Simon Danczuk says that while campaigning in Heywood and Middleton the one issue every voter brought up was immigration

The one resounding lesson from the fact that Ukip came within a whisker of winning the constituency of Heywood and Middleton is that Labour can no longer ignore immigration.

Over the past few weeks on the campaign trail in Heywood and Middleton I’ve had a terrible sense of déjà vu.

Gordon Brown famously refused to debate immigration with the pensioner Gillian Duffy in my own constituency of Rochdale in 2010, dismissing her as ‘a bigoted woman’.

Now Ed Miliband has similarly failed to address the issue with voters a few miles down the road in Heywood and Middleton.

Wherever I went in this campaign, people brought up immigration. I heard it on the doorstep all the time. Even Helen Pidd, the Left-leaning Guardian’s reporter covering the by-election, acknowledged that the ‘one thing every single voter has raised with me unprompted was immigration’.

The fact is that too many people in the Labour Party think we should never raise the subject of immigration. It’s way outside Labour’s comfort zone.

‘The only people who talk about immigration are Tories’, is a view I’ve heard too often.

The Heywood and Middleton result explodes that myth. Immigration is a major issue for Labour voters. That’s why some of our lifelong voters have turned to Ukip.

Immigration is a concern on the factory floor, in pubs and at the bus stop. And it troubles me that we in the Labour Party are not part of that conversation.

When I raise this with some in the party they frequently look at the floor, suck their teeth and say it’s too divisive an issue to campaign on.

It’s as though we can only talk about the positive impact of immigration, but are too frightened to address some of the more challenging issues that come with it.

As a Labour MP with the biggest immigration caseload in the North West I certainly know about the benefits of immigration, about how it has enriched our country.

But I also know far too much about the downside of mass immigration.

Every week I meet immigrants in my surgery who’ve been sent here from London because SERCO – a security firm contracted by the Home Office to find homes for asylum seekers – are choosing to house them in areas with lower property prices so they can make a profit.

Greater Manchester is handling one in six of the country’s asylum seekers and my constituency is among the ten towns and cities in the country with the most asylum seekers.

This is an unfair burden and is putting considerable pressure on communities and public services.

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Gordon Brown once famously refused to discuss immigration with Gillian Duffy, and was later caught calling her a 'bigoted woman' during his failed 2010 election campaign

I’ve spoken to teachers who have had Bangladeshi children sent to their area from London and do not have the resources to look after non-English speakers in an already crowded classroom. Rightly or wrongly, they claim it’s holding the rest of the class back and their sense of frustration is palpable.

Then there’s illegal immigration, which is causing all sorts of social tensions, particularly where crime is concerned.

It certainly doesn’t help that Greater Manchester Police have been accused by their own police officers of shying away from tackling grooming gangs who sexually abuse underage girls because of ‘cultural sensitivities’.

This generates widespread anger and a sense that the police are blinded by political correctness where some crimes are concerned.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation, the fact is there are too many voters who feel we are no longer able to get rid of those people in Britain who should not be here – and who think we do not control our borders any more.

To say some of the immigration issues I’m presented with are challenging is a massive understatement. I’ve recently spoken to a nurse who told me of illegal Afghan immigrants getting girls with learning difficulties pregnant so they could stay in the country by insisting on their ‘human rights’ to have a family.

Now this may be bunkum but whatever the truth, this nurse believes it.

'There is a vacuum in British politics where immigration is concerned and Ukip are gleefully exploiting it'

One thing is certain. These are incendiary issues and unless they are tackled head on by the Labour Party they’ll soon be viciously exploited by the likes of Ukip.

It’s not just here in the North West, though, where immigration is causing problems.

A Metropolitan Police officer told me of trucks in London picking up illegal immigrants at the crack of dawn to work on building sites for £20 a day.

This is like a scene from Depression-era America and it’s no wonder working people are angry at wages being driven down as a result.

There is a massive vacuum in British politics where immigration is concerned and Ukip are gleefully exploiting it. Voters think that all three main political parties are locked in a cosy consensus in which they refuse to tackle one of the most important issues of our time.

The political classes may benefit from immigration with cheap au pairs and cleaners, but people in my part of the world cannot afford au pairs or cleaners.

Ed Miliband may feel uncomfortable at talking about immigration because he’s the son of immigrants.