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Immigration mythology and Labour’s dilemma

The rapid spread of the folk tale about England shirts being banned (or not, as it turns out, as we learned yesterday) is intriguing to watch - and it has a bearing on why politicians are so worried about immigration.

How does advice from some cops in Croydon, for pubs to consider dress codes and the possible barring of people in football tops (not England tops, but football tops) become WE CAN'T WEAR ENGLAND SHIRTS IN OUR OWN COUNTRY BECAUSE IT OFFENDS PEOPLE IN BURKAS, BUT WE CAN'T TELL THEM WHAT TO WEAR BECAUSE OF POLITICALCORRECTNESS(GONEMAD)?

We've seen so many tales down the years. When people are told, for example, that you can't buy bent bananas because of the EU, or that people have been banned from flying flags for fear of upsetting minorities, or Baa Baa Black Sheep has been banned for fear of upsetting Muslims, or Winterval has been created because people didn't want to upset immigrants, or you can't use a hammer without a crash helmet because of health and safety, or you're told that immigrants have taken ALL OUR JOBS (and they go straight to the front of the housing queue), or that Romanians stole a man's house, but no-one could do anything about it because of political correctness... and so on and so on... then that becomes the defining structure of our popular mythology, whether it's a newspaper doing the storytelling round the campfire for us or some bloke down the pub. It doesn't matter. We know what the stories are and how they work.

I don't want to get too Claude Levi-Strauss about this, but you can boil a lot of these Littlejohnian "Youcouldn'tmakeitup" stories down to their ingredients and see how they are made up, and how the narrative works. It usually goes a bit like this. Some villain (the PC Brigade, the EU, a liberal judge, the health and safety Stasi, diversity Nazis etc) has decided that unfairness must happen contrary to natural justice and common sense  (you can't get the job you've applied for and are entitled to, you can't buy bendy bananas, a criminal should be given a free telly and sent on holiday to Disneyland, you can't use Pritt Stick without fire-proof gloves and a hi-vis jacket, we must call Christmas Winterval so that Muslims aren't upset) and there's nothing we can do about it (Labour created the Yuman Rites Act, Ted Heath signed our rights away, the liberal intelligentsia are dominating all our institutions, red tape is beloved by our Jobsworth culture, we bend over backwards for immigrants even though they're the ones who are trying to bomb us).

So when confronted with the truth of the England shirt story, it doesn't quite work. Not yet. But it presses some hot buttons straight away, appealing to people's sense of national pride, patriotism and excitement about the forthcoming World Cup and England's chances in it - how dare they say we can't wear our shirts? So forget PC Plod sending round a memo - PC Plod becomes the PC Brigade. Cops aren't as good a villain as the faceless strawman; and what's even better is that no-one can deny it, because there isn't an official spokesperson for the 'Diversity Nazis'. Forget, also, it being about keeping rival club fans apart when gathered together to get drunk and be surrounded by lots of glass at an occasion on which huge disappointment and dramatic anger could be brought about (what on earth could possibly go wrong there?) - it must be because it might offend minorities. We have the villain going against natural justice and common sense, and there's nothing we can do about it - well because it's not true; but that can become, for the purposes of the anger-mongering tale, the idea that we can't do anything because it's just been decided, and there's no-one to complain to, and we should just get angry (how? at whom? I don't know, let's just get angry!) to stop it from becoming reality.

The 'England shirt ban' story works and has become so popular because it fits the narrative arc that people have learned from reading story after story about race, asylum and immigration through the years - stories which haven't always been challenged as effectively as they might have been, particularly by the politicians who were in the best position to do so. When did a politician challenge myths about asylum seekers stealing houses from locals? And why didn't they? So much easier to ignore those difficult questions about why there aren't enough social housing units to go around, why people can't get the jobs they want, why people are trapped in cycles of near-poverty, why people can't get jobs because the prevailing economic paradigms of the day say that full employment is a distant reality, why the banks failed even though they were backed to the hilt by all political parties.

That failure to challenge these assumptions led to people accepting the myths as fact; that meant that immigration became a bigger issue during the election campaign than it really ought to have been on merit; that has now led to many defeated Labour wound-lickers claiming that it was 'arriving late to the party' on (anti) immigration that meant they were fighting a losing battle with voters. Again, if you're in a tight spot, blame immigration. It's a stance that has left a lot of people on the left frustrated and despairing about why Labour are doing this, and understandably so.

New Labour are trying to create a myth themselves - one in which it wasn't their illiberal policies through the years, the wars, the authoritarianism, the desire to imprison people without trial for 90 days, then 42, then 28, the collusion in torture, which turned off voters. No, they weren't tough enough on immigrants, which meant they weren't trusted enough, and when they did finally do exactly what the screamsheets like the Mail and Express had demanded, and brought in attack-dog Phil Woolas to bark like Derek Beackon, it was too little too late. Gordon Brown got harangued by a not-bigot who asked "Where have all these Eastern Europeans come from?" and looked bad for calling a bigot a bigot.

But I don't think that's the case at all. I think New Labour's pandering to immigration mythology, and subsequent attempts to create a myth of their own, are damaging in two ways. Firstly, they're still not challenging the anti-immigration narratives. Is it really the case that people can't get council houses because of immigrants, for example, or are there other factors they'd prefer not to talk about - but should - including a chronic lack of supply at local and national level? Is it true that resources are stretched by immigration, or are they stretched for other reasons? What kind of dialogue does Labour really want with the grassroots - an honest one, or one in which they seek to stigmatise one over-stigmatised section of the community?

Did the immigration policy really matter that much? 'Bigotgate' might have given everyone a tremendous titter, but as one poll that the Sun decided not to publish showed, it may not have had as huge an effect as some people would like us to believe. Are people right to worry about immigration, and if they're not, what should Labour do? Go along with them anyway, because it's easier? Throw up their hands and admit that the tabloids will always push an anti-immigration agenda? Or challenge the lies and the myths? The thing is, Phil Woolas's policies and the points system were for nothing. Labour was already seen as a soft touch, whether it's true or not, and that's how it stayed.

As Mark Easton wrote this week, it's already the case that some sectors can't find the skilled workers they need because of the points system that New Labour brought in. That's before the Coalition's immigration cap comes in. Easy to say that 'indigenous' workers on the dole should fill the gap; not so easy to get people trained up into skilled roles, move home to do so, and find the money to pay for it. But that's what we're left with, because the shouting voices of prejudice have won the argument. Anti-immigration is the only show in town.

All the stories - both in the papers and from 'a friend of a friend' like the Facebook tale - have produced a patchwork narrative in which time after time we're told that immigrants are siphoning off benefits despite contributing very little, that 'we' taxpayers have got to fund it, and no-one can do anything about this except bend over backwards. It gets people angry, which is why, when they hear they're getting their national team's shirts banned, it must be something to do with immigrants, who are on benefits... and so on, and so on.

If Labour doesn't want to challenge these myths, fine. If it wants to think that it lost the election because it wasn't tough enough on immigration, fine. But they'll have a pretty stinging smack in the face coming when they have a re-brand with added Woolas-style dogwhistles but don't get anywhere. They had the chance to challenge the myths, but instead they're making myths of their own. And that's a massive mistake.