We must be honest about immigration
Conservatives must do more to make the “positive case” for immigration, explaining to voters that migrants are good for Britain’s economy and public services, a Cabinet minister has said. Nicky Morgan, who is considering running for the Tory leadership, said politicians should “level with people” and tell them that immigration is an inevitable, and often beneficial, part of modern life.
Tories must not be “pushed around” by Nigel Farage, Mrs Morgan said, accusing the Ukip leader of “emboldening” racists and bigots with his EU referendum campaigning.
Mrs Morgan, the Education Secretary, who backed the Remain campaign, also suggested that Britain voted to leave because David Cameron and George Osborne talked too much about the “problems” of the EU and did not explain the benefits of EU membership.
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Mrs Morgan cast herself as the champion of centrist, modernising Conservatives, warning the party that it must “reach out” beyond its traditional base with arguments traditional Tories might find uncomfortable on issues like immigration and sex education in schools.
“We have to live in the world as it is, not as we would like it to be,” she said.
Mrs Morgan, a 43-year-old former corporate lawyer, won her marginal seat of Loughborough at the second attempt in 2010 and joined the Cabinet in 2014. Like many politicians, she says the referendum was decided by voters, many of them poor and northern, who felt “left behind” in a UK economy increasingly open to global competition and global trends such as immigration. While some Tory Leavers have questioned the move to a more open economy and attacked big businesses, Mrs Morgan insists that the Conservatives must see globalisation as a force for good.
How can the Conservatives persuade the “left behind” of that?
“It is about levelling with people. One consequence of globalisation that people look at is immigration,” she said, arguing that people with concerns about the issue should feel able to express those concerns freely.
“I have lost count of the number of people who start a conversation with ‘I am not a racist but’,” she said. “They feel their communities have changed and they don’t remember being asked to give permission for that.”
As well as recognising concerns about immigration, Conservatives should explain the benefits it brings, she said.
“In terms of the positive case we could explain much better the benefits that people who come here bring – they pay their taxes.
“We are part of an interconnected world. We have a proud tradition of giving refuge to people and inviting people over to work and man our essential services – there are 50,000 people from overseas working in our NHS. If you come across an immigrant in the NHS, they are more likely to be treating you than in front of you in the queue.”
Politicians’ failure to talk freely about the positive and negative aspects of immigration fuels social tension and racism, she said, referring to reports of racist incidents following the referendum.
“If you don’t talk about something, it festers and then it rears its ugly head several years down the line, which is what we are seeing now,” she said.
Suggesting that some level of immigration is an inevitable part of the modern world, she added: “The country is changing. It is the task of a government to lead that conversation and to say to people ‘this is what is happening, this is how we are dealing with it’, not to be pushed around by the likes of Nigel Farage.” Mrs Morgan, who is married with an eight-year-old son, said the Ukip leader bears some responsibility for racist incidents.
“There is a danger now, I see Farage, I see what has been unleashed, the incidents we are seeing, Polish centres daubed [with graffiti], people told to go home – that is not the country I want my son to grow up in.”
Is she directly linking Mr Farage’s rhetoric to racist abuse?
“The poster he unveiled, the breaking point poster - if you stir things up, then there will be consequences. It has emboldened people,” she replied.
Senior Conservatives from both the Leave and Remain camps have suggested that after Britain leaves the EU, it should still retain access to the European single market, even if that means accepting that EU citizens can still enter Britain largely without restrictions.
Mrs Morgan said such a deal would have to be “explained” to voters who were led by the Leave campaign to believe that leaving the EU would end European immigration.
“There are certain expectations that have been raised. Depending on the negotiation, things will have to be explained to the British people – free movement of people for instance. We were clear that if you’re going to continue having access to the single market, freedom of movement comes with that,” she said.
Ministers such as Jeremy Hunt have suggested that any new European deal should be put to the people in a second referendum or an early election, but Mrs Morgan rejected both.
“People elected a majority Conservative government in May 2015. There is no reason why that government should not serve for five years.
“We have delivered the referendum, we now have to deliver the leadership to provide the new terms of our relationship with the EU.”
Mrs Morgan also suggested that her work as Education Secretary is central to addressing the concerns of disaffected working-class voters. She believes that one reason they feel anger at politicians is their worry that “their children won’t do better than them in life”.
Reformed state schools are starting to deliver better results, she said, but the education system must do more to prepare children for the modern world, teaching “character and grit” as well as traditional knowledge.
State schools must also do more to equip children to deal with online life, including more explicit teaching about sex and online pornography.
“Some of my colleagues have been squeamish about this,” she said, a reference to Mr Cameron blocking her plan to make sex education compulsory.
However, she backs Mr Cameron’s suggestion earlier this year that the state should offer “parenting classes” to help families do a better job of raising their children. “Kids don’t come with a guidebook,” she said.