I listened to Ed Miliband on the Today programme this morning talking about the EU.
He has developed a very effective style of parrying questions by reframing them as alternative questions and then giving the answers he wants to give. Many politicians attempt this technique but few are able to do it as successfully as Ed Miliband this morning. You could sense in his replies that he is someone who seriously analyses texts (one can imagine him indulging in the FR Leavis habit of close reading).
Of course, any discussion about the EU must address the issue of unrestricted immigration, and Ed Miliband was duly asked about the accession of Bulgaria and Romania and the expected migration to the United Kingdom of hundreds of thousands of people from this region over the next few years.
His answer was to say "I'm in favour of a multi-ethnic diverse Britain".
This is of course a non-sequitur as Romanians and Bulgarians are not a different ethnicity to other Europeans.
What we see here is the usual Labour trick - as soon as someone tries to discuss immigration they turn the subject to race. The implication is that anyone who questions immigration is a racist. Therefore they can be ignored as "bigots".
However the arrival of even a quarter million desperately poor Romanians and Bulgarians is going to have an impact on job opportunities in the United Kingdom, particularly for young people, the unskilled and the semi-skilled. This may well agitate traditional Labour voters (C2s, Ds, Es). If the Conservatives are taking a hard line on the EU and Labour is being "intensely relaxed" about EU migration the result could be interesting in 2015.
Ben Page from Ipsos MORI demonstrates that C2s, Ds and Es are not enthusiastic about the EU.
Leftwing firebrand Owen Jones articulates some of the issues Labour has with the EU http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/we-need-nothing-less-than-a-revolution-to-make-the-eu-serve-democracy-and-working-people-again-8282781.html.
The Green Benches site warns against Labour complacency http://www.greenbenchesuk.com/2013/01/ordinary-labour-voters-want-eu.html
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