Labour's new voice on immigration

“I am Holly Lynch,” the Halifax MP gently reminded her colleague, Graham Stringer. The veteran backbencher had mistaken Lynch for another Labour MP, Cat Smith, during a debate on trade. “That happens a lot,” Lynch said softly, clearly hoping to put an apologetic Stringer at ease.

Not many MPs who have been in parliament for almost five years have to keep reminding people who they are, and perhaps it says something about the male, pale, and stale nature of parliament that the relatively young, Northern women are seemingly interchangeable.

That incident occurred on March 11 this year. A month later Lynch was handed a role by Keir Starmer that will ensure all MPs on her side know exactly who they are talking to. As the party’s shadow Immigration Minister, Lynch is responsible for trying to unite Labour MPs behind an immigration policy that takes public unease into account, but does not alienate the more liberal elements of the Labour movement.

Friends of Lynch believe her understated demeanour make her the perfect person to navigate such choppy waters — and there are certainly some dangerous rapids up ahead. The migration debate has certainly cooled since the middle of the last decade. Back then, Labour resorted to producing mugs with the slogan “Controls on Immigration” in the run-up to the 2015 election, in a bid to fend off the rise of Ukip. Yet after the EU Referendum, numerous MPs recounted how voters rarely brought up immigration on the doorstep during the 2017 and 2019 general election campaigns.

Yet the issue is still there, and whereas the right seemed to have converged around a points-based system with an end to freedom of movement, the left is still split. Last month’s vote on the government’s Immigration Bill threatened to once again expose the divisions among Labour MPs, although the sweetness of Sir Keir’s honeymoon period is currently seeing most people play nice.

Lynch was deployed, along with new shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds, to set out why the party would be voting against the Tory immigration plans. The focus was on numerous flaws in the Bill, as well as opposition to the £25,600 minimum salary level required to secure a visa. Lynch and Thomas-Symonds held phone calls with MPs to explain the rationale behind the position, but not all were convinced. One MP said: “We are going to get painted as against controls and that Labour doesn’t get it on immigration.” While most decided to toe the party line for the sake of unity, former shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper broke with the whip and abstained. While no fan of the government’s plans (“The Bill extends rather than repeals the hostile environment… that shames us,” she told the Commons), Cooper did signify that it was time for her party to move away from its support for freedom of movement.

Speaking in the debate on the Bill, she said: “I heard from Labour supporters concerned about the gulf, for example, between the rules for EU and non-EU citizens. I heard from others who opposed EU free movement, because they could see employers exploiting it to keep wages down, and who rightly pointed out that there is a difference between a free-market approach to immigration and a progressive approach to immigration. There are many different ways to draw up a left-of-centre, fair approach. It is time to look afresh at how we build a new positive consensus on immigration…”

Lynch is tasked with helping build that consensus. Born in Halifax on October 8 1986, Lynch’s mother was a nurse, and her father a police sergeant. During a shift in A&E, someone tried to kick her mother in the stomach while she was pregnant with Holly. Her father was also on the receiving end of violence in the line of duty, and he received a bravery award after being severely beaten up while making an arrest. These incidents would help inspire Lynch to put forward a Bill to ensure tougher sentences for those who attack emergency service workers. The Bill became law in 2018. Lynch’s cross-party approach to the issue was essential in getting it on the statute books. The Tory MP Simon Hoare said “she deserves the thanks of the House,” as the Bill made its way through Parliament.

While studying Politics and History at Lancaster University, Lynch — despite her diminutive frame — started playing rugby, initially as a winger and then fly-half. She continued the sport after graduating, playing for Halifax Vandals until the women’s team folded due to a lack of players. The former Labour MP Ruth Smeeth, who was elected alongside Lynch in 2015, believes that — like her rugby opponents — the government should not underestimate the shadow Immigration Minister because of her physique or demeanour. “It was an incredibly smart pick to put Holly in that post. If the Tories think because she is gentle and a young woman that doesn’t mean she’s hard as nails, they are wrong.”

After four years working for a technology company, Matrix Technology Solutions, in Halifax, Lynch joined the staff of Yorkshire and Humber MEP Linda McAvan. In 2015, she was elected as MP for Halifax with a paltry majority of 428, although she can breath a little easier now thanks to a gap of 2,569 in the last election. Her maiden speech showed a remarkable piece of political foresight, as she singled out one of her newly-elected colleagues in particular for praise — Sir Keir Starmer.

The revolving door of Labour’s frontbench under Jeremy Corbyn meant Lynch has held numerous positions over the past five years — whip, shadow floods, fishing and coastal communities minister, and parliamentary private secretary to Tom Watson. Watson, the former Deputy Leader, is full of praise for Lynch, saying: “I can’t think of anyone with more integrity. Holly has a pilgrim’s soul and she has it within her to be a very senior public servant.”

He adds: “In the binary world we live in, she stands out beyond that. She’s open minded. She wants a policy to be evidence-based. But unlike others she can make her mind up.”

In 2016, she joined a cross-party group on social integration designed to tackle some of the issues raised in the EU referendum campaign. Spearheaded by then-Labour MP Chuka Umunna, the group’s final report called for the creation of a regionally-led immigration system, as well as a legal obligation for councils to promote the integration of immigrants in the community. It also recommended the government fund English language courses for immigrants struggling with the nation’s mother tongue.

Lynch’s Halifax constituency was one of those visited by the group as it pulled together its report. The West Yorkshire town has a large British Pakistani group — 10 per cent of the population — mainly with roots back to the Kashmir region. The group’s report claimed there is “entrenched social division in Halifax”, and as the British Pakistani community moves into more affluent areas of the town “it has on occasion generated tensions over both school places and cultural practices.” It goes on: “The anxiety which Halifax’s white British population has expressed in relation to demographic and cultural change has, furthermore, at times boiled over into disturbing expressions of racism.” Lynch herself expressed concern that schools in her constituency are “sites of social segregation.”

Labour MP Wes Streeting believes that Lynch’s awareness of such issues puts her in a good place to “understand the significant concerns of our Labour voters and our former Labour voters.” He adds: “The challenge exists for our leadership to bridge that divide, and Holly understands that coalition.”

Migration Work director Dr Rachel Marangozov, who worked with the cross-party group to produce the report, says it’s important that any conversation about integration focuses not just on newcomers to the country, but those already here. She adds: “Some of the consequences of the massive demographic shifts that have affected us all but have often been shifted on to migrants, these need to be part of the conversation about immigration.”

Lynch will not be creating Labour’s immigration policy in isolation, and the steer will no doubt come from the very top. In the recent leadership election, Starmer insisted the party should “make the case for the benefits of migration; for the benefits of free movement.” When asked in January if he would argue for free movement to be restored after Brexit, he replied: “Of course.”

That position may have gone down well with the party membership, but some MPs are worried that Starmer is failing to learn the lessons of four successive general election defeats. One Labour MP is confident Lynch will temper the party leader’s enthusiasm for free movement, saying: “She gets that and it’s going to happen, but she says we don’t want to have a big row with the ‘Love Socialism Hate Brexit’ wing of the party, people like Clive Lewis and Diane Abbott. Well, f**k the left of the party, f**k them. We have got to take these people on.”

Avoiding a scrap over immigration might be sensible politics for now. The government’s Immigration Bill is currently going through committee stage in the Commons, and there are enough problems with the plans for Labour to stay purely in ‘scrutiny’ mode.

Everyone spoken to agrees that Labour must not rush into formulating an immigration policy when the next election is most probably four years away. As Dr Maragonzov says: “There needs to be a way of talking about immigration that is a fresh start.”

“The evidence is there. Studies are there. The public are trusting experts again. Let’s go with that.”