‘Intellectual laziness’ — that’s how Chris Bryant described the left’s bashing of the Tories’ tough stance on immigration. The shadow immigration minister spoke this evening of his ambition to shape a new immigration policy for Labour in the role he personally requested from Ed Miliband:
‘By the next general election, I want to build a coalition of the rational on immigration. Last time, immigration hurt our vote…we failed to explain our policy. It’s not racist to say that talking about immigration is the most important political matter we face’
In his quest for a new rational policy, Bryant presented two key messages for Labour activists to take to the doorstep in 2015. Firstly, the party needs to stress that ‘foreigners are human’. Bryant retold a tale from his days as a curate — regarding a black woman being vilified on her first visit to his church — to highlight the need to tackle racism that is still sometimes found in British society. The
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