Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The immigration arms race

Who is tougher on immigration? Neither the Tories nor Labour want to be left behind by Ukip, and have descended into an arms race over who can best crack down on EU migration. Today Ed Miliband’s party launched a two-pronged attack on the subject, with Yvette Cooper speaking in the morning about her plans to hire 1,000 additional border guards by imposing a charge on visitors from certain countries including the US, and Rachel Reeves announcing plans for a clampdown on EU migrants claiming out-of-work benefits.

Amusingly, Reeves gave her policy to the MailOnline as an exclusive, just a few days after Ed Miliband spoke about dark forces out to get the Labour party. Those ‘dark forces’ can be pretty handy when they’re read by swing voters…

The immigration debate between the mainstream parties can now be summarised thus: 1. No-one talks about immigration and so it’s time we talked about immigration.

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