Labour made a 'spectacular mistake' on immigration, admits Jack Straw

PrestonAlPrestonAl Posts: 10,342
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10445585/Labour-made-a-spectacular-mistake-on-immigration-admits-Jack-Straw.html
Jack Straw has admitted that opening Britain's borders to Eastern European migrants was a "spectacular mistake".
The former Labour Home Secretary said his party's decision to allow migrants from Poland and Hungary to work in Britain from 2004 was a ‘"well-intentioned policy we messed up".

About time they fessed up to it. Everyone else in the country has known since they let all the polish in without regulating entry.
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Comments

  • jmclaughjmclaugh Posts: 63,988
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    I've no idea why he refers to it as 'well intentioned' other than it mitigates things and is an excuse. Perhaps he like to fess up to the fact Labour's entire immigration policy was a spectacular mistake while he's at it.
  • Rastus PiefaceRastus Pieface Posts: 4,382
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    stable door and horses spring to mind.

    this appears to be a half arsed apology from someone who did nothing to rectify the situation when in office.
  • hopeless casehopeless case Posts: 5,245
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    jmclaugh wrote: »
    I've no idea why he refers to it as 'well intentioned' other than it mitigates things and is an excuse. Perhaps he like to fess up to the fact Labour's entire immigration policy was a spectacular mistake while he's at it.

    Maybe the "well-intentioned" bit refers to wanting to help out his Islington mates who wanted cheap domestic help.
  • EnnerjeeEnnerjee Posts: 5,131
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    That admission should be an actionable offence.
  • RaferRafer Posts: 14,231
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    stable door and horses spring to mind.

    this appears to be a half arsed apology from someone who did nothing to rectify the situation when in office.

    Why should he do anything about it? It doesn't effect him negatively. His wage is protected as we can't hire polish mp's who are prepared to do the same job for less money. He also gets to add supporter of diversity and multiculturalism to his cv. Labour love that. Especially when it's detrimental to the man on the street.

    As for "red faces all round" I've never heard such patronising tripe in all my life. Smashing a cup in a restaurant, Finding yourself shouting in a quiet room because the music suddenly stops. These are red face incidents. Not causing the the greatest social upheaval since the Norman invasion, subjugating the population to permanently low wages and poor career prospects, overburdening the infrastructure and throwing the working man to the wolves. Then denying there's a problem while trying to smear anybody who objects as a racist, or deflecting the argument to illegal (of the non eu kind) immigration. Is a little bit more serious than "red faces".
  • mungobrushmungobrush Posts: 9,332
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    Ennerjee wrote: »
    That admission should be an actionable offence.

    Well its a good start.

    Now they should fess up to the housing crisis and the financial crisis and the budget deficit crisis then maybe they will get some credibility back
    And they can start to build some policies in which we can believe for a change.
  • paul2307paul2307 Posts: 8,079
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    Yet again Labour trying to distance themselves from the destruction they caused between 1997 - 2010 in the hope that people will be stupid enough to vote them in again
  • AnnsyreAnnsyre Posts: 109,469
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    PrestonAl wrote: »
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10445585/Labour-made-a-spectacular-mistake-on-immigration-admits-Jack-Straw.html


    About time they fessed up to it. Everyone else in the country has known since they let all the polish in without regulating entry.

    What happened? Did he fall flat on his face into a puddle of the bl**ding obvious?
  • MariesamMariesam Posts: 3,797
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    Surely there should be an investigation into why they underestimated the numbers by a couple of million....Labour normally calls for said things virtually every week or did so until Falkirk...where i doubt they will have the nerve to ask for an investigation into anything again.....its the do as we say not as we do politics that i cant stand....

    The thing is what happened during those years is having such a large impact now with hour public services we are paying the price for a open door policy that wasnt planned for and our public services are still creaking trying to catch up now.....so all these complaints about nhs and school shortages they should hold their hands up and take at least partial blame for them...let alone the housing crisis.....

    But if politicians arent held to account over Iraq i wont hold my breath over this......Labout love investigations if its to with plebgate (intially anyway) but far more serious issues of wars and mass immigration which effects us all they soon like to forget about those massive issues....which we are paying for now financially....
  • Rastus PiefaceRastus Pieface Posts: 4,382
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    Rafer wrote: »
    Why should he do anything about it? It doesn't effect him negatively. His wage is protected as we can't hire polish mp's who are prepared to do the same job for less money. He also gets to add supporter of diversity and multiculturalism to his cv. Labour love that. Especially when it's detrimental to the man on the street.

    As for "red faces all round" I've never heard such patronising tripe in all my life. Smashing a cup in a restaurant, Finding yourself shouting in a quiet room because the music suddenly stops. These are red face incidents. Not causing the the greatest social upheaval since the Norman invasion, subjugating the population to permanently low wages and poor career prospects, overburdening the infrastructure and throwing the working man to the wolves. Then denying there's a problem while trying to smear anybody who objects as a racist, or deflecting the argument to illegal (of the non eu kind) immigration. Is a little bit more serious than "red faces".

    i agree with every word you've said. POTD so far.:D
  • angarrackangarrack Posts: 5,493
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    They've got some cheek.

    Ten years ago if anyone simply stated an opinion that immigration was too high they would be accused of being racist, a follower of Nick Griffin, a little Englander, or something intended to be equally offensive.

    Any attempt to introduce the topic on a BBC current affairs programme would be quickly deflected as being taboo. It got that people avoided mentioning the word. Debates would skirt round the offending topic even when it was clearly an ingredient in what was being discussed.

    Now they are all jumping on the bandwagon. You can't shut them up about immigration. Even the biggest culprits for the out of control muddle that developed are busy apologising in the hope that history won't be too harsh on them. It wasn't really our fault, the figures were wrong.
  • PrestonAlPrestonAl Posts: 10,342
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    Mariesam wrote: »
    Surely there should be an investigation into why they underestimated the numbers by a couple of million....

    .

    The numbers they quoted where correct. However those figures where based on every other country in the EU opening their borders. From what I gather, it was only us who did and the rest kept limits on (as was there's and our rights to, if we so desired).

    So all the immigrants had one option, us.
  • paul2307paul2307 Posts: 8,079
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    PrestonAl wrote: »
    The numbers they quoted where correct. However those figures where based on every other country in the EU opening their borders. From what I gather, it was only us who did and the rest kept limits on (as was there's and our rights to, if we so desired).

    So all the immigrants had one option, us.

    You mean they guessed and then failed to take any action to limit the numbers that came in even though they had the right to impose limits , sounds about right for that bunch of clowns
  • JosquiusJosquius Posts: 1,514
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    He's schilling for the right wing vote.

    I disagree that it was a mistake. Back in the early 2000s the UK economy was booming. Many parts of the country were hovering around 0% on employment levels. Since people from other parts of the country weren't willing to move it just made since to get workers from elsewhere. In opening to the Eastern Europeans where the rest of Europe didn't Britain benefited.
    The article is kind of disingenuous in speaking of its scary 1 million arrivals. It fails to mention how many of those have since went home (the vast majority).
    For all the immigration problems there are eastern europeans really isn't one of them.
  • PrestonAlPrestonAl Posts: 10,342
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    Josquius wrote: »
    He's schilling for the right wing vote.

    I disagree that it was a mistake. Back in the early 2000s the UK economy was booming. Many parts of the country were hovering around 0% on employment levels. Since people from other parts of the country weren't willing to move it just made since to get workers from elsewhere. In opening to the Eastern Europeans where the rest of Europe didn't Britain benefited.
    The article is kind of disingenuous in speaking of its scary 1 million arrivals. It fails to mention how many of those have since went home (the vast majority).
    For all the immigration problems there are eastern europeans really isn't one of them.

    So allowing unrestricted immigration was not a mistake. It drove down wages and left us in the situation we are in today.
  • PrestonAlPrestonAl Posts: 10,342
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    paul2307 wrote: »
    You mean they guessed and then failed to take any action to limit the numbers that came in even though they had the right to impose limits , sounds about right for that bunch of clowns

    I couldn't have put it better myself. As the poster above said, we needed workers to drive our "growth". Easiest way is to bring in hundreds of thousands of cheap labour, drive down our wages and make us more competitive.

    Hell to those on low wages, we'll just give them more benefits...
  • blueisthecolourblueisthecolour Posts: 20,119
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    Josquius wrote: »
    He's schilling for the right wing vote.

    I disagree that it was a mistake. Back in the early 2000s the UK economy was booming. Many parts of the country were hovering around 0% on employment levels. Since people from other parts of the country weren't willing to move it just made since to get workers from elsewhere. In opening to the Eastern Europeans where the rest of Europe didn't Britain benefited.
    The article is kind of disingenuous in speaking of its scary 1 million arrivals. It fails to mention how many of those have since went home (the vast majority).
    For all the immigration problems there are eastern europeans really isn't one of them.

    I agree that allowing the population to rise suddenly without the corresponding improvements in infrastructure was a mistake. Labour wanted the best of both worlds of having a 'liberal' immigration policy which increased the supply of labour to UK industry without actually allocating resources to accommodate them. Throughout this period we should have be building entire new towns on a weekly basis.

    However personally I believe that in the long term this immigration will be a benefit to us. We have increased the size of our skilled workforce and helped to broaden UK society. I'm happy that I now share my town with Polish people, as well as Indian, pakistan, west indian and all the other groups that have emmigrated to Reading in the last 60 years. Ask India and China if increasing their population over the last few decades has ultimately helped or harm them?
  • Speak-SoftlySpeak-Softly Posts: 24,737
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    I agree that allowing the population to rise suddenly without the corresponding improvements in infrastructure was a mistake. Labour wanted the best of both worlds of having a 'liberal' immigration policy which increased the supply of labour to UK industry without actually allocating resources to accommodate them. Throughout this period we should have be building entire new towns on a weekly basis.

    However personally I believe that in the long term this immigration will be a benefit to us. We have increased the size of our skilled workforce and helped to broaden UK society. I'm happy that I now share my town with Polish people, as well as Indian, pakistan, west indian and all the other groups that have emmigrated to Reading in the last 60 years. Ask India and China if increasing their population over the last few decades has ultimately helped or harm them?

    Hasn't China had the one child policy in place for at least a couple of decades by now?

    And in the 70's they starved 35 million to death.

    I think perhaps China is a bad example of a country that sees the benefit of an expanding population.
  • jmclaughjmclaugh Posts: 63,988
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    I agree that allowing the population to rise suddenly without the corresponding improvements in infrastructure was a mistake. Labour wanted the best of both worlds of having a 'liberal' immigration policy which increased the supply of labour to UK industry without actually allocating resources to accommodate them. Throughout this period we should have be building entire new towns on a weekly basis.

    I fail to see why we should be building entire new towns each week to accomodate immigrants and nobody in this country was ever asked at the ballot box if they wanted large scale immigration.
    However personally I believe that in the long term this immigration will be a benefit to us. We have increased the size of our skilled workforce and helped to broaden UK society. Ask India and China if increasing their population over the last few decades has ultimately helped or harm them?

    The vast majority of immigration into the UK has been low skilled labour. Increased world population is a bigger problem than climate change.
  • trunkstertrunkster Posts: 14,468
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    PrestonAl wrote: »
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10445585/Labour-made-a-spectacular-mistake-on-immigration-admits-Jack-Straw.html


    About time they fessed up to it. Everyone else in the country has known since they let all the polish in without regulating entry.

    Well that's ok then, as long as he 'admits' it:rolleyes:
  • trunkstertrunkster Posts: 14,468
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    PrestonAl wrote: »
    So allowing unrestricted immigration was not a mistake. It drove down wages and left us in the situation we are in today.

    Exactly, I wish the 'all immigration is a benefit' brigade on here would get their stories straight. Either we're getting skilled or highly skilled migrants, or we're getting the dregs who'll work for a pittance on the black economy or for the absolute minimum minimum wage on the books.
  • hatpeghatpeg Posts: 3,213
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    He says this now, after he has decided not to stand as an MP in the next election.

    This news should be headlined:
    "Tales of the Bleedin' obvious".
  • paul2307paul2307 Posts: 8,079
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    trunkster wrote: »
    Exactly, I wish the 'all immigration is a benefit' brigade on here would get their stories straight. Either we're getting skilled or highly skilled migrants, or we're getting the dregs who'll work for a pittance on the black economy or for the absolute minimum minimum wage on the books.

    Its whichever version suits them at the time don't you know that :confused:
  • paulschapmanpaulschapman Posts: 35,536
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    PrestonAl wrote: »
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10445585/Labour-made-a-spectacular-mistake-on-immigration-admits-Jack-Straw.html


    About time they fessed up to it. Everyone else in the country has known since they let all the polish in without regulating entry.

    So when are they going to admit mistakes in non-EU immigration - such as the Shortage occupations lists and ICTs
  • Andy2Andy2 Posts: 11,942
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    Can anyone blame the British public for feeling resentful? We are now almost under siege from Asians, eastern Europeans etc and they are arriving in large numbers at a time when we are already suffering from shortages of housing, electricity, gas and health care. Not all of them are bad people of course, but enough to cause major problems. It's all very well Straw and Blunkett creeping out of the woodwork to slyly admit their 'mistake' now, but let us never forget which government it was that allowed this to happen and tried to pull the wool over our eyes while they did it.
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