Finally Labour admit immigration is an issue

[VHG]

After years of people shouting from the rooftops that immigraton is out of control and becoming a major issue, at last someone from the Labour party has the decency to at least TALK about immigration.

Alan Johnson in the Independant.
http://tinyurl.com/yb5me8n

And those of us who said that voting for the BNP would at least make the main parties "wake up" to immigration problems seems to have worked.

Pity it has taken 20 years of uncontrolled immigration, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, hundreds of thousands of people from Poland and other EU countries coming here, and thousands of fake asylum seekers, for the labour party to say SOMETHING.

Whether they actually DO anything is another matter.

[VHG]

Sorry, Independent not Independant.

Note he also says
"My post bag is bigger on immigration than any other issue. It is a major public concern"

Pity none of the main parties ever TREATED it like a major issue, they all just swept it under the carpent hopin g it would go away, like a bad smell.

When you read things like this you realise how big an "issue" immigration and race is (from todays BBC web site)

http://tinyurl.com/ybf8jvv

[jake-the-peg]

Many things are a public concern

That doesn't mean that they are a problem

Witchcraft was a major public concern once

[Sandy-Wroe]

Witchcraft is still a major problem for me. There's a coven of witches dance 'skyclad' in the garden next door when the weathers better.
I've twice fallen into the cold frames trying to watch them.

[ludwig]

There's no 'road to Damascus' type enlightenment going on here VHG. What there is though is a general election approaching, which is traditionally a time when all parties feel the need to start being concerned about the same things it believes the public are concerned about.

If the government believed the public were concerned about witchcraft, Alan Johnson would be saying things like 'It's time to have a grown up discussion about witchcraft'.

[New Judge]

But the most annoying aspect of the immigration non-debate is that those who have tried to raise the issue for legitimate purposes (such as costs, availability of resources, whether it is necessary or desirable and so on) have all, without exception, been howled down as racists.

Most of these people were not raising the issue for racial motives, but for genuine concern that the country was being irreparably damaged.

If left without debate (as many would seem to prefer) we will never know whether this concern is a problem or not. Many attempts by those with responsibility for providing services to the incomers to establish just what their future liabilities are likely to be have been met with accusations of racism, and the debate strangled.

It has unfortunately (but almost certainly inevitably) taken a party like the BNP (for whom I hold no brief whatsoever) to open the eyes of the major party leaders, as people become increasingly frustrated at having their concerns (whether they are genuine or not) at best unheard, and at worst met with accusations of racism.

[ludwig]

Agreed judge.There was a good example of it on question time last week when a Kilroy Silk speech about immigration (admittedly a bit of a rant) was met with an (underhand) accusation of racism from Sir Ian Blair.

I'm not sure these people know they're doing it half the time. It's like an automatic response - 'oh dear immigration has been mentioned, I'd better establish my place on the moral highground and accuse someone of being racist before I get accused of it myself'.