The class politics of immigration controls
Posted on Tuesday 30 October, 2007
Filed Under International
Two New Labour cabinet ministers have been wrong-footed after there turned out to be 300,000 more foreign nationals working in the UK than official figures had earlier suggested. The total is 1.1m, and not the 800,000 previously reported.
Officially, home secretary Jacqui Smith and Peter Hain, her counterpart at the Department of Work and Pensions, are simply waxing apologetic because of the statistical cock-up. And of course, if we are going to have official statistics at all, they should be reliable statistics.
But the reality is that there is a backstory at work here, and that backstory is the increasing level of soft focus racism in official British political discourse.
With most immigrants now white rather than black, the tone is thankfully not as crude as it was in the 1960s and 1970s. Yet is no less unmistakable for all that.
The most obvious example is the quasi-BNP sloganeering qualities of recent speeches from the New Labour top brass.
David Cameron has taken that as the green light to commence a coquettish flirtation with what is still a hot button issue for the Tory faithful. Let the Financial Times supply the context:
The Conservative leader’s first big speech on immigration marks a shift in the political battle over the issue. Mr Cameron has been wary of echoing his predecessors’ calls for quotas on migrants, for fear of reviving voter perceptions of the Tories as the “nasty party”.
But Tory strategists believe that Gordon Brown’s patriotic rhetoric as prime minister – such as his call for “British jobs for British workers” – has opened a window for the opposition party to debate the issue without appearing racist.
As ever, there is a class dimension in all this. Brown didn’t demand British boardroom posts for British senior managers, or call for employment at City investment banks to be restricted to UK national investment bankers. The rich have an unquestioned right to residence in this Other Eden.
Millionaires are allowed automatic entry into Britain, whatever their passport. Indeed, many of them are given tax breaks to encourage them to base themselves here.
New Labour’s forthcoming immigration points system – and an immigration points system is supported in principle by the Respect party’s only MP – welcome 25-year-old computer nerds and 30-year-old entrepreneurs.
But there is a lot of dirty work to do in Britain. Those who want to do it should be allowed to live here legally and not be criminalized for their willingness to get their hands dirty. Even if they are Romanians.
Politicians should have the courage of their neoliberal convictions. Either liberalisation maximises economic welfare or it doesn’t. If it does, governments should dismantle immigration controls with the same conviction with which they once scrapped capital controls.
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8 Responses to “The class politics of immigration controls”
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What exactly are you saying here? ” Either liberalisation maximises economic welfare or it doesn’t. If it does, governments should dismantle immigration controls with the same conviction with which they once scrapped capital controls.” Well it doesn’t, so they shouldn’t. You agree with that don’t you ? – liberalisation doesn’t maximise economic welfare: it makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. Every ‘left’ paper, website, writer, every genuine statistic shows this. I’m sure even you have said this. In fact, the only person considered ‘left’ I’ve heard claim otherwise is the aforementioned single Respect MP, who points to the USA as a model society, and claims that we’re all steadily getting better off. So that’s just fine – fuck socialism if neo-liberalism is so great! Is that what you’re saying? Keep it up: you’ll be writing for the Guardian one day!
All truths must be sacrificed on the altar of mass-immigration, for to oppose that is RACISM – to even type the word makes me tremble and feel like vomiting. Take it to it’s logical conclusion: liberalisation maximises economic welfare so why not end all welfare, the minimum wage, socialised healthcare and the rest of the racist filth that’s holding us back. Then, when the poor die off, the statistics will look even better.
The UK’s stance on immigration should be decided upon in a referendum.
It should be debated without racism and without claims that debate on immigration is tantamount to racism.
Let the British people decide – throughout history they have shown themselves well up to the job of deciding their future…
The situation is never as simple as the newspapers make it out to be. Thankfully, for the first time in living memory immigration is being discussed without people being labelled as rascist.
A completely open door policy on immigration is absolutely ridiculous for any industrialised country – fill the skills gaps by all means, but any rational person knows that immigration has to be controlled within reason, especially with such easy access to public services in the UK.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
“Either liberalisation maximises economic welfare or it doesn’t. If it does, governments should dismantle immigration controls with the same conviction with which they once scrapped capital controls”.
And presumably by this same impeccable logic, those who favour capital controls should favour immigration controls? How often do those who believe that all human wisdom was effectively encapsulated on the back of a fag packet in a student union coffee bar by some teenage member of the IMG in 1972 ever think about the logic or meaning of the platitudes they glibly trot out? I am sure the evil ruling class would happily scrap immigration controls tomorrow – what prevents them is the opposition to such a measure by the electorate, which is of course suffering from false consciousness and can therefore be ignored by the “far left” which knows better. Doubtless another factor in the contiuing electoral pupularity and relevance of this “far left”.
Well, workers have no nation, and all immigration controls are racist – there is not one shred of logic or justification for nation states nor nationalism, its all one to me if a brummie gets a job or a Romanian – what matters is that they’re workers. Dave is right to show up the neo-liberal hypocrisy, they believe in free trade but not free movement of labour.
“Dave is right to show up the neo-liberal hypocrisy, they believe in free trade but not free movement of labour”.
No, they are not hypocritical, they would love to have free movement of labour as they did in the 19th century. What prevents them from installing it is the overwhelming opposition of their electorates to such a policy. And it is the “far left” which is guilty of hypocrisy in claiming to favour democracy while ignoring this elementary fact.
There is in fact great hostility towards Eastern European migrants, based on the fact that there appears to be competition in the labour market. Talk to some Poles and British workers. Furthermore I don;t know where it’s like everywhere but most places (including my own town) have experienced massive immigration over the last couple of years and this has transformed the lives of towns (I only heard English spoken on my way to the Library this morning very occasionally). I cannot imagine this happening anywhere in the world without some kind of culture shock.
It’s all very well saying that diversity is good -I believe it is and make a point of arguing against prejudice, and many of us ado our bit as liberal anti-racists. But this kind of transformation is bound to be accompanied by friction, cultural and conflicts over scarce resources.
The truth is that the answer is not to concentrate on calls for an end to all immigration controls, but for real workers’ rights and good social conditions. Mavem is right to point out how the slogan, if there’s no control on Capital, there should be no control on the movement of labour is trite. In fact there should be limits on what capital can do through such things as enforcing standards at work, high wages, rights of people over their terms and conditions. This might perhaps unite people: calling for free-market economics to be consistent is misguided.
It is perhaps worth noting that one of the main reasons that British Trade Unions supported the formation of the First International was to prevent the importation of scab labour (notably from Beligium) to break strikes. Do those who oppose all immigration controls back allowing scab labour to move freely?
Some neoliberals do have the courage of their convictions (like the CBI). Others don’t (like right-wing Tories) because they cling to the old idea that British nationhood and superiority are under threat from the foreign hordes. It’s an old debate in elite circles: super-exploit them or lock them out?
It is entirely reasonable that migrants continue to come to Britain as long as there are a) push factors pushing them and b) pull factors pulling them. The push factors are usually war and conflict; the pull factors are usually vacant jobs (not, as many would believe, the welfare state). When those factors decrease so will immigration. But through its promotion of war and privatisation abroad, the UK and other governments are only making global inequality and therefore the possibility of further mass migration even more likely.
Keep bangin’ the walls of Fortress Europe…
As Andrew Coates says, the best way to combat racism is to fight side by side with the migrants (preferably in unions) for the changes needed to accommodate the UK’s growing population: greater government planning, better public services, a redistribution of wealth and resources, and a concerted effort to actually use those resources more sustainably and effectively.