 The government's new immigration bill was today debated in the House of Commons. The bill will officially end Freedom of Movement within the European Union and introduce a points-based system to replace it. We've discussed this on previous shows, but to recap, let's take a look at this chart from Sky, which summarizes what's in the bill particularly well. So as you know, this is a points-based system, how it's going to work, because you're going to need 70 points to be eligible to apply for a visa to come to the UK. The essential ones are an offer of a job by approved sponsors, so you can't come to Britain without a job, like you would have been able to if you were a European citizen while you were still a member of the European Union. A job at an appropriate skill level gets you 20 points, speaking English at required level gets you 10 points, and then you need 20 points from somewhere else in this list. And the most contentious one really is that you need a salary of £25,600 or above to get those 20 points. Now we can see, I mean, in a moment we'll all debate the contents of that bill, but first, I think what was specifically interesting today in the debate in the House of Commons was that it put on show two different styles of opposition on the Labour benches. One where you say, we're going to oppose this wholly because we don't agree with the Conservative Party, you're doing the other, which is a sort of constructive form of, we will potentially vote for it with some clarifications. Let's start with the Shadow Home Secretary, Nick Thomas Stimmons speaking and summing up really the shadow cabinet stance on the bill. In the midst of this crisis, the government is putting forward an immigration system containing a salary threshold of £25,600 that sends a signal and tells people that anyone earning less than that is unskilled and unwelcome in our country. We on these benches know that people are not being paid the value of what they do and that what our frontline workers earn does not reflect what they contribute to our society. Many of us didn't need reminding of that, but it seems the government does need reminding. Those who clapped on Thursday are only too happy to vote through a bill today that will send a powerful message to those same people that they are not considered by this government to be skilled workers. That was Nick Thomas Stimmons there focusing on how the bill would categorise many people we clapped for on Thursdays, people who were working in health and care sectors or any essential workers as low skilled and unwelcome because they don't meet that income threshold. Labour are whipping against the bill on those grounds but Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Yvette Cooper, wasn't adopting the same tone. Let's take a look. I believe that this bill is flawed, but I recognise that legislation on immigration is now needed and as select committee chair I will put forward amendments that I hope will receive cross-party support. In that cross-party spirit I will not vote against the bill tonight although if the government's approach does not change I would expect to oppose it when it returns to the House because I think it is immensely important we should be trying to build that new consensus and I urge the government to do so because it has the opportunity to do so now. We will always be disagreements on different aspects of immigration but right now at this point particularly in this coronavirus crisis we should be looking for the areas where we can find agreement and find a positive way forward. So Yvette Cooper, it's important to mention actually this is the second reading of the bill. So the second reading of the bill is where you vote for in principle do you support the general outlines of this bill or not? Nick Thomas-Simmons and the Labour Front Bench are saying we don't agree with the general outlines. Yvette Cooper is saying I agree with the general outlines but I will reserve the right to vote against it on the third reading so her strategy is to say I'll vote for it now, try and get some amendments through and then vote for or against it afterwards. You can also vote against it now and also try and get amendments through but in any case. I'm going to start with you, Aaron. I mean it's a bit surprising isn't it? If someone was to say who do you think will be the first MP to rebel against Keir Starmer? You might have guessed Richard Bergen. You wouldn't necessarily have guessed Yvette Cooper. Are you surprised by what's going on in the Commons right now? Hard to say. I mean it's quite predictable. I tweeted this is so eerily reminiscent of 2015 and I was thinking in particular of the welfare bill where many members of the shadow cabinet then of course there was the interim leadership of Harriet Harman abstained and that was because it was the first reading secretary. Very technical stuff now. Given all that and given clearly Yvette Cooper is somebody who is quite prone to that sort of technocratic bent I think that's quite predictable on the one hand. On the other hand I do genuinely think she has the completely wrong political position on this given the present political moment and I think obviously Nick Thomas Simmons is the right one. On the one hand you would say quite rightly well the government have a mandate to change immigration laws in this country. We're leaving the EU so they're going to have to change it in some way or other. So I get that and also the fact is her seat voted to leave. Her majority is really small now so a lot of these Labour MPs and formerly Brexit voting seats are going to feel like they have to lean into the kind of anti-immigration vote. All of that's moderately explicable let's say, not understandable, explicable but the manner in which she communicated the point was just pathetic and I do think that a vast majority of the electorate right now totally grasp and agree with the idea that people like care workers cleaners should be paid more and the fact that she's not willing to catalyse that conversation so talk about the need for workers from all around the world to maintain the NHS to keep our streets clean etc etc. Not that they should be doing just those jobs by the way but clearly many of them do in these so-called unskilled jobs I think it just speaks to her lack of ambition and talent as a politician and the fact she became a cipher for so many for so long I think really speaks to the profound idiocy of what passed for anti-corban politics over the last five years. I mean in a way I'm going to go to you as something that's sort of I think almost fortunate for the Labour Party is that this was always going to be an incredibly difficult issue for them because the immigration issue is very wrapped up with Brexit obviously it doesn't you know the Labour Party don't want to look like they are fighting the same battles as 2016 about freedom of movement so I think there probably is a recognition on the Labour benches that immigration has to change somehow but they didn't really want to vote for it because you know in part because it makes them seem anti-migrant and in a way it is anti-migrant. They've found now sort of a means by which they can oppose it which they think can sidestep that particular conflict about migration which is about care workers and the value of low-skilled workers but I haven't heard from them you know what they would propose as an alternative to this bill so in a way the fact that it's further down on the news agenda because obviously bigger things are happening than bills being passed in the House of Commons and also that you know the issue of care workers come along has meant that they can sort of position themselves against this bill without really taking much of a risk on the immigration issue in general Which is what makes Yvette Cooper's behaviour so strange Now I do think that Yvette Cooper when she has appeared on select committees she's been a very thorough and formidable interrogator particularly up against Amber Rudd I don't think that means that she's got particularly sharp political strategy and I think that this is a case of where you're mistaking these like very technical nitty-gritty parliamentary procedural nonsense that most of the country either don't know or don't care about and you're sacrificing the opportunity to make a clear moral articulation of your politics and I do think that's important because we're in a situation where there is an absolutely stonking conservative majority you don't have to be the make or break vote you in a way are a bit freer to actually articulate the things that you believe in I think the problem for Yvette Cooper and I think the Labour Party at large when it comes to immigration doesn't really know what it believes in it doesn't know what it can do and what it wants to do when it comes to shoring up this completely fractured electoral coalition Now I wrote an article a few weeks ago because it was the 10 year anniversary of Gordon Brown's Bigot Gate we all remember that, Gillian Duffy, 2010 election Gordon Brown is caught on a hot mic saying why did you put me with that bigoted woman and it was seen as this moment of high handed dismissive Labour politicking condescending and it's unkind and it's ungrateful to its core base of voters and it's that unstable class of voters town living North and the Midlands older tends to be white British compared to a much more solid BAME vote concentrating metropolitan areas, Manchester, Liverpool, London, so on and so forth and I keep coming back to that moment because it's like so what did Gordon Brown do wrong and there's one group of people that say that Gordon Brown got it wrong because he disagreed with the electorate and it revealed the disdain for the values of the electorate that was a bad thing and other people would say that he should have taken her concerns more seriously now for me the point is about one of honesty and it's one about putting your cards on the table and articulating a view of the world and society with regards to immigration with the degree of honesty and clarity and acknowledging that people are going to disagree with you and you're going to have to make the case now I bet Coop has backed off from that entirely the new labour front bench when it comes to articulating the case in terms of you know we're calling all the people that we're clapping on a Thursday night low skilled so they're going part of the way to articulating that vision but as long as you sort of frame it within exceptional conditions well when all of this is over it's going to be really easy to for people to forget that they did step out on their doorstep and clap every Thursday and they're not necessarily going to make the connections between who's been dying to you know keep the country going during this time and the kind of people who are going to be excluded from making a life here it won't happen unless you take the opportunity at these totemic moments to articulate a vision for something much better much bigger much more compelling you know we know that probably around 55 to 60,000 people have died so far many in elderly care homes in that context it's I think it's eminently pragmatic to say look we've just had tens of thousands of elderly people die it's probably not wise to kick out a significant chunk of the people that look after our older people in this country you know it's probably not the smartest thing to do and I think you know again at face value most electorate will go yeah that's probably not that clever I mean we don't know how far away we are into this crisis there may be a second peak we could end up having hundreds of thousands of people dying primarily older people our care homes are far from safe it just seems like a really mad thing to pass this legislation actually is right the sort of disposition of Evette Cooper look your vote doesn't matter the stories of a majority of 80 they have the numbers to pass the legislation Evette Cooper here reminds me of the kind of Democrats you know when the Republicans are in charge the Democrats go well you know we have to do this thing and we can't be bipartisan and when the Democrats are in charge like you know Barack Obama the Republicans like shut everything down nothing moves until we get our way and for me that sort of that pathetic politics that you see on the centre centre left it's not really centre left at all it's very much in the centre I mean I think that's really embodied in this performance we saw today and that's just right what do you think about immigration we're leaving the EU and I think I'm perfectly open about saying yeah that means you have to end freedom of movement with regards to the rest of the European Union absolutely but then we on the left need to catalyze a conversation about what does a progressive immigration policy look like what does it do with regards to asylum applications and so on and also we need to tell people properly look the number of people in this country over 85 is going to double between now and the mid 2030s that's going to increase care spending massively it's going to create permanent budget deficits it's going to clearly stretch the triple lock on pensions on a purely economic basis and I don't think any of us would make that argument you're going to need more young people you're going to need more immigrants by the way that's not a sustainable long term argument because the ageing trends are visible also in Asia, Africa, Latin America it's not a permanent sort of argument but in the short term it's a perfectly coherent thing to say it's also true without younger people migrating to this country without having a well resourced care system which will include some of these people working in it we will have a really severe social economic crisis around ageing within 10 to 15 years and so whether it's an ethical argument or a pragmatic argument it's a really easy one to make and hey why don't you do both at the same time how if that Cooper can't do either