Immigration exposes political weakness

By Stanley Greenberg

Republicans in the US had not finished grieving over their election loss before they began to debate their party’s hardline stance on immigration Before the defeat, conservative governors had competed to make life miserable for illegal immigrants and harder for their legal compatriots to vote. Mitt Romney, the unsuccessful Republican nominee for president, had called on illegal immigrants to “self-deport”. Little wonder, then, that Barack Obama won 71 per cent of Latino and 75 per cent of Asian voters.

Suddenly, after the vote, serious Republicans announced they could live with comprehensive immigration reform that included a path to full US citizenship. Some Christian conservatives came out in support, too. Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, reminded his supporters that “Both David’s palace and Solomon’s temple were built with skilled artisans from Lebanon and elsewhere”.

This repositioning will not be pretty. In the past few decades, citizens in developed countries have often demanded that governments take control of borders in response to globalisation. Many feel their concerns have been ignored – or, worse, dismissed as ignorant or even racist. They feel let down by politicians on the left and the right. Nevertheless, conservatives have until recently benefited from scepticism about the gains from immigration; this is now changing, across the rich world.

Mr Romney knew what he was doing when he used immigration to define himself as an authentic and “severe” conservative. He played to the anger and frustration of Republican voters. It helped him win over a sceptical party and to win the primary. But later, it also helped him to lose the election.

Now, Republican leaders will probably not block immigration reform because of the electoral mathematics. Business support for reform is also important. The US Chamber of Commerce, and industrial, agricultural, and high-tech sectors are desperate for reform to meet their needs. A battle has begun between the political and corporate elite and the Republican base.

Europe’s demographic changes have not been as dramatic – but here, too, we see a problem for the political right. Across the continent, conservative politicians are caught primarily between extremists and nativist sentiment to their right and more liberal voices to their left.

In the past two decades, many European countries have experienced influxes of asylum seekers, workers from eastern Europe, and the growth of Muslim communities. They have struggled to adapt, caught between wanting to promote multiculturalism and a strong ethnic national identity.

This confusion has made immigration an explosive issue. It was at least as important as public spending when British voters threw out Gordon Brown in 2010, who dismissed a voter who quizzed him about eastern European migrants as “bigoted” during his ill-fated campaign. Immigration today is the first or second priority for citizens across Europe, according to polls.

Under Tony Blair, Britain introduced restrictions on asylum seekers and adopted a points system for non-EU migrants. These changes were rendered irrelevant, however, in the eyes of many voters when eastern European immigration exceeded estimates by a factor of 20.

More recently, David Cameron’s Conservative party lost disastrously to the United Kingdom Independence party in the Eastleigh by-election, in large part because of worries about immigration. Mr Cameron has promised to make life tough for the Romanians and Bulgarians who might come when they are permitted to work in the UK next year, and to tighten benefit rules, but this has not stemmed the Tory erosion. They lead the opposition Labour party by only three points on the issue of immigration – and trail Ukip by 13.

Mr Cameron could do worse than look at Austria’s Alfred Gusenbauer, who won a surprising victory and became chancellor in 2007 when he moved ahead of other Social Democrats and spoke comfortably about immigrants learning German and their families respecting women’s rights. He was also able to exploit the divisions on the right. Ed Miliband, the UK opposition Labour leader who has made repeated efforts to position himself wisely on immigration, has learnt this lesson. Mr Cameron should be wary.

The writer is a political strategist and a former adviser to President Bill Clinton

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2013.