Mahmood for Thought

Being an immigration hardliner ≠ an economic liberal

Shabana Mahmood (Credit: Niklas Hallen - Home Office)

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but Ken Clarke is quite right wing. The former chancellor, home, health and justice secretary (this is by no means an exhaustive list) was a fiercely committed economic liberal when it came to free markets, privatisation, regulation and taxation.

As Health Secretary, Clarke implemented elements of the NHS internal market, which split purchasers (health authorities) from providers (hospitals) and introduced competition between NHS trusts, with the aim of improving efficiency. As Education Secretary, he pushed the expansion of grant-maintained schools, championed the regular testing of students, published league tables and helped found Ofsted.

And, on being appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in the wake of Black Wednesday and amid the early-1990s recession, Clarke made reducing Britain’s large deficit a priority through restrained growth in public spending and increased taxation¹. He targeted low inflation, expanded the use of the Private Finance Initiative and approved the privatisation of British Rail.

Ken Clarke as Chancellor (HM Treasury)

So why the heck do some people perceive Clarke to be a Tory wet, even a bit of a lefty? The trademark brown suede Hush Puppies don’t help, nor do his penchant for cigars, brandy and late night jazz at Ronnie Scott’s. Moreover, the social liberalism was real. But ultimately, it boils down to Europe: Clarke was a passionate supporter of the European Union, all the way down to monetary union².

By 1997, let alone 2016, this position made him an outlier, if not an outcast, within the Conservative Party. Indeed, had Clarke been prepared to ditch his Europhilia, it is highly likely the leadership would have been his. And Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, both rightly wary of Clarke’s political skills and popularity in the country would have, in technical terms, shat the bed.

Shabana Republic

If our well-sourced friends at the Financial Times are indeed correct (and team Burnham doesn’t have a last-minute change of heart) Shabana Mahmood is set to follow in Clarke’s footsteps by making the short walk up Whitehall from the Home Office to the Treasury. And the business community is quietly relieved.

For one thing, this is about who Mahmood is not: Ed Miliband. But it also speaks to what she has done in her two years in the cabinet: overseen a crackdown on both legal and illegal immigration, as Justice Secretary she even considered a national rollout of voluntary chemical castration for the most serious sex offenders. Roy Jenkins she ain’t.

Ed Miliband (Lauren Hurley / DESNZ)

This record — in addition to her refusal to serve under Jeremy Corbyn, citing economic disagreements — appears to be serving as grade-A cope for the British business community, which already seems to be missing the halcyon days of the Reeves Treasury, despite their many bitter complaints about the outgoing chancellor.

I think this is misguided. First because, regardless of your views on small boat crossing and legal immigration, a net migration level of nil is not an economic growth plan. And second, the relationship in this instance between being an immigration hawk and social conservative — both of which apply to Mahmood — and a free marketer, is not obvious to me.

To be fair, social conservatism and economic liberalism (in the classical sense, not the American one) often intersect within centre-right philosophical frameworks. But less so on the Left. Indeed, in Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, Labour produced two of the most socially conservative prime ministers of the post-war period. It is not for nothing that the historian Peter Hennessy described Callaghan as a man whose values “remained fixed at around 1948.”