6/21/12, "Miliband: Labour 'got it wrong' on immigration," BBC
"Labour badly mishandled the issue of immigration in government, Ed Miliband is expected to say.
In a speech later, Mr Miliband will say his party "got it wrong" when it allowed uncontrolled immigration from new EU states in 2004.
Mr Miliband will also say his party ignored those who didn't benefit from the big increases in immigration.
A future Labour government, he will claim, would limit labour market access to workers from new EU states.
Following Labour's defeat at the 2010 general election, a number of candidates in the Labour leadership race - including Ed Miliband - cited immigration as an area where Labour had failed to connect with voters.
Mr Miliband, who has since said the party lost trust on the issue, is expected to spell out his views further in a speech at the IPPR think-tank....
He will promise new measures to force medium and large employers to declare if they employ more than 25% of foreign workers.
Under a future Labour government, overseas-only employment agencies would be banned and an early-warning system, run by the Migration Advisory Council, would be introduced to highlight areas where the workforce is "dominated by low-wage labour from other countries"....
Writing in The Times on Thursday, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said immigration was not the "easiest subject" for Labour.
"In government we didn't do enough to address people's concerns on immigration. By the election, we had lost the argument - people felt that the system was unfair and politicians weren't listening. We need to change," she wrote.
Responding to the article, Migration Watch UK, a think-tank which campaigns for tighter immigration controls, said it was "music to our ears".
"But it is a bit rich coming from a party which, when in government, threw open the doors of Britain to three and a half million foreign immigrants with total contempt for public opinion," the group said."
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