How mean-minded can this Government become?

Why is Peter Hain still in this country? The Europe minister came, true, as a warrior against Apartheid, but South Africa is now free, so why have we not sent him home? We have been mighty quick to return Afghan refugees, packing them off to their devastated country as soon as the caves in their mountains went deathly quiet. And when are we going to ask Patricia Hewitt, an economic migrant, to go back to Australia? The Trade and Industry Secretary came, initially, on a student visa. Technically, Ms Hewitt and Mr Hain are over-stayers, not that different from all those others on the move who seek sustenance, fulfilment and success in foreign parts.

Do these two Blairites feel shame that today their Government is promoting an approach so heartless to asylum seekers and economic migrants that newly right-wing France rejected the proposals? At the European Union summit in Seville, Mr Blair wanted member states to use "economic clout" to punish countries with an outflow of desperate people. Well done New Labour. Once, our country was proud, and rightly, that unlike many European countries, it never embraced extreme right-wing politics. Now our Government insists Europe should surrender to the policies of Jean-Marie Le Pen. Are we going to let an unnerved Prime Minister, desperately seeking acclaim, take down our national reputation in this way?

Where was this messianic leader earlier this month when the UN World Food Summit was held in Rome? Where were any of the leaders of the rich G8 countries who meet this week in Canada to find even more ways of advantaging themselves in this grotesquely unequal world? Mr Berlusconi even demanded an early end to the Rome Summit to watch the World Cup. Our newspapers were more exercised that Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe went to Rome than that none of the masters of the universe bothered to show up. An ActionAid report today will show that child mortality rates are rising in Africa and that millions of its children are seriously underfed. Most mass migrant movements take place between the poorest countries in the world.

These push factors are not mentioned by Mr Blair and others seeking to fortify Europe against immigrants. They avoid mentioning EU labour needs essential to sustain the economic growth and lifestyles its own populations expect even as they ruthlessly steal nurses, teachers and IT workers from poor states. They do make flowery speeches about the infinite joys of multiculturalism (which I now find nauseatingly deceitful and patronising) in the hope that nobody will ask why then are we so dementedly protectionist? Ah, population, they say. We are a small island and already overcrowded.

This genuine worry does have answers. As the population ages, family sizes fall and we live through a period of infertility and chosen childlessness, space will have to be found for economically driven outsiders. Few private care homes operate without newly arrived workers and I have met "illegals" cleaning offices of anti-immigrant newspapers in the silent safety of dawn. If we had the imagination to create a more open society where people could come and work, say for three years, and then leave with the right to reapply, you would create a movement of legitimate workers.

An opening up of our borders and minds would liberate other ideas. We have thousands of African and Arab professionals in all sorts of areas from publishing to medicine. We should enable them to go on sabbaticals (paid for perhaps from the aid budget) with the guarantee that they could come back in. They don't do this because they feel trapped, afraid that new policies may take away their rights. This is what happened with Bangladeshis and Pakistanis and others in previous decades. Immigrants wanted to return "home" at some point but with the security that if they needed to they could re-enter. It was because politicians brought in draconian rules that the communities were forced to stay forever. This is the same mistake which is being repeated today.

Integration and disintegration are real problems, I admit. Immigration brings serious challenges and costs. But it also brings new blood and extraordinary advantages. Who brought in the concept of a 24-hour city and who works those hours? What makes London the richest and most exciting place in Europe? No, not dreary Buckingham Palace and fish in batter, but that free mixing of the flesh and cultures and the endless transformations which you do not get anywhere else. Stop the flow and the country will stagnate and ossify.

If only we had a leadership which understood and explained this to the people. If only all immigrants could have the welcome and opportunities made available to Peter Hain and Patricia Hewitt. If only New Labour had the guts and the wit.

y.alibhai-brown@independent.co.uk