British Future is working on a new initiative this year, together with Frank Sharry, one of the US’s leading immigration strategists, examining the lessons from America for Keir Starmer and other European leaders who need to challenge populism and hold the centre ground on immigration. An event today in Westminster heard some initial insights from Frank on what the Democrats got wrong (and right) on immigration in the Presidential campaign, with responses from Cristabel Cooper, Director of Research at Labour Together, and Southport MP Patrick Hurley. The event was Chaired by British Future Director Sunder Katwala.
Frank Sharry, who has spent 30 years leading US immigration reform and migrant rights organisations, discussed what a challenging time it had been “for those of us who care about immigration and asylum” in the US, when immigration had been the number one issue for voters who chose Trump. That most Americans felt that Trump was closer to their views than Harris felt “inconceivable”, he said, given what he called the “performative cruelty” of Trump’s plans for mass deportations. He stressed the need to understand why this happened and to learn from it – with one factor being that “Americans thought the choice was between an ‘open borders Democrat’ and a ‘tough as nails Republican’.”
A key lesson, said Sharry, is that “You have to lean in” on an important issue like immigration, when it’s something voters really care about. “The Biden team got it wrong,” he said: “They vacated the theatre of debate.” For months there were record numbers of people arriving at the border, with footage on TV screens and pictures in the press, but this was effectively met with silence from a Biden campaign that wanted to talk about other issues. Ceding the narrative turf in this way to the right meant this was badged as “Biden’s border crisis”.
In the end, said Sharry, the Biden Administration did get the policy right – reducing irregular border crossings to below the level under Trump’s first presidency. That took a combination of tough enforcement at the border to crack down on irregular arrivals, combined with a series of generous regular migration programmes to which people could apply. That combination, he said, undermined the people smugglers’ business model. The third and very important aspect of this approach he added, was cross-border cooperation with source and transit countries, which became a key aspect of the government’s diplomatic efforts. “The myth that populists want to spread is that immigration starts at our borders,” he said. “But it doesn’t. You have to engage with neighbouring countries and sources of immigration if you want to manage it.”
It was a blend of control and compassion that meant the policy worked, said Sharry, but you have to have both. “If you get on the wrong side of control, you never get to compassion,” he said. But the big problem for the Biden-Harris campaign was that their successful policy solution came too late. The narrative had stuck. Their earlier silence meant that failure to control irregular border crossings had been “tattooed” on the Democrats by their opponents.
Cristabel Cooper of Labour Together looked at the options for centre-right governments in how they engage with the issue of immigration.
“You can’t try to follow the populist right on immigration policy because they will always outflank you,” she said – citing the example of the defeated Conservatives, whose unkept promised on immigration cost them the trust of the public. So minimising immigration as an issue, and talking about other topics, is tempting. “There’s an assumption that the centre-left is always going to lose on immigration,” she said. “Some of the post-election narrative was that we didn’t ignore it enough.”
A third option is to frame immigration as a positive – an approach that chimes with the values and instincts of the centre-left. The challenge, in a climate of rising public concern about immigration numbers and asylum, is that this can be a hard sell to voters. So a more effective approach is one that blends control and compassion, both as narrative and policy, she said. “People need to feel that the government has control over who can come to the UK.”
Patrick Hurley MP agreed that responding to populism is challenging for mainstream politicians. “Populism will never be satiated,” he said. “You can’t compete on their terrain”. This was even more true now than in the past, with technology aiding the rapid dissemination of populist messages. Labour needs to stay focused on its mission, he said, and not follow others down the dead-end of populism. “We need to defend, in ordinary language, the work that we are doing,” he added.
Frank Sharry recognised the size of the challenge for the Starmer. How his government handles small boat arrivals is going to have an impact on how voters perceive its effectiveness, out of proportion to the relatively small number of people who are actually crossing the channel.
“I know how hard it is to get it right,” he said. “You’ve got the get the policy right, and get the politics and the narrative right.” The UK can learn from the mistakes of the centre-left in the US, and from their successes too in finding a way through on irregular migration so that the right to seek asylum is still protected. “If we don’t mend it,” he said, “The populists are going to end it.”
Sunder Katwala closed the event with thanks to the panel and audience. British Future will be holding more comparative migration exchange events this year, he said, working with Frank Sharry, to understand how to get the political and policy challenges of immigration right in the UK, Europe and the US.
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