Shabana Mahmood has named the problem that Keir Starmer only alluded to on Friday when he gave a warning about the “politics of predatory grievance”.
She was more blunt, beginning her speech at conference today with a warning that “patriotism is turning into something smaller, something like ethnonationalism”. She damned those on the right who claim people like her cannot be English because of their heritage. And she said that among the Unite the Kingdom marchers on the streets of London two weekends ago were “heir[s] to the skinheads and the Paki-bashers of old”.
Yet the theme of the speech, and the core of Mahmood’s thinking on this fraught subject, is that there is a price to pay for an open and tolerant society. She said she wants to “ensure contribution to this country is a condition of living here”. In her view the burden of payment must fall more heavily on those who come to Britain as migrants, rather than those who are born in the country.
New arrivals must, in order to secure Indefinite Leave to Remain, wait longer and meet stricter criteria. This will include, she said, showing good character, doing volunteering, speaking good English and not being reliant on welfare benefits.
She contrasted her approach with the “false promises of Farage”. Last week Reform announced that it would abolish Indefinite Leave to Remain entirely and potentially remove people from the country who previously thought they had the right to stay for life. Her mission, she said, is “not just to win the next election but to keep the country together and to fight for our belief in a greater Britain, not a littler England”.
Nigel Farage has emerged as the main character of this conference even though he is not here. It now seems a harder line is emerging among cabinet ministers, who previously have only felt able to criticise Farage’s policies as “unworkable”.
I understand that tomorrow Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, will rove widely from his brief and use his conference speech to attack Farage and the changing character of right-wing politics in general (as well as making a new announcement on social care). Like his friend Mahmood, he is increasingly determined to name the problem as he sees it and make a values-based argument against Reform, and other more extreme Right-wing groups.
Meanwhile, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has made the bold claim on the News Agents podcast that Reform’s policies and rhetoric “drift into racism”, with the caveat that she doesn’t think the party’s supporters are racist.
[Further reading: Andy Burnham: I want to rejoin the EU]
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