Abbott: Fear of migration like Germany before WW2

DIANE Abbott last night compared Britons concerned about mass immigration to Germans in the years before the Nazis came to power.

In a major speech, labour’s shadow home secretary drew a parallel between the debate about migration today and the days of the Weimar republic.

Weimar-era Germany, which immediately preceded hitler’s ascent to power, lasted from 1919 to 1933.

The latter days of the period saw rising anti-Semitism as Jews were blamed by the Nazis and their allies for the country’s economic collapse.

Miss Abbott’s comments about Weimar Germany were not contained in a version of her speech distributed by labour officials. National newspapers including the Daily Mail were not invited to attend the speech.

But a transcript shows that she said: ‘historically such as in the period of the Weimar republic in Germany between the wars, economic collapse has always led to scapegoating ‘the other’.

‘That is what we’re seeing in this heightened debate around immigration since 2008.

‘But finally in the era of Brexit and Trump, immigration has taken an unprecedented salience.’

In her speech to King’s College london’s policy institute, Miss Abbott also suggested that the last labour government, which threw open Britain’s borders to people from new eU member states, was too tough on immigration.

‘To kill another urban myth, labour has never had an open-door policy on immigration,’ she said.

‘We have restricted immigration. Much of the legislation which I read out to you was passed under a labour government, and some of our attempts to restrict immigration were neither particularly humane nor particularly sensible.’

She also suggested that some poli- ticians who are critics of mass migration are racist.

‘One of the issues around immigration in some political quarters is that immigration is a euphemism for race, and you can’t have a serious debate around immigration unless you are prepared to face up to that,’ she told her audience.

The shadow home secretary said labour would adopt a policy of allowing unaccompanied child refugees who arrive in Britain to bring their parents or carers into the country.

The policy has raised fears it would become a charter for child trafficking and encourage smuggling.

Miss Abbott also indicated there was no point having tough border policies because politicians are incapable of controlling numbers.

And she confirmed labour would scrap the Government’s target of reducing immigration to the tens of thousands. ‘We do not have an immigration target like the Tories. The truth is, politicians can only do a relatively limited amount to control the movement of people,’ she said.

The politician said there would be a ‘values-based’ approach to immigration under labour.

She said her party would give eU citizens who arrived in the UK during the Brexit transition period – likely to last until the end of 2020 – the same rights as those who came to Britain beforehand.

last night Conservative Party chairman Brandon lewis said Miss Abbott’s remarks showed how ‘out of touch’ labour had become on immigration. he said: ‘Today labour have confirmed they have no interest in controlling immigration.

‘As made clear in this speech, labour continue to turn their nose up at people who want to see immigration levels controlled.

‘Only the Conservatives are working to build an immigration system where we continue to attract the brightest and the best while controlling numbers, so we can build a stronger economy and deliver public services which we can all rely on.’

‘Scapegoating others’