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The debate on immigration has recently taken a new, in some ways more adult, turn. Relieved by official confirmation of the dramatic drop in numbers seeking asylum in the UK, the government is now claiming to have taken the sting out of the so-called asylum crisis.

In a rare generous gesture given the current climate on refugees and asylum, thousands of migrant workers, most of them from eastern Europe, who have been working illegally in this country, will in effect be granted amnesty from 1 May.

At the same time, the editor of the current affairs journal Prospect, David Goodhart, has published a piece on the issues underlying anxiety about migration. According to Goodhart, we are living with a persistent tension between ideas of solidarity and diversity; if this is not to develop into crisis, we must both restrict migration and, in some cases, curb rights to migrants. Suggestions such as this elicited the claim that Goodhart and his ilk propagate a form of genteel conservatism; this is "liberal Powellism", according to Commission for Racial Equality chairperson Trevor Phillips.

In many ways, Goodhart's argument is yet more proof that the centre of national debate - on so many questions, not just migration - is shifting all the time from parliament and electoral politics to the various platforms offered by print and broadcast media.

Want to know what the key questions are on education, child poverty or tax? Switch on Newsnight. Open up a broadsheet. Turn on Radio 4's Today programme.

On inflammatory issues, like asylum, the tabloids have tended to shape and twist national attitudes - and so influence government policy. For this reason alone an influential broadsheet broadside is to be welcomed. At the same time, we need to hear more from the hundreds of men and women who, as constituency MPs, are returning regularly to the towns and cities of the UK that they represent where they have genuine contact with the problems and possibilities of multicultural Britain. Modern politics sidelines the ordinary representative in favour of the supermodel politicians, the party leaders, their special friends and advisers.

Yet underneath the firm and fair language spoken by pundits and politicians alike lurk some draconian proposals and policies.

Blunkett's decision to restrict benefits to migrants from the newly enlarged Europe marks the beginning of a two-tier welfare state along the Danish model - something that Goodhart directly advocates. And next week, the Asylum and Immigration Bill will further reduce the right of appeal to asylum seekers. Yet, as Amnesty International points out, the appeals process has played an important part in reversing wrong decisions by government.


The firm-but-fair lobby will claim that this toughness - these hard choices - help to allay anxiety, to promote national solidarity. But they also give quarter to disturbing tendencies in national life. A two-tier welfare state is a denial of natural justice that has no merit apart from economic stringency and will only have unpleasant rebound qualities on our so-called common culture. So, too, is the denial of natural justice to those who have just reason to flee persecution.

There is also a kind of genteel conservatism at work here. As Phillips indicates, it is becoming increasingly acceptable to acknowledge an unease at ethnic and religious difference in the name of preservation of a national or common culture. But when and where does sophisticated emotional literacy turn into racism?

And what of the inconsistencies? It seems odd to bemoan apparently threatening ethnic or religious solidarities and then support, without criticism, the unfettered growth of faith schools. The French decision to prevent students from wearing religious symbols is wrong on practical grounds - surely it will only increase religious fervour. But the desire to preserve a secular space in national life, away from all religions, and their odd ideas on everything from science to gender, is entirely right.

For those of us who live bang in the middle of the multicultural society, whose children go to secular schools that truly represent the new global neighbourhoods with all their potential tensions and possibilities for mutual enrichment, something is missing in this debate: a kind of humanity, a deployment of political memory.

Refugees need support, not denial, hope not hostility. However nicely it is wrapped up, if we, the host country, use our power to discriminate against the weaker incomer, we will pay for it somewhere down the line.

Firm but fair can also mean simple short-sightedness.

Melissa Benn is a journalist and novelist.