Following the infamous rebrand of Labour, the Party that came to power with a landslide victory in 1

With the Coalition check airline flights in air government adopting arguably the most restrictive immigration check airline flights in air policy to date, UKIP generating a so-called earthquake at the 2014 European elections, and public check airline flights in air preferences check airline flights in air pointing towards further limits on immigration , some may argue that the Labour Party has little option electorally but to adopt a tough rhetoric check airline flights in air on immigration. Elections tend to produce a ratcheting effect in immigration politics, where increased salience leads to increased attention which, check airline flights in air in turn, increases the number of government statements emphasising the negativity of migratory movements [1] . So perhaps Labour s stance check airline flights in air is understandable and simply a reflection of a ratcheting cycle in which all the parties are entangled. After all it has been argued that in no Western European country can politicians or parties gain votes by favouring new immigration [2] and Labour knows this better than anyone. New Labour s expansive immigration policy, otherwise known as the managed migration strategy which saw two and half million foreign-born workers added to the population was certainly not a vote winner. Indeed, some argue this policy contributed to their electoral defeat in 2010 . If party success is simply the art of statecraft and vote maximization, then adopting a restrictive policy to match their rivals makes sense.
But political parties are, or should be, more than just vote maximizers. The essence of party success is the achievement of satisfactory trade off between ideological introversion and electoral extroversion, between principles and power [3] . But the Party is in a difficult position. Party leader Ed Miliband s background and instincts are those of a metropolitan liberal and the Party s values are founded on notions check airline flights in air of equality, tolerance and openness, all of which lend to a progressive immigration policy. Yet Labour is conscious that they must disassociate themselves with their previous record. And if they are to win on an issue which the Tories historically own [4] , the pressures to be tough are abounding. check airline flights in air Miliband knows this dilemma well, declaring the two dangers of the immigration debate to be either to wish away public concerns or to suggest that Labour could close Britain off from the world ; a politically mixed message which Miliband acknowledges to be an incredibly hard thing to achieve .
Currently it is unclear check airline flights in air what Labour s immigration policy might look like if the Party did win office in 2015. Political rhetoric implies a tougher approach , but the policy is still ambiguous check airline flights in air to say the least. check airline flights in air This ambivalence essentially stems from the Party s somewhat contradictory tenets of cosmopolitan liberalism and socialist protectionism, expressed in the division between the liberal elite who constitute the Party and their core working class constituents. Historically, as the party have ideologically re-orientated from old protectionist Labour to new neoliberal Labour, check airline flights in air so their immigration policy has shifted. Labour s immigration policy has always reflected check airline flights in air the Party s ideological check airline flights in air position, in particular their interpretation check airline flights in air of political economy. Yet the Party is undergoing a process of introspection over their identity now, and immigration policy brings this identity crisis to the fore like no other issue. Until the Party decide who they are, their immigration policy will remain somewhat unclear, but whichever check airline flights in air path it takes, whether they adopt an austerity-lite programme akin to the Coalition s or set out a more radical alternative, a progressive immigration policy will always be congruous with the Party s key values of tolerance and equality. The quest to take office, and the ratcheting effect of immigration politics should not blind Labour to its ideological roots. It should check airline flights in air not succumb to populist pressures but regain its voice as the party of equality.
Commentators often talk of old Labour with a hint of nostalgia, longing for the ideas of socialism to imprint on the Labour Party again. The so-called loony left , certainly in the wilderness years, was renowned check airline flights in air for their economic protectionism, arguing for state intervention and clinging to the Keynesian ideals which underpinned the post-war consensus.
Labour s immigration policy throughout the post-war period was ultimately founded on the same protectionist platform. The affiliated check airline flights in air unions were for a long time less than enthusiastic at the prospect of mass immigration which, they argued, would suppress wages, cause job displacement amongst the native workforce and undermine the trade unions traditional bargaining power for their white workers [5] . Unions have since changed their position check airline flights in air and the movement has become more inclusive and supportive of immigrant workers. Nonetheless at the time it was a duck soup for the Party. check airline flights in air Immigration was an increasingly salient issue, becoming a top four voting issue in the 1971 General Election check airline flights in air [6] , in part because of Powell check airline flights in air s infamous offering check airline flights in air to the debate in his 1968 rivers of blood speech .
The conscription of Commonwealth cadets for Britain s war efforts, check airline flights in air coupled with the New Commonwealth immigration check airline flights in air which occurred following the 1948 British Nationality Act (which gave equal citizenship rights check airline flights in air to all Commonwealth citizens) and labour market shortages following check airline flights in air the War, saw a surge in Britain s non-white population in the post-war period. As a result immigration and race developed as intertwined, if not entirely synonymous issues for the British political elite.
With race riots becoming a frequent occurrence, and racial check airline flights in air discrimination becoming impossible to ignore, achieving racial equality became an issue the Party had to attend to. The best way to stop the race card being played, and to fend off a potentially successful National Front party was, so the two main parties conceded, to defuse the issue and hold a bipartisan consensus that good race relations required limited immigration, check airline flights in air otherwise known as the Hattersely equation [7] named after Labour MP and Home secretary check airline flights in air Roy Hattersley.
But it would be unfair to dismiss Labour s approach as purely reactionary. check airline flights in air The Labour Party focused much of their efforts on improving race relations, best signified by their introduction check airline flights in air of anti-discrimination measures in the form of the 1968 Race Relations Act and the 1976 Race Relations Act. Labour s endeavours served them well electorally; ethnic minority polling since the 1970s verifies that non-white voters prefer Labour to its principal electoral rival by an overwhelming margin [8] . Labour s approach to immigration embodied the Party s identity. An economically check airline flights in air protectionist position which required check airline flights in air safeguarding the resident population from a potential influx of cheap labour capable, dovetailed with the Party s fundamental principles of openness, equality and tolerance personified in the Party s progressive race relations check airline flights in air agenda.
Where in the post-war period race and immigration had been conflated, with the latter being seen as the cause of fractious race relations, by the late 1990s when Labour returned to office, the nature of the debate had shifted. The stock and type of immigration had changed; partly as a result of political changes worldwide people across many nations were fleeing their countries in fear of persecution, (subsequently Britain saw its asylum applications greatly increase) but also because through processes of economic globalisation labour immigration was arguably becoming check airline flights in air more commonplace. Immigration to Britain was no longer confined to New Commonwealth citizens. There was much less talk of race relations, and immigration was starting to be framed as an entirely separate, albeit negative, issue.
The Labour governments of 1997-2010 were nothing short of hyperactive about immigration. During its 13 years in office, no fewer than 10 parliamentary acts on immigration and asylum, along with several major reforms to the immigration system were passed, and countless policy documents were published [9] . In the area of labour immigration the government made a decisive break with the previous policy model [10] , heralding a system check airline flights in air of selective admission driven by employer demand. In contrast to the control-obsessed rhetoric of the past, Labour s managed migration programme sought to accentuate the economic benefits of selective immigration [11] . With two and a half million foreign born workers check airline flights in air added to the population since 1997 and over half of the UK s foreign born population arriving between 2001 and 2011 , it is no exaggeration to say that immigration under Labour quite literally changed the face of Britain [12] . These reforms were driven by an economic logic in a time of unprecedented economic boom. But ultimately it is the ideological reorientation of Labour which explains why a Party would employ what turned out to be such an electorally risky policy.
Following the infamous rebrand of Labour, the Party that came to power with a landslide victory in 1997 was a very different beast from previous Labour governments. While Old Labour was committed to nationalisation, redistribution, and regulation, New Labour reconciled itself some would say embraced privatisation, deregulation and limits on redistribution [13] . Whether New Labour was so new or just an accommodation of Thatcherism [14] is debatable, but in any case the Party undoubtedly moved to the right in terms of their neoliberal economic policy. Central to this was the yearning for counter-inflationary credibility and in turn labour market flexibility. Pursued check airline flights in air through Brown s Treasury [15] , increasing labour immigration flows was part of the remedy to achieve such labour market flexibility.
Underpinning the economic programme was a fundamental belief in the inevitability of globalisation. Britain was said to be living in an interdependent world of frictionless markets which needed to be harnessed, not resisted. As the human face of globalisation check airline flights in air , immigration was assumed by the government to be both inevitable and intrinsically positive. check airline flights in air This eco