We should beware of false prophets in politics; there are plenty of them about. How often do we hear politicians pledge to bring about radical change for the betterment of the country, only to flunk it and leave the electorate disillusioned?
Nowhere is this more the case than on the fraught topic of immigration, which has seen political leaders of all stripes repeatedly make bold promises to fix the broken system before eventually floundering and failing miserably.
So voters could be forgiven for rolling their eyes when they heard yet another Home Secretary vow this week to get a grip on the asylum crisis.
Only this time, things might – just might – be different.
I first came across Shabana Mahmood at a roundtable discussion in parliament eight years ago. Then, a thirty-something backbencher, Mahmood, was confident and assured.
She was a ‘fellow traveller’ of Blue Labour, the tendency within the Labour Party which stresses the importance of family, community and nation, and is keenly attuned to the patriotic and small ‘c’ conservative impulses of working-class voters.
So when Mahmood was appointed Home Secretary in September, I knew that the commentary from certain quarters dismissing her as “just another Leftie politician” destined to fail was misplaced.
When Mahmood says she is determined to end the asylum crisis because it is “tearing the country apart”, she is not motivated by cold political calculus. She really means it.
Shabana Mahmood is the liberal Left's worst nightmare. I discovered that eight years ago - Paul Embery
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Her performance at the dispatch box earlier this week, when she announced a raft of new measures designed to deter illegal migration – including making refugee status temporary, reinterpreting human rights law, and ending guaranteed housing and financial support – was refreshingly waffle-free and, at times, blistering.
Mahmood gave no quarter to those who accused her, quite hysterically, of being some sort of crypto-fascist. This was a “moral mission”, she told them.
“The pace and scale of change have destabilised communities. It is making our country a more divided place.”
Those of us inside the Labour movement who long ago recognised that tensions were rising as a consequence of uncontrolled immigration and have been calling for tougher Denmark-style border controls are quite unused to such blunt talk from senior figures on our own side.
I’m certainly not naïve. I realise there is no guarantee that Mahmood will succeed in her plans – not least because influential elements within her own party, the civil service ‘blob’ and activist lawyers will be out to stop her.
Neither do I claim that Mahmood’s prescription is perfect. In some respects, it falls short. She should, for example, reconsider the concept of offshore processing for asylum seekers as a means to further reducing the pull factor.
But what Mahmood announced is probably about as much as we can expect from a Labour Party that is broadly still wedded to hyper-progressive ideology, and large parts of which will feel compelled to grit their teeth and avert their gaze as the legislation makes its passage through Parliament.
With her proposals, Mahmood has at least shown that she grasps what so many others inside the Labour Party fail – or refuse – to see: the asylum crisis has been a catastrophe for the political establishment and the nation, and the status quo simply cannot hold.
This is a seminal moment for this Labour administration. It is already experiencing a meltdown in the polls.
If Mahmood’s parliamentary colleagues try to block her proposals, or water them down to the extent they are rendered worthless, or if, for some other reason, they end up hitting the buffers, the government is done for.
There is an overwhelming desire among voters for the asylum crisis to be resolved. The spectacle of thousands of undocumented young men about whom we know nothing routinely rocking up on our shores without impediment, and then being billeted in hotels at considerable cost, has become a visual representation of State failure.
If the authorities cannot discharge their first duty of defending the integrity of the nation’s borders, then why, the reasoning goes, would we trust them on anything else?
There is also – and this is a fact that Mahmood must absolutely not lose sight of – a wish for wider immigration policy to be much more restrictive and for the number of legal arrivals to be sharply reduced. Voter concerns over immigration do not begin and end with the illegal variety.
But if Mahmood makes quick progress in all these areas, the deepening tensions in our towns and cities – particularly those hard-pressed communities which usually bear the heaviest burden of mass immigration – may start to ease, and the Labour Party might begin the slow task of reconnecting with the millions of working-class voters who have abandoned it.
Fail, and it’s game over.
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