The Labour Party could have made the case for a humane immigration system that treats refugees with dignity. Instead it has fanned the flames of racism and emboldened the far right.
The Labour Party could have made the case for a humane immigration system that treats refugees with dignity. Instead it has fanned the flames of racism and emboldened the far right.
As long as they keep seeing x number of immigrants arriving each day, they’ll keep voting far right. They just want them to stop, I think they’ve been clear on that. They want a party who says what they want to hear (I doubt Reform would be able to do anything about it).
I think the reason why asylum seekers aren’t allowed to work is because the stay is supposed to be strictly temporary. They’re supposed to return home when things are safe. Letting them work would probably make it less likely they’re going to return home if they start settling. I can’t see that being a popular policy as they’ll see it making the UK more inviting (either way it’s the wrong move as they’ll just complain they’re on benefits).
Again, my point isn’t that addressing issues related to immigration would make bigoted people not bigoted; it’s that doing so would curb the far right’s ability to expand. By delivering material gains for the working class and leading by example, it’s possible to inoculate the wider electorate against the far right (and the right in general). Immigrants are only one scapegoat in a long line of scapegoats; the real mechanism behind the spread of rightwing ideas is that they provide something to scapegoat for people’s (very real) troubles. Put another way, Hitler didn’t need immigrants.