Alan Johnson: Labour has made mistakes on immigration
Alan Travis writes in The Guardian about a speech by the Home Secretary in which he tries to link eBorders and ID cards to immigration:
Johnson, making his first major speech on immigration, at the Royal Society of Arts, insisted however that Labour had not pursued an “open-door” policy and had been the first government to introduce a system which tracked who had arrived in the country and who had left.
The home secretary also made a strong defence of the use of surveillance powers, control orders and the Prevent programme to tackle violent extremism. He strongly hinted that the government’s proposals, which are expected shortly, to reform the use of Ripa (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act) surveillance powers will stop local authorities using them for “trivial” reasons such as spying on people putting their rubbish out on the wrong day or letting their dogs foul the streets.
The home secretary said any rational debate on immigration had to recognise that there were communities disproportionately affected by immigration, where people had legitimate concerns about the strain that the growth in the local population had placed on jobs and services.
It also had to recognise that the immigration problems faced by Britain were not unique and that it was reasonable to expect that new migrants should learn the language, obey the laws and pay their taxes.
“Whilst I accept that governments of both persuasions, including this one, have been maladroit in their handling of this issue, I do believe that the UK is now far more successful at tackling immigration than most of its European and North American neighbours,” he said, citing policies including the introduction of biometric visas, ID cards for foreign nationals and dealing with new asylum applications within six months, including returning failed applicants.
An MP3 of the speech, entitled “Security in the 21st Century: Global, National, Local.”, will shortly be available here.
