There’s no benefit in being white and working class That is why its immigration policy, with its insistence that every immigrant has exactly the same rights as long-standing members of British society, has come into such sharp collision with the views of the white working class.

Labour’s obsession with an open-door immigration policy has hit its core vote hardest, writes Alasdair Palmer

The Labour leadership seems finally to be waking up to the fact that the party’s immigration policy has not been popular with what has traditionally been seen as its core vote: Britain’s white working class. The development appears to have taken Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, by surprise. She reacted to a report commissioned by her department that found that many working class whites feel “betrayed” by saying that “the report shows there are real complexities around perceptions [of Government] held by the white working class.”