A few years ago, it would have been unthinkable for a Labour frontbencher to use a statement about the kind of unrest seen in Dover and Portsmouth over the weekend to talk about the ‘valid concerns’ that people have about immigration. That the Policing Minister Sarah Jones did that today shows how far the debate has moved: Labour knows that it cannot lump everyone who is angry about the scale of illegal immigration into the same ‘racist’ bucket. She made clear in the first few minutes of her statement to MPs this afternoon that ‘there can be no excuse for threatening behaviour or serious disruption’, and that ‘this government condemns the intimidating and thuggish behaviour shown by some of the protesters this weekend’. But she then moved to say:

None of that is in any way to minimise the very valid........

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