By Paul Goodman
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Ed Miliband is unresponsive to voter concerns about welfare because his electoral base – a relatively small percentage of the electorate – is dependent on it to get by.
However, he has started to cobble together a position on immigration because the economic interests of that base have endangered by the Blair/Brown opening up of our borders.
Meanwhile, Labour as well as the Conservatives are under threat from UKIP, and John Mann's piece on Labour List today is well worth reading in this regard.
Most Tory MPs believe the MP for Bassetlaw to be a nasty piece of work, though I have a soft spot for him on account of his dogged campaigning against anti-semitism (of which there's a lot on the left).
But at any rate, his piece is a sign of how badly rattled many Labour MPs in the north and midlands are by UKIP. Their constituents have had enough of migration from Eastern Europe – particularly in the eastern half of England. He writes:
Mann's solutions? No benefits for anyone until they have paid National insurance for two years. No open market in labour in the United Kingdom, rather a system of work permits, including for all Europeans. And "Ed Miliband needs to commit Labour to a people’s Europe, by
announcing that he will tear up the single Market in labour and capital."
It's not only the Conservative Party that's under threat from UKIP. Mann's article shows that Labour's internal compromise between southern multiculturalists and midlands/northern-based MPs is under increasing strain.