Thread by @KingBobIIV

🧵 I have spent days going back through old Labour governments, Labour manifestos, speeches and Hansard, because I wanted to know when it apparently became "far-right" to suggest that rapid population growth and mass immigration can put pressure on housing, wages, jobs and public services.

Unfortunately for modern Labour, old Labour left an enormous paper trail.

1/
1965, Harold Wilson's Labour government published its White Paper on Commonwealth immigration and openly acknowledged the problems caused by the concentration of immigration in areas "where there is already a housing shortage and pressure on the social services".

The problems were listed under four headings, housing, education, employment and health.

Labour understood sixty years ago that the poorest communities, where housing and services were already under pressure, would feel rapid demographic change first.

Source: UK Parliament/Hansard
Commonwealth Immigration debate, 2 August 1965

hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1965-0…

2/
The same 1965 Labour policy was not simply a discussion about integration, the government proposed reducing annual work permits from 20,800 to 8,500 and abolishing work permits for unskilled workers altogether, while simultaneously providing extra help in schools and communities affected by migration.

In other words, Labour believed you could treat immigrants decently, tackle discrimination and still recognise that numbers, concentration, housing and public-service capacity mattered.

Source: House of Commons Library
Immigration white papers, 1965–2025

researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-…

3/
By the Michael Foot era, Labour's 1983 manifesto explicitly stated, "We accept the need for immigration controls."

Foot's Labour opposed racial discrimination within the immigration system and wanted to repeal Conservative legislation, but it did not therefore conclude that immigration required no control at all, it argued for a different system of control.

That distinction seems to have become almost impossible to make in modern political debate.

Source: 1983 Labour manifesto
A New Hope for Britain, Labour manifesto 1983

labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/198…

4/
Tony Benn's position was different and I am not going to rewrite history to make him fit my argument, Benn opposed immigration controls as the solution, but his entire economic analysis was rooted in the power imbalance between capital and labour, and in the ability of capital to search the world for lower labour costs while ordinary workers lacked comparable power.

His answer was stronger unions and control of capital rather than immigration restrictions, but the question at the centre of his politics was always the same, who benefits economically and which class pays?

Source: Tony Benn interview
Tony Benn on labour, capital and the global economy

pbs.org/wgbh/commandin…

5/
In 1987, Labour's manifesto was still explicitly committed to a policy of "firm and fair immigration control", while also insisting that the law should not discriminate on grounds of race, colour or sex.

There was no intellectual contradiction, Labour could argue for equality before the law and firm immigration control in the same paragraph, because opposing racism did not require pretending a country had no right to control migration.

Source: 1987 Labour manifesto
Britain Will Win with Labour, manifesto 1987

labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/198…

6/
In 1997, Tony Blair's landslide manifesto could hardly have been clearer, "Every country must have firm control over immigration and Britain is no exception."

That was not a fringe movement trying to drag Labour to the right, it was written into the manifesto on which Tony Blair won 418 seats and the largest Labour majority in history.

Source: 1997 Labour manifesto
New Labour: Because Britain Deserves Better, manifesto 1997

labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/199…

7/
By 2001, Labour was welcoming workers with skills Britain "needed" while drawing a very clear distinction between selected economic migration and abuse of the asylum system, stating, "But asylum should not be an alternative route to immigration."

The principle was that Britain could welcome migration which met an identified need, enforce its rules, decide claims quickly and remove those who had no right to remain.

Source: 2001 Labour manifesto
Ambitions for Britain, Labour manifesto 2001

labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/200…

8/
In 2005, Blair's Labour government published a five-year immigration plan based on "strict controls that work", proposing a points-based system, phasing out low-skilled migration schemes, restricting permanent settlement largely to skilled workers, English-language requirements, fingerprinting visa applicants, migrant identification documents and increased removals.

This was a Labour government arguing that migration should be selected according to Britain's economic and social interests ONLY.

Source: UK Government archive
Controlling our borders: Making migration work for Britain, 2005

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c7415…

9/
Then, in 2007, Gordon Brown used the phrase "British jobs for British workers".

The slogan was controversial even then, but the political concern behind it was obvious, Labour knew its traditional voters were worried about employment, wages and the consequences of employers accessing a much larger labour market while British workers were told to accept stagnant wages and increasing competition.

Source: contemporary coverage of Brown's 2007 Labour conference speech

Gordon Brown and “British jobs for British workers”

theguardian.com/politics/2007/…

10/
In October 2008, Labour Immigration Minister Phil Woolas said something so extraordinary in hindsight that it deserves to be read in full:

"This Government isn't going to allow the population to go up to 70 million.

There has to be a balance between the number of people coming in and the number of people leaving."

A Labour Immigration Minister explicitly said his government would NOT ALLOW the British population to reach 70 million.

Source: Hansard
Immigration Controls debate, 21 October 2008

hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2008-1…

11/
This was not an invented quotation or a line retrospectively attributed to Woolas, his comments were reported contemporaneously in October 2008, when he also said that a cap on immigration would be needed if numbers rose above a certain point and that the points-based system could be changed.

The argument was explicitly about preventing Britain reaching 70 million.

70 million was seen as the maximum amount of people the UK could cope with before the infrastructure and services would collapse. This included water/sewage, healthcare, public transport and education.

The magic number. Go beyond that and the UK could descend in to chaos.

Source: The Guardian, 18 October 2008
Immigration minister calls for cap on newcomers

theguardian.com/politics/2008/…

12/
In 2009, Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson admitted Labour had made mistakes on immigration and acknowledged that some communities had "legitimate concerns about the strain on jobs and services".

This is the point modern Labour so often seems desperate to avoid, the pressure is not distributed equally, a wealthy household with private healthcare, private schooling and secure housing experiences population growth very differently from a family competing for affordable housing, low-paid work and overstretched local services.

Source: The Guardian, 2 November 2009

Alan Johnson: Labour has made mistakes on immigration

theguardian.com/politics/2009/…

13/
By 2009, official projections were warning that Britain's population was heading towards 70 million, and the debate was increasingly concerned with whether housing, water, energy, waste systems and infrastructure could keep pace with population growth.

The Environment Agency's own planning work was examining future water demand against population growth, because governments and infrastructure planners understood the rather obvious point that millions more people require millions more people's worth of water, sewage, housing and physical capacity.

Source: UK Government population and sustainability material
Demographic Change and the Environment

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c4f03…

14/
On 2 February 2010, just three months before the General Election, Labour Immigration Minister Phil Woolas told Parliament:

"The Government agree that a population of 70 million is not desirable."

There is no ambiguity in that sentence, the Labour government formally stated in Parliament that a population of 70 million was not desirable.

Some experts think we're now 10 or more million beyond that number.

Source: Hansard
Population and Immigration debate, 2 February 2010

hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2010-0…

15/
Then read Labour's actual 2010 General Election manifesto, because it explicitly said, "We understand people's concerns about immigration — about whether it will undermine their wages or job prospects, or put pressure on public services or housing — and we have acted."

Labour itself joined immigration to wages, job prospects, public services and housing, and the negative effevt this was having on the worling class, and the poorest towns and villages, in its General Election manifesto.

manifesto.deryn.co.uk/wp-content/upl…

16/
The same 2010 Labour manifesto promised to use an Australian-style points-based system to ensure that, as economic growth returned, Britain saw "rising employment and wages, not rising immigration".

That sentence is almost impossible to reconcile with the economic argument we have heard repeatedly in more recent years, that ever-higher immigration is necessary to produce economic growth.

Source: Labour Party manifesto 2010
A Future Fair for All, immigration section

manifesto.deryn.co.uk/wp-content/upl…

17/
In 2012, after Labour had lost the election, Ed Miliband gave a remarkable speech on immigration in which he admitted that Labour had been "too slow" to understand who benefited and who bore the costs of immigration, and he explicitly framed part of the argument around class.

His point was that immigration could make life easier for some people while making life harder for others, and Labour had failed to recognise that distributional divide.

Source: Ed Miliband immigration speech, June 2012

Ed Miliband outlines Labour's new approach to immigration

ein.org.uk/news/ippr-ed-m…

18/
Miliband then said, "The combination of immigration and an under-regulated labour market held wages down in hospitality, food processing and social care."

These were not highly paid City jobs, they were sectors employing large numbers of lower-paid workers, and the Labour leader was openly acknowledging that immigration, combined with weak labour protections, had held wages down.

Source: Ed Miliband immigration speech, 22 June 2012

ein.org.uk/news/ippr-ed-m…

19/
Miliband's argument went beyond wages, because he also acknowledged that Britain had opened its labour market to Eastern European migration too quickly and that the last Labour government had made mistakes.

Contemporary reporting summarised his admission plainly, Labour had allowed too many Eastern European migrants into Britain by lifting controls too early.

Source: The Guardian, 21 June 2012
Change rules on migrant workers, says Ed Miliband

theguardian.com/uk/2012/jun/21…

20/
Later in 2012, Miliband continued the argument, saying immigration had significant economic benefits, "but not when it is used to undercut workers already here and exploit people coming here".

This used to be an entirely recognisable Labour argument, employers should not be allowed to use an international supply of cheaper labour to weaken the bargaining position of workers already living here.

Source: Ed Miliband Labour conference speech, 2012
Ed Miliband's conference speech transcript

labourlist.org/2012/10/ed-mil…

21/
In 2015, Labour's General Election manifesto was still warning that exploitation of migrant labour "undercuts local wages and increases demand for further low-skilled migration".

Labour understood the cycle, employers gain access to cheaper labour, wages and conditions remain unattractive, fewer local workers enter those sectors, employers announce a labour shortage and demand access to still more low-paid migrant labour.

Source: Labour Party manifesto 2015
Britain Can Be Better, Labour manifesto 2015

manifestos.org.uk/manifesto/2015…

22/
Now come back to the present and remember the number Labour once said was "not desirable", 70 million.

Britain's population has passed that threshold while the country simultaneously faces an acute housing shortage, enormous NHS waiting lists and acknowledged failures in water and other infrastructure, yet we are increasingly encouraged to discuss each crisis as though population growth is the one variable that must never be included in the calculation.

For the current population figures, (estimates) see the ONS population estimates and projections.

Source: Office for National Statistics
UK population estimates and projections

ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…

23/
Labour's own 2024 manifesto promised 1.5 million new homes, described the NHS as broken, acknowledged a housing crisis, promised infrastructure reform and said the immigration system needed to be "controlled and managed".

These problems are discussed throughout the same manifesto, yet the obvious question remains, how quickly must housing, water, sewage capacity, transport, schools and healthcare expand merely to maintain the same provision per person when the population is growing so rapidly?

Source: Labour Party manifesto 2024
Change, Labour Party manifesto 2024

labour.org.uk/wp-content/upl…

24/
The class question has barely changed since Wilson's government identified housing shortages and pressure on social services in 1965.

The wealthiest experience mass immigration largely as an economic argument about aggregate growth, while the poorest are more likely to experience pressure through the affordable housing market, low-paid sectors of the labour market and reliance on local public services, which is precisely why Labour politicians from Wilson's government to Miliband repeatedly discussed concentration, wages, jobs and services.

Commonwealth Immigration debate, 1965
hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1965-0…

25/
None of this requires pretending *all* immigrants are "bad people", it simply requires applying the old Labour question to public policy, who benefits and who bears the cost?

If an employer benefits from a larger labour supply, while the state must provide additional housing, water, sewage capacity, healthcare, education and transport, and lower-paid communities experience the greatest local pressure, it is perfectly legitimate for a workers' party to ask whether the benefits and costs are being distributed fairly.

Labour write these rules. They made these arguments.

So when did making these same points start becoming a "far right" narrative?

26/
In 1965, Labour identified housing, education, employment and health.

In 1983 Labour accepted the need for immigration controls.

In 1987 it promised "firm and fair immigration control", in 1997 Blair said Britain needed "firm control".

In 2010 Labour explicitly warned about wages, jobs, public services and housing.

In 2012 Miliband admitted immigration combined with an under-regulated labour market had held down wages in several low-paid industries.

These are Labour's arguments, preserved in its own manifestos, government papers, speeches and Hansard.

So, why are we - the same working class - now labelled "far right" for making the very same arguments, for the very same reasons, that the Labour party has been making since the 1960s?