Max Wind-Cowie

9th Jan 2012

“A large proportion of Britain’s Asian population fail to pass the cricket test. Which side do they cheer for? It’s an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?” 

So spoke Norman Tebbit (ironically in an interview with the Los Angeles Times) back in 1990.  His concern?  That those who had come to this country, and who had benefited from our generosity and our opportunity were not repaying the favour with their loyalty and their support.

And of course – in highlighting concern about immigration and its potential impact on Britain’s economy and our identity – Tebbit was ahead of the curve.  Throughout the late nineties and early noughties migration would rise and rise up the scale of popular, political concern until – arguably at its zenith – it played a crucial role in the 2010 election.   It was Gordon Brown’s rejection of commonly held anxiety about the impact of immigration on jobs as ‘bigoted’ that blighted his campaign, while polling has time and again reinforced the popularity of Cameron’s simple pledge to bring immigration down ‘from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands’.  But now, as our Party takes the opportunity to convert policy into practice and to set about restricting migration effectively, it is also vital that we turn our minds to the integration of those who are here and ask ourselves the question, does Tebbit’s ‘Cricket Test’ hold any meaning for Conservatives today?

The answer to that question is, I believe, a straightforward ‘no’.  Polling – carried out by IPSOS MORI for a report by new think tank British Future, launched today – suggests that British people are much more nuanced and understanding about identity than Lord Tebbit ever gave us credit for.  60% of people agreed with the statement ‘People from abroad who settle in Britain should be able to choose to support the sporting teams of the countries they came from, even against British teams, without people saying this shows they aren’t willing to fit in here’ while only 15% could agree that ‘People from abroad who settle in Britain should support our sporting teams, even when they are competing against the countries they came from, to show that they want to fit in here’.  What’s more, when it came to the children of migrants, the majority held in favour of a pluralistic view of loyalty.  And this isn’t a view distorted by any so-called ‘progressive majority’.  When broken down by who respondents voted for at the last election, 54% of Conservatives supported the right of individuals to choose which team to support and only 21% of our fellow members disagreed.

It’s clear that British people aren’t especially paranoid about the twinge of sentimentality that may draw a British resident to support India at cricket whilst remaining an enthusiastic and involved part of their adopted community.

This relaxed, confident attitude about individual choice and migration was reflected in recent Demos work on patriotism in modern Britain.  Our focus groups and polling uncovered deep-seated anxiety about immigration but, also, overwhelming acceptance and tolerance of individual differences such as faith and sporting sympathy.  People worry about how immigration affects job opportunities for young people, about crime and about resources such as housing.  They worry, also, about the capacity of communities to absorb and adjust to the sheer numbers of migrants that have arrived in some – about the way in which the shape and character of neighbourhoods can be transformed over-night.  But they are also – in spite of feeling ignored and marginalized on this issue – remarkably committed to the idea that once people are here we must make every effort to make them welcome, to learn from them and to ensure that Britain’s historic tolerance and acceptance are safeguarded. 

These sentiments were summed up perfectly in a BBC News vox pop in the wake of the Stephen Lawrence verdicts when a TV journalist – determined to goad residents of Eltham into open racism – was disappointed by a young woman who told him that yes, she was angry about the changes in her community as a result of migration and her inability to find social housing but that no, she absolutely didn’t blame migrants themselves:  ‘It’s the Government’s fault for letting all these people in without thinking about the resources’.

What does this all mean for Conservatives?  Well, for a start, that our policy answers to migration are largely the right ones.  Britain doesn’t want ever-more strenuous loyalty tests, we want less immigrants overall but are fairly confident in the capacity of British society to integrate and absorb those who do come.  The cap – Government’s primary tool in delivering on Cameron’s pledge – fits with public sentiment perfectly.  But we should be careful – our focus group work demonstrated a deep-seated (and entirely understandable) mistrust of Government’s ability to have an impact on immigration – making the cap work in practice must occupy Theresa May’s every waking second.  Secondly, I agree with Conservative MP for Croydon Central Gavin Barwell when he said, in a recent Demos essay collection, that

 ‘I would love our prime minister, who has done so much to transform perceptions of the Conservative party for the better, to give a speech doing to Norman Tebbit’s cricket test what he did to the Margaret Thatcher’s ‘There’s no such thing as society’ quote. Yes it is important to have loyalty to this country, but your roots are important too. In the words of the Michael Jackson song, no one should spend their life being a colour but our ethnic identity is a part of who we are.’

David Cameron – emboldened by this poll – should use his next speech on immigration to explicitly reject the simplifications of Tebbit’s vision of society and identity, buying him and our party the political leeway and credibility to continue to talk about a more grown-up, more nuanced and vitally important vision of a better integrated Britain that respects difference but which holds to common values and expectations too.

New Labour was bad on policy when it came to immigration and bad on tone too.  Silly, occasionally offensive rhetoric was used to mask a do-nothing attitude towards our borders and a barely veiled contempt for people’s concerns.  The Conservative Party should reject both the hyperbolic grandstanding and the poor policy – we should speak to the reality of British people’s fears, step back from the lazy typecasting that Lord Tebbit represents and – above all else – commit ourselves to proving the cynics wrong on the capacity of Government to reduce immigration overall.  In doing so we can not only achieve our goal of a healthy and cohesive body politic but, as this important poll shows, we can win the trust of British people across the partisan divide.  Immigration remains important but, as the Biritsh people are telling us, it’s complicated.