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Can we create a ‘Progressive Immigration Policy’?

Over 150 people crammed into committee room 9 last night for a lively and informed debate on migration. The meeting was chaired by the country’s leading social policy commentator Polly Toynbee. The debate first heard from the Minister for Immigration, Liam Byrne who set out the reasons why he believes the policies being implemented by Labour are “firm but fair”.

Byrne drew on his own heritage as the decendent of a migrant family coming to work in the UK. Forwarding a “work hard and play by the rules” argument Bryne drew on the economic arguments for a progressive immigration policy and even touched on the moral ones. However, when it came to answering a question on what the differences were between Tory and New Labour policies Bryne did seem to struggle.

Byrne was followed by an impassioned speech by Don Flynn of the Migrants’ Rights Network, and editor of the Compass publication, Towards a Progressive Immigration Policy, who set out a critical view of the government’s record and called on the government ‘to stop moving the goal posts’, strongly urging that the government put social justice at the heart of policy, in order for its rhetoric to live up to the reality.
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