Cameron plays the immigration card
From Owen Jones (April 14):
David Cameron is playing with fire, and he knows it. A much spun speech … dominates the headlines and the BBC’s UK news site as he attacks Labour “not delivering” on immigration that he promises to “cut back”. There are huge numbers of people without secure, full-time work in Britain, and an election is looming. Out comes that old Conservative trump card: scapegoating immigrants.
Ever since the advent of the mass franchise, when the Tories realised they couldn’t win elections simply by being a political gravy train for the rich, foreigner-bashing has been a staple of Conservative electioneering. It’s a technique that stretches back to 1904 when they introduced the restrictive Aliens Bill, tapping into the then-growing backlash against Irish and Jewish immigrants.
“For too long, immigration has been too high,” Cameron says to party members today. Mass immigration has led to “discomfort and disjointedness” in neighbourhoods because immigrants aren’t integrating. As accusations of gutter politics fly, he will undoubtedly protest that he praises the contributions of immigrants, but this well-trained PR man knows how the right-wing press will present it (“Cameron: migration threatens our way of life,” says The Telegraph, describing his speech as “his most forthright on the issue”) and – above all – this is about timing as the Tories prepare for a drubbing in next month’s local elections.
Read the rest here.
