It is a sobering thought that this country might have two Conservative women prime ministers before there is a single one of another party. Today Theresa May made her pitch, and here is some of the reaction.
Theresa May: 'No case, in the national interest, for immigration we have experienced over the last decade' https://t.co/paiL41OJLz
— Sky News (@SkyNews) October 6, 2015
This particular point was pre-rebutted some time ago here. Immigration appears to have a positive effect on wages where labour markets are flexible and a negative one where they are inflexible. The UK sits, only just on the positive side of this line. See also the Telegraph here.
Pretty clear that a Conservative party led by Theresa May would be properly Conservative, not v.hospitable for liberals
— Isabel Hardman (@IsabelHardman) October 6, 2015
May talking about overstayers when she attacked uni lobbyists. No direct mention of overseas students in net migrant count. Significant?
— John Morgan (@JMorganTHE) October 6, 2015
Overseas students are a major source of income for our universities and our country, and allow us to be a more effective beacon for liberal values in the world. Keeping them coming, in defiance of the Conservative push against immigration in total, was a major battleground in the coalition.
Dan Hodges, notionally a Labour supporter, writes in the Telegraph, almost always attacking Labour from the right.
Is Theresa May the Home Secretary or has she just appointed herself the Migrant Finder General. What the hell is this speech?
— Dan Hodges (@DPJHodges) October 6, 2015
If Theresa May is Tory leader in 2020 I'm voting for Jeremy Corbyn.
— Dan Hodges (@DPJHodges) October 6, 2015
Earlier Tim Farron said
What destroys cohesive society more than anything is whipping up fear and mistrust. David Cameron and Theresa May are encouraging division and hatred, encouraging a society that blames all its problems on those on the outside.
We must end this Conservative obsession with denigrating immigrants, which pitches community against community. Britain is socially, culturally and economically richer for our outward looking, tolerant approach. We unashamedly welcome the contribution immigrants make to our country.
* Joe Otten was the candidate for Sheffield Heeley in June 2017 and Doncaster North in December 2019 and is a councillor in Sheffield.
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29 Comments
At last! Thank you. Finally something about the Tories. Theresa May is making a pitch to be the right wing candidate for leadership of the party. It’s the most right wing speech I have heard in a long while. she made it almost entirely about migrants, even though she has failed to meet her own targets by a long way.
When the Telegraph is finding a Tory speech inaccurate and misleading, then you know that they are in trouble. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11913927/Theresa-Mays-immigration-speech-is-dangerous-and-factually-wrong.html
Not quite sure what is happening to the Tories right now. Boris and maybe Osborne trying to make a one nation pitch, Theresa May going hard on migration. What do Tory members want exactly? It isn’t clear to me.
As for those progressives who are pro-immigration, they have to start talking about population, resources, infrastructure and services. Sticking their hands in their ears and saying diversity is good for us won’t get anywhere.
A horrendous speech from a horrendous Home Secretary.
@FrankBooth – Yes, agree.
So according to Theresa May high levels of immigration make building a cohesive society impossible. Not challenging or hard work or difficult but impossible. Therefore is Theresa May is correct the United States, Australia and Singapore cannot be cohesive societies. Should she not be concerned that our defences are structured around a military alliance whose most dominant member, the United States, is not [in her analysis] a cohesive society.
Once again May refuses to consider removing international students from immigration figures. The Tories will completely finish off the international education sector in the UK if they continue down this route – it used to be worth £7bn a year, not that long ago – and the most depressing thing is that it’s not that they don’t realise this, or that they think it’s a desirable outcome, but rather than they care more about perceived public opinion of the Tory Party than the actual health of UK industry. Short-termist, intellectually empty, populist nonsense. I’m not surprised: it’s their entire raison d’etre.
Her speech was disgusting, she is simply a xenophobe who has been kept in the cabinet to try to stop more defections to UKIP.
Sending foreign students home after they complete their studies is moronic. We should be reintroducing the post-study work visa, not shipping bright, skilled people out of our country. It harms our competitiveness, both for business and universities, and prevents our manufacturing industry and our economy from growing. The restrictions on spousal visas for those British people with non-EU spouses is breaking families apart and has put a income requirement on love.
Theresa May would make Thatcher look like a cuddly panda. I’ll do a Sugar and move to China if she becomes PM.
@Richard – You should add Turkey, Greece and Hungary among others to your list…
Perhaps those who like to live in la la land, haven’t really got their heads around the numbers of people now on the move out of the Middle East and Africa and heading towards the EU have massively increased in recent years. So perhaps the problem isn’t so much what has gone on in the past, although it does have an impact, but what is just over the horizon…
Although, I’ve not read or heard the entire speech, I think fundamentally she is trying to communicate a few home truths that many woolly thinkers don’t want to face up to.
The Tories are trying hard (and succeeding) at linking a reputation for economic competence and trying to extract the UK from the outside world – immigration, the European Union (ish), the Human Rights Act.
There is clear space for a liberal line pointing out how immigration benefits the UK economically and how our future prosperity flows directly from our engagement with the outside world. Tim speaks enthusiastically on immigration and how immigrants benefit our society, but I wonder if we should be more specific on the economics. Philippe Legrain’s book on immigrants is a must read for anyone planning on crafting a message on immigration.
she is pitching for the membership vote in a leadership election. If she is one of the two selected then the anti-EU anti immigration candidate is going to appeal to the membership.
Just who has been Home Secretary for the last 6 years responsible for bring immigrant numbers down? Answers to Jeremy Corbyn and Tim Farron on a post card, please.
An obviously unpleasant speech, but I’m thinking it won’t have even been tactically good.
She may appeal to some of those who have defected from the Tories but surely most will think that was too far and I assume they will worry that she will make them look worse.
Stoking fear is one thing but if you have done so with an in accurate speech and not long after having failed by your own measure. I can see it was a pitch for the Tory leader job bit that can’t have helped her chances, surely.
I think it’s interesting how low key the response to ministerial speakers has been at the Tory conference. It’s been really quite quiet.
I agree with David Blake…for a party which has just won an election and outright majority, there is something akin to apathy at the conference.I havent watched it all, who the heck could, but it appears the Mps are trying to get the audience interested by standing in applause but noone else seems to care. One thing which is clear when Business minister attacked Vince Cable, the business press were less tha supportive. see i.’ newspaper.
It is becoming clear that slowly but inexorably the Tories as they move further right are beginning to lose thinking people, sorry Phyllis , but the only thing which will save them is,war in the Labour Party,those that hate Corbyn need to bite their tongues for a while longer.
IT’S NOT JUST TERESA…………
There’s gratuitous advice for those losing tax credits from Jeremy Hunt….( 4th Cousin of the Queen and according to the Independent, one of the Cabinet rich list with a £17m sale of company” Andrew Grice @IndyPolitics Friday 8 November 2013). Yet, Osborne and Duncan-Smith’s assault on tax credits will leave more than three million families £1,300 a year worse off,
Jeremy, (Daily Mirror yesterday) , got confused in the train loo, pulling the emergency cord instead of flushing.
Yet on arrival in Manchester he felt qualified to say “Are we going to be a country which is prepared to work hard in the way that Asian economies are prepared to work hard, in the way that Americans are prepared to work hard? And that is about creating a culture where work is at the heart of our success. Hunt also suggested that those reliant on tax credits and benefits lacked self-respect. “Dignity is not just about how much money you have got … officially, children are growing up in poverty if there is an income in that family of less than £16,500. What the Conservatives say is how that £16,500 is earned matters. It matters if you are earning that yourself, because if you are earning it yourself you are independent and that is the first step towards self-respect. If that £16,500 is either a high proportion or entirely through the benefit system you are trapped. It is about pathways to work, pathways to independence … It is about creating a pathway to independence, self-respect and dignity.”
How on earth our Liberal Ministers ever stomached working with that lot I don’t know…….” Never again”, would be my advice.
Tory $cum sums it up for me.
The self-righteousness of people whose policy on immigration is every bit as unpopular as Theresa May’s is something to behold.
People don’t think it is a good thing that there is a lot of instability and mass migrations. They also don’t think it is a good thing for the UK’s population to keep increasing at this level. People don’t just want to build millions of houses and tarmac over the countryside.
Nothing wrong with being pro immigration, but be careful when strongly morally judging others.
Teresa May should have heeded her own advice and stopped the Tories being the Nasty Party. Unfortunately they just can’t help themselves – when the going gets tough the Tories get nasty.
Eddie, millions of Brits live abroad, where according to you, they are ruining the foreign coyntryside. Thats okay though presumeably?. May doesnt have a policy. She has consistently said one thing and done another, for 6 years, which for a Home Secretary is almost a record breaking tenure. There is only one reason why May has gone Alf Garnett and that is she is trying to differentiate herself from Osborne to keep her leadership hopes alive. If she really felt like this about immigrants she’d be out of the Tories and in to UKIP faster than you can say “economic migrant”. Its completely cynical and dishonest to cut border agency staff and say you will reduce immigration. Politics is not merely about making populist noises, May has real influence. Unfortunately she is out of her depth.
Bob Sayer “… sorry Phyllis , but the only thing which will save them is,war in the Labour Party,those that hate Corbyn need to bite their tongues for a while longer.”
Hey no need to apologise to me, Bob! I agree with you. Not least because it’s the Tories who are in power wreaking havoc on poor people. I’d be more than happy for people to criticise Labour (or even Lib Dems) if they actually had any power.
Alistair, no I don’t, I hope to move to France and I still don’t want relaxed borders and the UK loving the EU. I want fair rules. As a whole the public in this country and in France are against mass immigration, so I am pro toughening up the rules.
Just because I want toughened up rules doesn’t mean I am against immigration.
Ah Eddie, tough but fair rules, the magical combination that is so hard to pin down. Next you’ll be explaining how a Brit abroad is not an immigrant but rather an expat. Bottom line, if you dont want UK population growth there are two simple ways to ensure it. 1. Leave the EU. 2. Make the UK an economic basket case rather than a relatively successful economy. Possibly the Tories will achieve both, then your troublesome mass immigration will melt away.
Alistair, no, there is a third option: reform EU migration laws. We have already seen Schengen pretty much collapse and rather than states taking unilateral action we need a proper EU wide reform.
The OECD in a report published last year says “An increase of 50% in net migration of the foreign-born generates less than one tenth of a percentage-point variation in productivity growth”.
So where’s this great economic benefit that everyone is supposed to get from mass immigration?
Martin Wolf at the FT also says: “the benefits of migration (mass) are questionable”:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/509c8f5a-65c3-11e5-a28b-50226830d644.html#axzz3npkXcIBU
Reaction to the Tory Conference convinces me that we now have three or four completely different parties – gone are the days when our posters asked “which twin is the Tory ?”
We mustn’t delude ourselves that both Labour and Conservatives share our D.N.A. – they clearly don’t – from the extreme right to the Corbyn left we are distinctive parties.The Liberal hour – at least, the opportunity – is here.
It is time for Liberals to come home to their natural party – those who share our revulsion at Tory and UKIP stances or want a realistic progressive party within a federal UK. Our door is wide open.
Absolutely disgusting and “red meat for the blue rinses” in the most opportunistic, baying mob-pleasing fashion which can be imagined. I had some respect for her guts and determination before, but that is now completely gone (not, I am sure, that she could give a four X in precisely the same way as the mob applauding her could give a proverbial for the actual facts to do with immigration or not. If some facts in the latter regard are required, the “Guardian” went through the point she alleged one and one and showed them up for what they really are (including a report last year from her own office!): http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/06/reality-check-is-theresa-may-right-about-immigration. The plain truth, however, is that, with the Tories now feeling bold enough to applaud such rubbish as this and Labour off to play 1980s-style student politics, there is currently no centre ground political force in British politics to take them on and inject some sanity into these debates. (Mind you, with the EU Referendum on the way, in the words of Mr Al Jolson, “You ain’t seen nothing yet, folks!”)
Charles Rothwell 7th Oct ’15 – 10:27am…………….. Labour off to play 1980s-style student politics, there is currently no centre ground political force in British politics to take them on and inject some sanity into these debates
A lot of Corbyn’s, so called, ‘leftie nonsense’ was LibDem policy until very recently…
Caron Lindsay (hardly a loony leftie) described Corbyn’s presentation as “A speech full of LibDem ideas”…
I suggest we make up our minds whether to look at Corbyn’s policies with an analytical eye or repeat ‘ad nauseam’ the Mail/Sun headlines….
I am still shocked by her xenophobic and disgusting speech, where she clearly does not understand, or want to, the facts. It is moral bullying of the defenceless who came to the UK to seek sanctuary.
The moral blackmail of those working to help people seeking sanctuary it a step even further. saying that those helping with appeals etc are stopping “genuine” people in the refugee camps coming here is sickening.
Anyone who has been inititally refused leave to remain has the right to appeal, and that fact that around 30% of appeals are won shows how shockingly bad initial decisions are, by TMs department. It is ok for them to keep on appealing against the ruling that Detention Fast Track is Illegal which caused the Government embarrassment and inconvenience. But not alright for an asylum seeker fearing persecution, torture and death the appeal against leave to remain ?
I blame the Angles, Saxons & Jutes