29.09.2011: Ed Miliband – References towards Poland during interviews.
TRANSCRIPT – Dermot Murnaghan talks to Ed Miliband at the start of the Labour party conference – Aired: Sunday, 25 September, 2011 10:00
http://skynewstranscripts.co.uk/transcript.asp?id=1050
DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Immigration now, Lord Glassman your advisor, you had him ennobled, said that Labour lied to the country about the scale of immigration while it was in government, do you share the current government’s aspirations to bring that down to the tens of thousands?
ED MILIBAND: Well I don’t agree that we lied, I do agree that we got it wrong in a number of respects including under estimating the level of immigration from Poland which had a big effect on people in Britain. I don’t think you can make that promise about tens of thousands and I am about not making promises you can’t keep, because the government might pretend that it can control the amount of free movement of Labour within the European Union but it can’t because we have free movement of Labour within the European Union so I am not going to make promises we can’t keep. On immigration I think it is right to have a tough policy, that’s why we introduced the points system and I think that was a good policy and I think it’s right that when it comes to future accession to the European Union, we take advantage of the transitional controls that we didn’t take advantage of in relation to Poland.
DERMOT MURNAGHAN: So hundreds of thousands of people could still come here under Labour?
ED MILIBAND: No, that’s not what I’m saying, I’m saying I’m not going to make promises that I can’t keep. We need a tough immigration policy but I think free movement of Labour is right for Britain. I’ll tell you what I think people were worried about in relation to Polish immigration in particular, was that they were seeing their wages, their living standards driven down. Part of the job of government is if you are going to have an open economy within Europe you have got to give that protection to employees so that they don’t see workers coming in and undercutting them.
DERMOT MURNAGHAN: So Romanians, Bulgarians, potentially Turks if they join the EU, would be free to come and go as they like?
ED MILIBAND: Well it is obviously something we’d have to look at but I’m saying we’d take advantage of the transitional controls that we didn’t take advantage when Polish accession happened.
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Transcript of Ed Miliband interview On 25th September 2011 Andrew Marr interviewed Labour leader Ed Miliband
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/andrew_marr_show/9599748.stm
ANDREW MARR: Because there seems to be a more sceptical mood about Europe in the country than there was perhaps ten years ago, and part of that is very much connected to immigration and quite a lot of Labour figures have been saying over the past days and weeks that the Labour Party got it wrong over immigration, certainly got it wrong over that large amount of immigration coming from Eastern Europe so quickly. So what have you got to say to that? I mean I know there’s this Blue Labour agenda that we’re all supposed to …
ED MILIBAND: Well I think that we did … I said before, I think we did introduce, we did allow the entry of Poland into the free movement of labour too quickly, and that clearly had effects on people right up and down the country and we’ve clearly got to learn those lessons for the future when it comes to future accession. I think it’s very hard to reverse free movement of labour in Europe – British people working abroad benefit from that – but we obviously have to learn lessons from that. I think the other lesson we have to learn is if you have a more open economy in Europe, you’ve got to put in the right protection for people, for workers. I don’t think we did quite enough of that – in ensuring, for example, agency workers got proper protection – so that when, if you like, people came in from abroad, they weren’t used to undercut British workers.
ANDREW MARR: Yuh, which is what’s happened. So it’s reasonable to say that the last Labour government didn’t get it right on immigration?
ED MILIBAND: I don’t think we did get it right, no. I think we got some things wrong. Look, I think one of the things about me and my leadership is I’m the first person to say what we got right and what we got wrong. The biggest thing of all – and I will be saying this in my speech on Tuesday – we’ve got to change the way our economy works. We didn’t do enough to change the ethic of our economy. We’ve got a short-term fast buck economy. We’ve got to move to a different sort of economy. When I talk about tuition fees and the change we make on that and the choice between the banks and cutting tuition fees or the energy companies and some of those vested interests, that’s part of changing the ethic of our economy so that actually the British people, who are doing the right thing and are currently not getting anything out if you like, see their efforts rewarded.
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Ed Miliband: ‘We got it wrong on immigration’- Nick Robinson | 17:00 UK time, Tuesday, 19 April 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2011/04/ed_miliband_we.html
NR: You mentioned immigration. A friend of yours, former speechwriter, Maurice Glasman said Labour lied to people about the extent of immigration?
EM: I don’t think we lied but I do think we got it wrong in a number of respects. I think that first of all we clearly underestimated the number of people coming in from Poland and that had more of an effect therefore than we would otherwise would have thought. And secondly, I think there’s this really important issue about people coming into the country and the pressures on people’s wages. People aren’t prejudiced but people say to me look I’m worried about the pressure on my wages of people coming into this country, I’m worried about what it does to housing supply – all those issues. Now some of that is real and some of it isn’t but I think you have to address not just tough immigration policy but underlying issues as well.
NR: But as he said – and you know him well – as he said to you let’s be honest about this Ed you lied about it?
EM: Well, err, the first time I saw it was when he said it – I don’t think we did lie. I don’t think that’s the right thing to say.
NR: But did you mis-lead – if not deliberately. (EM interjects: no, no) Did people get the impression immigration was much lower than it turned out to be?
EM: Well no, I think people actually thought it was the opposite. I think what happened was that we thought there would be a certain number of people coming into the country from Poland - it turned out to be much larger – it did have an affect. And it’s something I said very much during my leadership campaign. And look it’s part of my leadership Nick – I’m not going to go round saying everything the last Labour government did was right – I think it was a good government, I think it made our country stronger and fairer in a number of respects but I think we got some things wrong as well.
NR: But his analysis and he used to write speeches for you – Labour were “hostile” to the English working classes – that you treated that anxiety about immigration as if sometimes it was racism or bigotry or ignorance and I sense you share a bit of that concern?
EM: Well, look I would say we, we, we did realise the scale of the problem. We talked about the points based system for immigration – we made that one of our key priorities. I think it’s this mix of immigration and the impact on living standards. I think that’s what…. we were still saying let’s have flexible labour markets, maximum flexibility at work and that was, that was causing problems for people and that’s why we need to re-think.
NR: But if your message to people is not look we don’t want anybody to come to this country but we can help you in other ways what are you driving at with people? If they’re saying to you we can’t get jobs, I stopped a builder you passed there – we can’t get jobs he said to me – I’ve been unemployed but I’m skilled. What is Labour saying to them if it’s not saying we’ll stop the immigration?
EM: Well let me give you a practical example, we said before the budget have a bankers’ bonus tax and put the young unemployed back to work, get the housing industry moving, help support enterprise – practical differences, practical things that we could have done. I think the thing this government is getting wrong on immigration is that they’ve got big promises which I don’t think are going to be matched by reality but they’re not dealing with those underlying economic issues which I think caused a lot of the concern that people had.
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Transcript of Ed Miliband interview.On Sunday 26th September 2010, Andrew Marr interviewed Labour Party leader Ed Miliband.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/andrew_marr_show/9454664.stm
ANDREW MARR: Let me ask about immigration because it’s very interesting.
ED MILIBAND: Sure.
ANDREW MARR: You’ve said that you weren’t hearing as a party what a lot of your traditional supporters were saying about immigration.
ED MILIBAND: Yuh.
ANDREW MARR: What you haven’t said is what you’d now do about it.
ED MILIBAND: Okay, well let me say that. I defend free movement of labour in Europe because I think the chance for British people to work abroad is important and I don’t think we can sort of close down our borders within Europe. But the question is what goes alongside that? And what I was hearing up and down the country was people saying, “I don’t … I’m not prejudiced against Polish people. But what I am worried about is that my wages and conditions seem to be being driven downwards.” Now that was about New Labour’s old orthodoxy, which says the answer is always going to be more and more flexible labour markets, as we put it. Now what did that mean for a lot of people? That meant driving down wages and conditions. Housing is another example. We …
ANDREW MARR: Sorry, so what can you do about is my question?
ED MILIBAND: Well, for example, across Europe there are ways in which you can provide protection, so that agency workers aren’t used to undercut workers who are working alongside those agency workers. Or you can ensure that when people are posted abroad, you ensure that wages and conditions in the host country aren’t undermined. And I think somehow people felt – and I’m afraid they were right in certain respects – we didn’t get it. We were still saying free movement of labour in Europe is just an unalloyed good thing. There’s nothing else we need to change.
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