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This outdated focus on potential far-right voters will drive moderate voters to the left, as it has done in Germany. Aggressive migration policies polarise at the expense of the centre-right. 1/
2/ It is also a mistake to buy the far-rights characterisation of voters’ instincts. Yes, they’re afraid and the far right stoke the fear, but it is therefore a mistake to join the stoking yourself because you only play into their hands.
3/ In fact voters tempted by far right anti-immigrant parties are more compassionate and generous than their leaders give them credit for. They will help refugees if they think it’s safe to do so.
4/ They can be won over by showing refugee reception can be done in an orderly fashion, and how it will strengthen societies not weaken them.
5/ The biggest fear people have is not over-crowding, but being overrun (see Ivan Krastev; it is also supported by a lot of polling)
6/ What the centre-right can do, unlike, say the left, or urban centre parties, is to create the confidence in communities, especially declining rural communities, where most fear of refugees originates.
7/ It is the centre-right that has the social strength and community links in towns and villages, through churches, business groups and so on to make the argument, and, importantly stimulate the communities to mobilise to help integrate new arrivals.
8/ This changes the game - not about containing hordes arriving at the border - but communities giving hospitality and teaching people about their way of life.
9/ To make this work, the first step, however it to make things orderly, and that means reconfiguring the process to have more emphasis on processing asylum applications quickly and fairly rather than the physical security of the border.
10/ This means more adjudicators and case workers, programmes to integrate refugees into the economy and society as well as legal economic migration routes for people who don’t meet the asylum criteria but who are needed to address Europe’s labour shortage.
11/ Finally such programmes need to remember that asylum seekers and economic immigrants are people who have needs beyond mere freedom for persecution and a wage packet. They become part of our societies and need the opportunities to belong. ENDS
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