alt Hacker News> If center-left folks flipped on immigration, the current right wing populism would collapse,
This theory is false, it does not work. It was tested to destruction in the UK this year and tl;dr: it's how to annoy everyone. When the centre-left party chases the right-wing, they disillusion their base and lose votes there, without gaining any significant number or right-wingers, who still prefer what they see as the "real thing". And the right-wingers are emboldened, not collapsed - they take one step back for every step taken towards them.
The long version is here: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/zbmp3_v2
It does work. It’s exactly what happened in Denmark: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1mgkd93r4y. But you have to actually mean it and follow through on it. People need to believe the party has genuinely changed its position on the issue, instead of merely changing its messaging. Every thing Starmer said indicated he was soft on immigration and he took no meaningful steps to stop it and send refugees back.