I'm old enough to remember migrants from rural Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Punjab arriving for work in the north of England in the 1970s and 80s. The governments of the day, national and local, wanted the labour but spent no time or resources on planning for or mitigating the effects of larger-scale immigration.
South Asian migrants were mainly housed, privately or by councils, in the poorest areas of cities among white residents who had themselves often been split from old communities and moved from older housing to 'modern' estates. There was economic recession and industries were struggling.
Looking back, I'm amazed how well people managed, despite their lack of say in housing policy, boom and bust in employment and the difference between the cultures. It's hard to underestimate the levels of religious conservatism of the rural Asian migrants and the extent to which migrants did not want to integrate in terms of language and community. Locals didn't want them to integrate either and no-one was supported, no-one. There were truces, and accommodations, corner shops and mosques built out of red bricks but people were just left to integrate or not, manage or not.
All the local MPS and most of the councillors in the areas I'm thinking of were Labour - the 'red wall'. Some unions and old-school Labour people spoke about the problems of immigration but it was the point where more up-and-coming senior Labour people and uni-based activists were interested in anti-racist campaigns, so racism and white skinheads became the conversation instead.
But lots of people did manage, and communities were rebuilt, although successful Asian business people moved to wealthier areas where they could, as did and do middle-class Asian professionals. But the working-class communities weren't left to develop existing relationships - further waves of migration, via the EU or permanent migration pathways from South Asia and parts of Africa, for extended families, students, employees arrived. Many arriving in those same previously working-class estates.
Migrant communities settled for several generations complained about the new waves - Roma and other EE travellers made a mainly Bangladeshi community's life hell for a few years, and so on. There are hard-working Somali guys doing up old cars for a living, but also fully-fledged Punjabi gangsters who don't speak English running big money rackets.
And that's before we even get to the asylum seekers in local hotels.
It's still a struggle, but 'racism' shuts the conversations down. Labour needs to have whatever conversations and debates that are necessary to articulate the problems, or Reform will.