After a week in in which both Conservatives and Labour have competed to outbid each other in inhumanity and sheer nastiness towards immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees, the Liberal Democrat policy makes heartening reading. Here are a few extracts from our 2024 Manifesto:
The UK has a proud history of welcoming newcomers – whether people seeking to build their lives here, or refugees fleeing war and persecution. People from all over the world have greatly enriched our economy, our culture and our communities.
Liberal Democrats are fighting for a fair, effective immigration system that treats everyone with dignity and respect.
We will:
- End the Conservatives’ Hostile Environment and invest instead in officers, training and technology to tackle smuggling, trafficking and modern slavery.
- Lift the ban on asylum seekers working if they have been waiting for a decision for more than three months, enabling them to support themselves, integrate in their communities and contribute to the economy.
- Exempt NHS and care staff from the £1,000-a-year Immigration Skills Charge, and reverse the Conservatives’ ban on care workers bringing partners and children.
- Reduce the fee for registering a child as a British citizen from £1,214 to the cost of administration.
- Overhaul the Immigration Rules to make them simpler, clearer and fairer, and ensure greater parliamentary scrutiny of future changes.
There’s plenty more good stuff, but you need to go to page 87 of our manifesto to find it.
And from a later section:
We shall:
-
- Champion the Human Rights Act and resist any attempts to weaken or repeal it.
Not apologise for it but “Champion”! (a lovely Yorkshire expression of approval).
Thank God for the Liberal Democrats, prepared to espouse British values (though actually they are not uniquely British, but Universal). It makes me proud to be a member.
Personally I’m glad to live in a country where people want to come to, rather than escape from. I like to list how immigrants and the children (and now possibly the grandchildren) of immigrants, enable and enhance my lifestyle. They deliver my morning paper, drill, fill and maintain what’s left of my teeth, cut my hair, clean my car, dispense my prescriptions, and provide about two thirds of my treatment on the NHS, the organist and about half the choir (and until recently the vicar) of the church I attend, two of my favourite restaurants, and probably much more besides. Grateful thanks to them all.
It is very important that as a party we not only stand up for our values, but make sure the electorate know what they are. Britain voted to leave the EU at least in part because those of us who believed in it were too timid to stand up for it, an too supine to join in with the” nay-sayers” in blaming it for issues the hostile media persuaded the electorate not to like.
We must not make the same mistake on immigration. It is a difficult challenge. On a recent post on LDV, William Wallace admitted that calling for the tax increase we so obviously need to repair our public realm could be political suicide. Given the hostile media and the futile approach of the Labour and Tory parties in trying to outbid Reform, being out and proud about immigration is an equally difficult tight-rope on which to walk.
But we need to boldly have a go..
* Peter Wrigley is a member of Spen Valley Liberal Democrats and blogs as keynesianliberal.blogspot.com
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17 Comments
This would be electoral suicide, unless it is coupled with effective and strict enforcement against those who come to the country illegally, overstay their visas, or whom have been denied asylum and refuse to leave. Such enforcement would need to include detention and forcible deportation of people who don’t want to leave the country.
Without effective enforcement including detention and deportation, you have a de-facto open door policy, which is electoral poison.
Slamdac and others like him have been brainwashed for years by the poison dripped into their ears by racists. When we did have an open door policy, people came to the UK when there was work and didn’t when there wasn’t. But let’s be clear. The issue isn’t immigration per se it is about race and what people can see. The right and their rhetoric is about non-white immigration. Small boats, although clearly undesirable, contribute only a very small proportion of so-called illegal immigrants.
Let’s face it, kowtowing to racists will not win us any votes. If we abandon principles to get votes we are not worth voting for.
Safe legal routes are the only answer, not increasing racist oppression. Labour has form on this and we must not follow them.
It’s a defacto open door policy , something the British public won’t accept.
There has been significant demographic changes in many towns, & voters are rightly asking how many more.
We have record immigration & yet a stagnant low productivity economy. It’s not sustainable, and labour are finally realising that. Our public services are creaking , our housing waiting lists have ballooned , private rents soaring , GP services over proscribed the list is endless .
You only need to look at the issues Germany and Sweden are facing to realise that everything is not as harminous as it’s made out ..
@Mick: I totally agree with @Slamdac, so can I presume that you are telling me that I have been brainwashed by racists?
No. Let’s be clear. It’s is nothing to do with race or people’s skin colour.
The simple issue is that, while letting anyone move to whatever country they like is a lovely ideal, in practice there is a limit to quickly any country to build infrastructure to accommodate large population increases, or to how quickly any community can adapt to a large influx of new people – especially people who have different values. I’d suggest it’s very obvious to pretty much everyone in the UK apart from – it seems, some of the political activists in the the LibDems/Greens/SNP, that we have long surpassed that level: Immigration is unsustainably high and we need to get it down – which is going to involve some tough choices. It’s not wanting to be nasty to immigrants: It’s about trying to get immigration levels to be sustainable.
In the end we can try to understand that, listen to voters’ concerns, and and seek a constructive way forward. Or we can keep repeating offensive and untrue smears such as brainwashed … by racists or The issue isn’t immigration per se it is about race, and as a result watch the voters we are insulting flee to the arms Reform.
When Labour and the Conservatives are as one in matters relating to immigration it would be poltical self-harm not to challenge them.
If you stopped immigration, which you could apart form a relatively small number of refugees/ asylum seekers, the NHS, social care, agriculture, and the universities would all suffer greatly. If people understood that lower immigration means less NHS care, would they still be so enthusiastic about stopping it? How about if it meant several universities going bust, with all the jobs – both at lecturer and cleaner levels – disappearing?
The immigration allowed under both C & T governments is more than 1% of the Uk population. Is that ok?
The strange aspect is that the UK functioned relatively better, in terms of getting houses built, labour intensive industries, much bigger numbers in the armed forces, NHS with spare beds and rehabilitaion units in hospitals etc, when the population level was around 50-60m and that included what at that time was considered high immigration levels. That seems to me to be a size of population that the country land mass and infrastructure can sustain. I don’t know where productivity levels in the economy werre in those days, but as that wasn’t headline news, I suspct much higher productivity (Ignoring endless stikes in British Leyland).
Then in more recenttimes, the Blair/Brown govt. achieved GDP growth largely by increasing the population for more VAT activity plus cheaper goods from China.
The will be a balance in the immigration equation related to the size of the nation and its infrastructure. In a world where almost everyone has some form of identity with them to be able to operate in the online economy then we should be able to accept a national system to ensure that all are employed, getting a living wage and paying taxes within the law.
Putting aside the moral imperative, which is of course important, we seem to be ignoring the fact that indigenous populations in Western Europe are ageing rapidly. We need immigration to ensure an adequate work force to not only meet the needs of the ageing population but also provide innovation, entrepreneurial enthusiasm and resilience that immigrants bring. Fortunately, the Malthusian view of a country’s “natural” capacity has been largely discredited by industrialisation and technological efficiencies.
The extreme right are calling on more babies from the indigenous population but that is to deny the right of choice that we believe in so highly.
Immigration came up frequently on the doorstep at last year’s GE. I told voters that we had a great policy – stop this awful divisive and hateful rhetoric, treat people fairly, make it easier for refugees to apply for legal immigration from Europe, and allow people to work…
I also reminded voters that most immigrants were legal migrants, and most of the small boat migrants were found to have valid claims.
I also talked about the mistake in our policy – the failure to talk about a deterrent – this has to be an essential component of the mix.
Not one voter took issue with my modified version of Lib Dem policy….
Most people recognise Farage as charlatan and fraud – but unless we recognise that some of his points make good sense, too many voters will regard us as fools….
Peter Wrigley is right to emphasise Liberal principles and values rather than pretend the party can compete in short-temr sloganising. He might well have added to his list of benefits of immigration the crucial support through taxation to his and my pension, given the ageing of the UK population.
The key point is that maintaining Liberal principles on this and other issues brings into the party principled individuals who are likely to become activists and candidates. It is these people who go out and win votes. Winning elections is a two stage operation: attract and sign up those who will be drawn in by princioles and will then go on to win votes. The desperate state of the party in around half the constituencies is because we lack the driven individuals who are committed to the cause. You cannot baptise the electorate with a hosepipe. Without a core Liberal vote the party will always be at risk of the prevailing political wind and many of the 72 Liberal Democrat seats will disappear.
Thank you all for your comments. I am a little disappointed that so many of them concentrate on the alleged problems associated with immigration rather than adopt the more upbeat tone of our manifesto. I believe the Tories and Labour are on a hiding to nothing by trying to out-bid Farage in nastiness (people who think that way will vote for “the real thing”) and our coat-tailing the “big two” would just be seen as pathetic weakness. I recognise that right-wing sentiments have powerful support from the media, and we have to take people with us, but there is no point in our having a good story to tell if we don’t let people know what it is.
Keith; How many is too many ? Slogans like as many as we need is all well and good as we’ve had record immigration at unprecedented levels coupled with an economy that’s been stagnating for a considerable time.
The pressures on services are immense, & ultimately immigrants get old as well .
Across Europe a push back has begun, & discontent is growing. Incidents in Germany and beyond have been ignored by mainstream politicians for too long – that vacuum is now being filled .
@Craig Levene
“Slogans like as many as we need is all well and good as we’ve had record immigration at unprecedented levels coupled with an economy that’s been stagnating for a considerable time.”
We’re sometimes told the population is declining. Also aging. While some of the older people who have left the workforce might be able to rejoin it that’s unlikely to apply to all of them. Many/most will need retraining and not all will be able to do that. And as has been pointed out in the media some of these people are out of the conventional workforce because they are caring for other relatives.
So who is going to do all the work?
@ Mick Taylor
“Slamdac and others like him have been brainwashed for years by the poison dripped into their ears by racists. When we did have an open door policy, people came to the UK when there was work and didn’t when there wasn’t.”
So the non-open door policy tha has prevailnce 1997? Is the reason why the UK has been experiencing unsustainable and record levels of immigration? …
Only a madman would want more immigration, when it is clear we are struggling to accommodate those already here.
@Ellyott – a 50~60M population is only sustainable with a high level of imports. With climate change, resource scarcity etc. a population of circa 35M is probably more realistic. However, given the perfect storm, we really need to achieve a sustainable population level before 2050, and probably by 2040….
Basically, the UK needs a couple of decades with zero to negative immigration.
Interesting article in the Guardian, that all Liberals would do well to read and take heed.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/feb/19/leftwing-activists-less-likely-work-political-rivals-other-uk-groups-study
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/feb/19/leftwing-activists-less-likely-work-political-rivals-other-uk-groups-study
“In particular this report finds that a tendency to impose purity tests on those they will campaign with, overestimating how many people share their views, and using language that is inaccessible to the wider public is potentially driving a backlash against progressive causes rather than helping them to win people over.
“If the liberal left are going to get back on the front foot it will require a much more deliberate approach to meeting people where they are, and engaging with the old-fashioned work of persuasion, rather than expecting people to be on board with social change from the outset.”
@Peter: That’s the way of things: you publish an article and the people who reply are mostly the people who disagree with it 🙂
I think it’s a mistake to equate, wanting lower immigration, with ‘nastiness’: It usually isn’t. The survey reported on by the article Slamdac links to strongly backs up that ‘progressive activists’ (a group that probably includes most LibDem activists) really misunderstand most people here. For example: “Of those who want to cut the numbers of immigrants coming to the UK, the primary reasons listed are increased pressure on public services and on the housing market. Yet Progressive Activists are more likely to say that anti-immigration concerns are expressions of racism” (followed by stats that show the discrepancy) – in other words, progressive activists falsely attribute racism to people. I’d argue failure by too many progressives to understand ordinary people’s views on issues like immigration is the main reason Reform are so popular.
Also you refer to ‘alleged problems associated with immigration‘. But shortage of housing and pressure on infrastructure due to the UK’s recent migration-led rapid population increase are not ‘alleged problems’ – they are real problems that we shouldn’t be brushing under the carpet. That’s not to say there aren’t real benefits to immigration too: Most things in politics entail a mixture of pros and cons. But it’s not realistic keep talking about the benefits while ignoring the disbenefits.