Today the UK's borders were opened to Bulgarian and Romanian workers. The prolonged scream from the sewer press was to be expected, and needs to be seen in the wider context of a culture of political discussion of immigration conditioned by the challenge from the Right to the Tories by UKIP. Alas, the Labour front bench is part of the problem, witness David Hanson's comments reported today.
The response to all this from the internet Left has been an interesting one. The line seems to be that there is nothing too much to worry about, since not many Romanians and Bulgarians will come to the UK anyway. This point can be made by ridicule,
Oh no, I can't even get to the shop, the pavements are stuffed full of Bulgarians.
— Mark Steel (@mrmarksteel) January 1, 2014
Or by fact-checking,
Perspective alert: More Brits like to work abroad than Bulgarians or Romanians, shows @D_Blanchflower http://t.co/cnqF0RLdgY
— Kevin Maguire (@Kevin_Maguire) December 30, 2013
This last tweet echoes a campaign by the Southwest TUC. Example:
I suppose my worry about all of this is that it seems to inhabit same framework of debate as the Right. If there were lots of Romanians and Bulgarian workers coming to Britain, there would be a problem.
For a long time a good few people have been saying that the Left needs to talk about immigration, and not leave the field wide open to racists, whether besuited or boneheaded. That is true. But I think it matters how we talk about immigration. I'm not convinced at the moment that we're all free from our opponents' assumptions.
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