Mehdi Hasan Loses The Plot.

First, there's the insidious myth that Labour doesn't "engage" on immigration or hasn't "touched" or "toughened" its stance on immigration. As I wrote back in January:

"Week after week, senior Labour figures queue up to express regret over the party's record on immigration. Ed Miliband thinks 'low-skill migration has been too high and we need to bring it down'. Jon Cruddas, Labour's policy review co-ordinator, claims the party 'got things wrong' on immigration. The former foreign secretary Jack Straw believes opening the UK's borders to eastern European migrants was a 'spectacular mistake' that he 'deeply regrets'."

We have had confessions, concessions apologies and mea culpas from pretty much every senior member of the shadow cabinet. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper has taken a much harder line on immigration over the past four years, as has her husband, the shadow chancellor Ed Balls who talks (incorrectly, as it happens) about the negative impact of low-skilled migrants on wages in the UK. Cooper, among other things, has called for exit checks at UK ports and airports to ensure the authorities know when people leave the country; wants "swifter action when people overstay"; demanded that the UK introduce the toughest possible transitional controls in relation to migration from new EU member states; and supported the Conservative-led government's plans for greater residency tests on EU migrants trying to claim benefits in the UK. In her recent conference speech in Manchester, the shadow home secretary said: "Yes, Labour got things wrong on immigration - on transitional controls for Eastern Europe, on the impact on jobs... a Labour Government will bring in stronger border controls to tackle illegal immigration." On EU migration into the UK she referred to "not free movement, but fair movement". HPost.

So. If I read Mr Hasan correctly, this all represents Labour's mythical 'shift to the right' on immigration which has failed to engage with voters. Well, how do you 'engage' with voters by offering platitudes, empty promises and hot air after your record on effectively uncontrolled immigration was simply wretched?