The deep instinct that Britain’s immigration debate still ignores

The issue of immigration won’t go away, because it threatens the soul of the nation.

Nobody in political authority uses such language today, because they are unsure of the validity of ‘soul’ and of the political safety of the term ‘nation’. They will use the term ‘we’ in the context of Britain and its people, but would surely dodge defining it. Try as he might this election year, neither Cameron nor Miliband can do anything to persuade anxious voters they care about immigration, because they don’t use language which reaches the soul.

No one else does either, not even Nigel Farage — it just won’t do. Yet only this abandoned language will work if the issue is to be faced up to and the electorate is to hear it and believe it.

Half a century ago — in 1964 — I stood for Parliament, more or less for the hell of it since I was already fully employed as a journalist.