Roche ran again in Hornsey and Wood Green at the 1992 general election. Rossi was not standing for Parliament, and had been replaced by Andrew Boff as the Conservative candidate. This time, Roche gained the seat for Labour, despite her party losing nationally.[11] She saw her majority soar to 20,500 in 1997, when she polled 25,000 votes more than the Liberal Democrats' candidate, Lynne Featherstone.[12]
However, by 2001, Roche's majority had almost halved to 10,500, with a substantial swing to the Liberal Democrats, who had again selected Featherstone as their candidate.[3] A local newspaper described Roche in January 2005 as "a fiercely loyal Labour MP, who has only rebelled against the Government in four out of 1,570 votes."[13]
At the 2005 general election, Roche unexpectedly lost her seat on another large 14.6% swing (14.6%) to the Liberal Democrats, with Featherstone succeeding her as the constituency's MP.[3][14]
Views on immigration
"I wanted to be the first immigration minister to say immigration is a good thing (...) We have a multiracial, multicultural society; we are a stronger country for it."
Barbara Roche interviewed by the New Statesman, 2000[15]
Roche was a strong supporter of a liberal immigration policy to the United Kingdom,[16] and advocated for increased immigration during her time as Minister of State for Asylum and Immigration. Among her reasons for this, she included using migration to free up skills shortages, respond to the country's ageing demography and for economic growth.[17]
In September 2000, she gave a speech outlining her desires to liberalize the United Kingdom's immigration policy, calling for what the government termed as 'managed migration'.[18][17][19] She believed that the benefits of migration should be shown by emphasizing the ethnic diversity of the United Kingdom and migrants' contribution to the country, in similar ways to countries like the United States, Australia and Canada, for example.[20][21] She also advocated for a "US style citizenship ceremony to ensure immigrants attached symbolic importance to their acceptance into British society."[4]
Similarly, Roche was also a supporter of multiculturalism,[15] and attached this to her Jewishness and immigrant parents,[22][20][4][15] stating; "My being Jewish informs me totally, informs my politics. I understand the otherness of ethnic groups. The Americans are ahead of us on things like multiple identity. I'm Jewish but I'm also a Londoner; I'm English but also British."[4]
After she quit parliamentary politics, she became chair of the Migration Museum Project,[22] co-founded the Migration Matters Trust and several other organizations in the migration field.
After Parliament
After her defeat in 2005, and prior to the 2010 general election, Roche attempted to re-enter the Commons, seeking the Labour Party nomination (and being shortlisted) in the 'safe' Labour seats of Stockton North,[23]Houghton & Sunderland South,[24]Wigan,[25] and Stalybridge & Hyde,[26] but was not selected for any of them, despite the support of the Labour-affiliated Unite union.[26]
Personal life
Margolis married Patrick Roche in 1977, and the couple have a daughter. Outside politics, she lists her recreations as theatre and detective fiction.[1]
^ abcdWaugh, Paul (23 June 2003). "Roche urges Labour to promote the benefits of legal migration". The Independent. Archived from the original on 10 February 2017. Retrieved 6 January 2022. The child of a Polish-Russian Ashkenazi father and a Sephardic Spanish-Portuguese mother, Ms Roche has reason for her feelings on immigration. "My being Jewish informs me totally, informs my politics. I understand the otherness of ethnic groups. The Americans are ahead of us on things like multiple identity. I'm Jewish but I'm also a Londoner; I'm English but also British."
^Dodd's Parliamentary Companion 2005, 173rd edition, London 2004, p.291.
^"Surrey SW 1984". British Parliamentary by-elections. Archived from the original on 29 February 2012. Retrieved 11 August 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^Somerville, Will (26 September 2007). Immigration Under New Labour. Policy Press. p. 124. ISBN978-1-86134-967-5. Barbara Roche (as Minister for Immigration) and Alan Johnson (as Minister for Competitiveness) stand out as strong supporters of the liberal immigration regime.
^"Barbara Roche: The vital history of immigration - and our failure to". The Independent. 19 November 2003. Archived from the original on 6 January 2022. Retrieved 6 January 2022. Our history as a nation is fundamentally entwined with migration. Yet whereas the United States and Canada have grasped that reality and celebrate it as part of their history, there is no equivalent in Britain. We talk about dates and battles, kings and queens, but rarely does immigration through the ages merit a mention in our popular history.