Has the earth moved?

Over the last weekend of the campaign, overshadowed by the murder of Jo Cox MP, the campaign got very ugly, almost exclusively focused on immigration. Within the Labour Party, there are still people arguing that we need to listen to UKIP's voters, and talking about immigration isn't racist. When we examine the numbers and causes of immigration, I come to the conclusion that Corbyn is right and that the answer to any supposed competitive threat on jobs, housing, schools and wages is other than "controlling immigration". Furthermore, I don't think immigration can be controlled! It's based on demand.

The long term work on the benefits of EU membership and the benefits of an open economy have not been done. One can't start from UKIP's position; and this doesn't even address the fact that the bulk of immigration is firstly overseas students, and secondly from outside the EU. I said this, which is a repeat of the arguments,

Below is an article, by Robert Ford who is Professor of Political Science at Manchester University and co-author of Revolt on the Right, he repeats the arguments that there is a social strata, the "Left Behind" i.e. left behind by globalisation who are moving to UKIP, due to New Labour's support for globalisation and the growing dichotomy between the Party membership, its representatives and themselves. New Labour's appeal to middle England at the expense of its core vote, leading to 3m of them not voting Labour in 2001, possibly the shortest political suicide note in history was the start point of this alienation. They learnt to stop voting Labour.

Anyway Ford suggests considering candidate selection and a return/rejuvenation of local politics; possibly pursuing an English devolution agenda. He doesn't consider the issues of centralised cuts and budgets, nor really any help on the growing issue of the dichotomy of values between Labour's membership and UKIPs growing support base. You can't oppose racism and pander to it.

Stepping back from Labour's factional battles, where "winning elections" has become a dog whistle attack on Jeremy Corbyn's leadership and its supporters, this will take some thought and generosity. I have been crudely asking how racist Labour's new realists want to be. Less crudely, if Labour's voters are on a journey away from solidarity and socialism, how far should Labour follow them?

A different and similar approach is put by Paul Cotterill who develops his theories and presents an action plan, self criticism and polemics are not enough, we need to rebuild the instruments of organisation. Interestingly, he doesn't start with the Unions or the Party, but from other parts of civic society, the Unions might be a better start point.

Image Credit: @flickr CC Martin Luff 2010 BY-SA 2.0, cropped and cached