Jock's Place - Karim defection a blow for Nick Clegg? - Comments

Jock, nobody's writing off

Joe Otten — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 20:00:39 +0000

Jock, nobody's writing off the fact that this defection is a blow. But what can be written off is this strange idea that this is a blow to Nick Clegg in particular. Frankly, I find your reasoning bizarre and incomprehensible.

It is not that unusual for a British Muslim to take a conservative line on immigration. We both agree that they are wrong. What exactly is new here?

Clegg and Karim

Barry Stocker — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:53:44 +0000

I'm happy to see your clarification that you're not making a partisan point. But what Karim is doing is implicitly saying that the Lib Dems are too soft on immigration compared with Cameron, I don't know if he'd admit to that but Cameron is promoting himself as tough on immigration in a cuddly non-racist way. I don't think the embarassment is ours really. Of course it's a shame to lose one of a limited number of ethnic minority representatives for our party. We should be very careful, however, about turning individuals into tokens and symbols of the group they belong to, this has to be about bringing in a more diverse membership at the base and getting a critical mass of more diverse senior people from that new membership. There's plenty of evidence that existing immigrants can be anti-new immigration. If we can take Karim's comments seriously at all, then it is part of that tendency. The embarressment is maybe for left socialists who think all marginalised and minority peoples will automatically unify round a set of 'progressive' policies. I hope we are realistic enough to realistic that ethnic minority British are not automatically welcoming to immigrants, and that we are appealing to principles rather than building blocks of sectional interest which in the end end do not line up in the hoped for way.

For most of the time Nick's

Jock — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:27:35 +0000

For most of the time Nick's been at the Home Office brief, things have been relatively quiet just by force of circumstance - the main ID cards legilsation and the last round of terror legislation fell under Mark's watch. The earned amnesty, which is a policy I personally quite like (even if it ddidn't go far enogh for me - but then nothing does), was really the second of two big policy announcements for Nick in his watch - after the Freedom Bill. For it to be cited as one of the areas in which we have "lost touch" and so on is a bit of a blow. You think I wouldn't be questioning this if we weren't in a leadership election? Okay - let's rephrase - it's a blow for the party to find its Muslim MEP citing our immigration policy as a reason to join the Tories (of all people).

Whilst I agree that it's difficult to take the word of a defector as worth terribly much, I don't think you can write off the defection of an MEP (where if anything I'd say the difference between Tories and Liberals in Europe is if anything wider than domestically - given their commitment to form a new right wing Euro-skeptic grouping next time round) quite as easily as it would be if it was the deputy-vice chair of a three member constituency party who was once a Parish councillor.

Karim Defection and Clegg

Barry Stocker — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:21:54 +0000

I appreciate that you are a Huhne supporter, but come on using the defection of this insignificant opportunist as an excuse to bash Clegg? Don't you think you have gone too far? I thought at first you might be making a joke about amnesty and defection, but apparently there is no irony. Apparently you just want to attack Clegg. Why do some people think Huhne's campaign is cynical and negative? Quite a mystery isn't it

So if you think that Saj

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:00:44 +0000

So if you think that Saj Karim is a loathable defector, why should his endosement for "liberal conservative" policy fo Cameron, which you deem a oxymoron, be a blow for Nick Clegg?

His endorsement line sounded a bit uncertain, anyway. Probably it was written by CCHQ.

Karim defection a blow for Nick Clegg?

Jock — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 11:27:26 +0000

I have to admit that I viscerally loathe defectors. So don't expect any nice words of regret at losing Sajjad Karim to the Tories, for whatever reason he thinks justifies his actions.

But back within the party he has just run away from, I wonder whether it has any importance. One of the things that Nick Clegg got plenty of plaudits for recently was the idea of an "earned amnesty" for existing illegal immigrants, a measure that I have not seen Cameron, even last week in Prague, beat. But given that this is one area where we have clear blue water between us and the Tories on if Sajjad thinks we've made a mistake, does this translate into a bit of a blow for Nick's policy?

Me, of course, I'm an open borders advocate. You cannot expect to have free movement of goods and services without free movement of people. The challenge is not how to stop people coming here for whatever reason, but to help build a world in which people do not feel the need to migrate simply to better themselves in a minimum wage job.

Such a task is not one for the petty isolationists in the Tory party, and will need a truly co-operative internationalist party to understand. Which is, in the UK, only the Lib Dems, at least of the major parties.

Here's some century old words of wisdom and humour for Sajj:

I often think it's comical -- Fal, lal, la!
How Nature always does contrive -- Fal, lal, la!
That every boy and every gal
That's born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative!
Fal, lal, la! —
(Iolanthe, Gilbert and Sullivan, 1882)

"Liberal Conservative" or "Conservative Liberal" are ideological oxymorons. Sayonara, Sajj, I hope you really do know what you are joining.

UPDATE: It just goes to show what people will read and what they won't that this post makes it into the "Golden Dozen" and some of my more thoughtful posts don't! Maybe I should try to be salacious more of the time!