Labour ‘too late on migrants’

Labour’s policy on tackling immigration was right but came too late, according to Phil Woolas.

The former immigration minister said Labour should have made more of its policy of restricting immigrants‚ access to benefits and social housing by introducing new probationary citizenship dependent on tests that could take as long as seven years.

The Oldham East and Saddleworth MP spoke out as top Labour MPs including Ed Miliband and David Miliband, along with Ed Balls and Jon Cruddas said the party lost the working- class vote in the election after it failed to tackle the immigration issue.

Mr Woolas said: “What we did was not too little but it was too late. People felt we were shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted.

“Gordon Brown tried to engage with the issue, Alan Johnson as Home Secretary understood it, but the bulk of the campaign was either about the economy or the Liberal Democrat policy of amnesty or the Tory policy of a cap.”

Labour introduced a points-based immigration system, similar to Australia, where visas were given to non-EU workers only when UK residents did not have the right skills.

Mr Woolas said: “The policy started to be introduced three years ago, but not enough people knew about it.

“It did not seem to be in the DNA of the Government. I felt I was one of the few people taking about it, yet it was the most popular policy in the manifesto. I was repeatedly telling the campaign team we needed to highlight the policy.

“Gordon came up with ‘British jobs for British workers’ but people did not believe it. That was not their experience of the jobs market.”