It’s that time again in the political cycle, where some of the finest leftwing political minds in the country come together to scope out a coherent, principled and sellable policy on immigration, and roundly fail. As part of her Labour leadership campaign, Lisa Nandy, one of the brightest and least entitled Labour politicians of her generation, managed to pull off a remarkable feat – she made a pro-immigration position sound craven.

In a frustrating exercise in political hedging, Nandy recently articulated a new position on immigration. She said, or tried to say, all the things that Labour should have been saying for years. That immigration wasn’t the problem, that Labour took too long to make that statement, that never again will there be a “Controls on immigration” slogan printed on a mug. But because it’s now impossible to make those assertions without fear of looking too immigrant-huggy, she ended up couching it all in the boilerplate language of “legitimate concerns”. She apologised for Labour’s failure to understand “why in areas of low immigration, people are concerned about it”. She apologised for a political strategy that made voters feel “irrational or racist”. She pledged that after Brexit showed us that Labour had been “ignoring voters on immigration”, she as leader, “would have the courage to listen”.

The result is that we are back where started, apologising for immigration. It’s as if she tried to take two completely opposing positions, then, unable to choose, merged them into one and hoped no one would notice. So which is it? Was Labour too reticent to make a full-throated case for immigration? Or did it err in making voters feel like their concerns weren’t real?

Labour's task is to spell out clearly the colossal trick that the right has played on the country

I wish it were down to cynicism, to Nandy wanting to appeal to those whom the Tories had won over by successfully fearmongering about immigration, while maintaining Labour’s credentials as the party that stands up for immigrants and minorities. But it is more tragic than that. Nandy is genuinely taking a risk by making such strong pro-immigration noises, by saying the unsayable: that Labour has been complicit, if not instrumental, in passing, or supporting, hostile environment policies, and that this was not only a betrayal of principles, but a tactical mistake. But it seems she cannot express those views without watering them down so much she ends up falling into the same trap that she seeks to avoid – using the language of the right to connect with the base. She cannot – after all the failures, all the losses, all the evidence that the party needs to present a clear policy on immigration that is not just Ed Miliband’s “Tory lite”, or Jeremy Corbyn’s “Tory not” – just say what she believes to be true: the Conservative party ran the country down, and convinced you it was immigration’s fault.

Nandy’s strength lies in her conviction and authenticity, the reasons for her rise in the first place. But with every increase in profile her edges are blunted more, her language flattened by platitudes, her demeanour more calculated. With this latest pivot Nandy joins a long line of Labour fantasists, those who believe that they will be able to magically do two opposing things at the same time – legitimise people’s unfounded and xenophobic fears of immigration, while also leading them out of that state into a promised land in one big racism conversion-therapy session. Or harness the positive hopeful power of the left, but distance themselves from its kindness, lest that empathy be taken for weakness.

This fear of looking weak is why the opportunity to take on the Conservative party, and the right in general, by presenting a clear counter-narrative is missed again and again. There is already someone “listening” to people on immigration, already a party that has achieved the job of not making people feel irrational or racist for having anti-immigration views. Labour’s task is not to provide more of the same, but to spell out clearly the colossal trick that the right has played on the country, in taking the despair that should be directed at austerity, the gutting of the NHS, the corporatisation and dehumanisation of the state, and saying clearly that immigration has nothing to do with it.

Even if we dispense with this truth, the “we hear you but might do nothing about it” approach just doesn’t work. If the point is to win back voters lost to the Tories, those who left because they disliked immigration will hear Nandy’s endorsement of that position, but come polling day will vote for the party they think will actually do something about it. Those who are desperate for Labour to finally take the lead on this topic will hear only Nandy’s apologism. It’s not going to work.

It doesn’t take “courage” to listen to voters on immigration. The courageous thing would be to do what Nandy herself says should have been done long ago – stop pretending. There’s a lot of catching up to do. How about starting now?

• Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist