Generally speaking, I am a restrictionist on immigration and I am sympathetic to our Euroskeptic friends in Britain, so I understand why some Tories might think that immigration and Europe are winning issues that need to be emphasized more. Nonetheless, Massie’s analysis seems correct when he writes this:

There is a grave risk that tacking to the right and endorsing a populist, “robust” approach to immigration could have similar consequences again. And for all that it might help secure what Americans might call “Beer Track” votes it risks alienating “Wine Track” voters. Not necessarily because they disagree with the idea of more strictly controlling immigration but because they dislike being associated with the kind of party that harps on about immigration all the time.

Similarly, the Tories will not want to make Europe too great an issue. Yes, there’s probably a euro-sceptic majority in the country, but many voters are turned off by the stridency of anti-Brussels rhetoric. They don’t much care for Brussels themselves, but they’re not keen on voting for a party that seems obsessed by the subject.

When I read that there is pressure for the Tories to make immigration into a major issue of this general election, I find that it has the same irritating, agitating effect that Republican anti-spending rhetoric has. Whereas the GOP has concocted a very pleasing, completely unfounded story that spending lost them their majorities and a strong anti-spending line will win them back, the Tories seem in danger of revisiting the obsessions that have helped to keep them out of power for over a decade. I call them obsessions not because the positions are irrational or wrong, but because many Tories seem to see them as quick fixes for Conservative electoral difficulties and they keep returning to them every few years to test the same failed proposition all over again. Just as harping about earmarks is the GOP’s way of avoiding any discussion of their failed foreign policy record and the real reasons why they were thrown out (as well as not having to take any risky stands on entitlements), there is an impulse among Tories to talk about asylum-seekers and the European superstate to change the subject from domestic spending. They correctly fear this to be an issue that they will keep on losing even when Britain’s deficits are huge and growing.

The problem is not that a more restrictionist line on immigration or a more skeptical line on Europe would not be appealing, but that these issues cannot be dominant, central planks in any major party’s agenda if it hopes to win a majority. Restrictionism in itself is absolutely not a net vote-loser, and arguments to this effect are always completely unpersuasive, but when it becomes a major or overriding part of a campaign it cannot win a big enough coalition on its own. It is my impression that Euroskepticism is even weaker when it is on its own or when it is promoted in tandem with law and order and national identity questions. This is common sense. The Republian coalition would hardly ever win if it abandoned social issues entirely, but it will rarely win if these issues displace or compete too much with the rest. These issues can increase the size of a coalition built around an appealing message on fiscal and economic policy, but they cannot take the place of that message.

What Labour has failed to do more than anything is to be competent managers of fiscal and economic policy. The Tories can either attempt to make the argument that they can and will be competent managers, and make clear that they are willing to make unpopular choices to bring the deficit under control, or they can retreat to their comfort zones, rehearse all their old arguments that were already losing them elections when William Hague was making them ten years ago, and go down to another defeat. In the aftermath, the modernizers and Europhiles will get a lot of mileage out of this and will make it that much harder to advance these issues later on.