People who want to become British citizens could speed it up by becoming active members of political parties and trade unions, under government plans.

(source: bbc news online)

Non-EU immigrants – the only immigrants that the Government has any power over are a source of revenue (the fees charged at each step are repulsive in their rapacity, says Devil’s Kitchen), a source of headlines – a collective punching bag for Labour to demonstrate how tough they are and how completely unnecessary it is to vote for the BNP and now, it seems, a handy source of party funding.

Now I could get into a philosophical debate with Labour at this point – explain to them that by pandering to the BNP they’re admitting that the BNP have a bit of a point, and that they do, in fact, have to do something about it. Ah, well, I’ve started so I may as well continue:

They’re trapped. Having conceded the point that there’s something wrong with immigrants and that something ‘must be done’ they are now incapable of defining when enough is enough. It doesn’t logically stop if the number of non-EU immigrants reduces to zero – if immigrants are a strain and a burden then we need to then think about revoking British passports and doing a bit of deporting, don’t we? There’s no reason to automatically assume this will happen, but the logic of the argument in favour of the Government’s current policy does not define these announcements as the final solution, but rather a step along a particular path that, history tells us, doesn’t end well.

Back in 2005, on the single issue of immigration, I would rather have seen Labour win than the Tories. I feel strongly about not treating immigrants any differently to people born here – but then I’m not a Nationalist – I’m a Free Trader. My mistake was in assuming that Labour wouldn’t engage in this sort of thing. Silly, silly me. Fooled again!

This misdirection towards immigrants deflects attention away from the difficult question that Labour won’t touch: What do we do to be able to accommodate everyone that wants to come and work here?

If it’s true that our tectonic planning system, massive regulatory framework and overly ‘generous’ public services are preventing this country coping with growth then this is a big problem for our country, isn’t it? This points to Bad Government, because all these things sit within their domain. They’re ultimately responsible, and rather than accept their failure they’re choosing to blame the demand rather than accept fault for acting as a barrier to supply.

One idealistic alternative for Labour might be taxing people more to cope with the increase in demand: “You’re making us pay for all these immigrants? I’m telling the BNP on you!” They can’t use that option.

Another option looks even worse for them: If the public services as they’re currently structured can’t cope with the demand then let’s scale back what public services are supposed to supply, so that what each person ‘gets’ is reasonable, affordable, sustainable and so on. Try telling a Labour voter that you’re cutting his incapacity benefit so that you can afford to give incapacity benefit to all the immigrants that need it and you’re going to get a swift, “I’m telling the BNP on you!” to that too.

Stamping on the immigrants then seems the obvious politically convenient choice for a Government desperately trying to avoid becoming even more unpopular whilst, at the same time, cutting off any possible opportunity to be described as ‘soft on immigration.’ What’s troubling me is that I think they may well have calculated correctly, and there’s no pesky kids around to stop them ‘getting away with it’.

Of course even if they turn their ideas into law, they’re doomed to failure – having made the case that they needed to accurately quantify the number of immigrants in order to plan public services and infrastructure better – they’ll be expected to deliver once they have it. Nothing to hide behind at that point, at which point the only logical response will be to make immigration even harder. The reason the policy has failed is because immigration isn’t hard enough, they’ll tell us, and two parties will get into a bidding war over who can be ‘toughest.’

Heads they win. Tails you lose.