immigrant chauvinism, support for the free market and condemnation of what remains of Britain’s welfare state. Leading the party’s ongoing policy review, ahead of the general election, is Jon Cruddas, a founding member of Blue Labour.

The bit in bold is key... no differences between the three main parties. Anybody who votes Labour on this forum in the thinking that Labour are 'progressive' has to be their massively deluded or plain stupid.

[JohnB]

The bit in bold is key... no differences between the three main parties. Anybody who votes Labour on this forum in the thinking that Labour are 'progressive' has to be their massively deluded or plain stupid.

I have never, ever voted Labour, and can't see that I ever will.

I have to admit that I used to vote Tory, until I saw the light, but that was a long time ago

[Pepperman]

Shouldn't the headline read "Individual within the UK Labour Party comes up with some ill thought out remarks that aren't really backed up by the party"?

I certainly see no evidence for Labour staking their political fortunes on an overtly anti-immigrant campaign.

[woodburner]

It's typical of LB3's posts, usually free of substance. I'm surprised it wasn't prefaced with "....an excellent article...." or similar. Just need some onions to go with it.