Immigration: The Modern Taboo

Labour has never been a party to shy away from taboo. It was Labour who supported votes for women (a claim refuted by Martin Pugh), who opposed nuclear armament in the 1950’s, who brought in social reform of the 1960’s legalising homosexuality and abortion, and who stood against apartheid. Our strength has come from our diversity and openness to discuss any topic. But there remains one taboo, a topic that is never raised in political circles; immigration.

The explosive topic in Europe at the moment currently occupies the front pages. This is the topic every canvasser fears. This is the topic that for years politicians have been avoiding in fear of being branded “racist” or “intolerant”. Anyone who stands against immigration, particularly on the left, are chastised – just look at the recent case of Maurice Glasman who suggested a temporary cap on immigration. The case is painted black and white; anyone opposed to immigration is nasty, racist and staunchly right wing. In which case it is often best to keep silent.

But this silence has cost us. Immigration was one of the most common topics raised at the doorstep. By not answering the questions, by calling people like Gillian Duffy a “bigot” and walking away, we have allowed populist anti-immigration parties, or the BNP and EDF, to flourish. There needs to be an open and mature discussion about immigration and Labour’s policy towards it.

With this in mind, I am about to commit political suicide and come out of the closet – I oppose immigration. And already I can see my political career sailing over the horizon. Perhaps I should elaborate; I am opposed to non-EU immigration. Which doesn’t make my case a whole lot better.

During the 2010 leader’s debate, the difference between the parties policy on immigration was clearly bore out. The Liberal Democrats wanted an amnesty to all migrants, including illegal ones. A badly thought out policy that sends a clear and worrying message. The Conservatives wanted a limit on the number of immigrants, which is fair enough but failed to take into consideration migrants from the EU, who are a different set of migrants. And then there was Labour’s point based system; in short, it failed. For every skilled worker that came in the country there came also his unskilled wife (in the culture of most migrants the wife is unskilled). Further, the bar was set too low; by “skilled” it was meant cooks and waiters, people to work on trains and selling Big Issues. Since then, Labour has not looked back. Ed’s admitted Labour did not listen to people concerned about immigration, but no actual policy has come about and no one dare speak against immigration. Although the party needs to discuss immigration, it needs to be cautious as this is an issue that can easily split the party, much like the EU and Conservatives.

The first thing that needs to be done is to face up to the reality. Immigration is not only an issue – it is a problem, both for Europe and the nation the migrants come from. There is only so much that Europe can sustain before there is no more resources or before it becomes overstretched. Just look at Italy and the Tunisian immigrants; Italy could not sustain the sudden influx – no job, no resources, no basic provisions.

There are two pragmatic objections to immigration. First, immigration contributes towards a brain drain. Every skilled worker Britain or the western world takes is a skilled worker taken from a poorer nation. This leaves LEDC’s in a damning cycle; they need skilled workers for infrastructure, but all the skilled workers emigrate thus leaving them in need. Mid-90’s Eastern Europe suffered because most the democrats, the people fighting most vigorously against oppressive regimes, the intellectuals all fled west thus their infrastructure, particularly amongst the political classes, remained weak. All too often people focus on the effect of immigration to the host nation while forgetting its effect in poor countries. There are no skilled workers there because they emigrate.

The other pragmatic objection is simply that Europe cannot sustain itself. Immigration is one way traffic, it is the burden of great nations; people are risking it all to come and live here, that’s surely a sign of how relatively great we are. But there comes a point where we have to say ‘no more’. Housing, jobs, school places, burdens on hospitals, resources; these things are limited. If ten million Africans living in poverty decided to move to Britain, at some point the state will have to say “no”. We reached that point a while back. We hear individual stories of people, children, being deported back to poverty or even to face execution, and campaigns are set up against the immigration services with accusations of – but we have to be pragmatic about it. Although politics is fundamentally about people, it cannot get caught up in the individual tragedies or else there would be no rules or order. We have finite resources; that is inescapable.

What I propose is to stop all non-EU immigration to Europe; to set up “Fortress Europe” which encompasses the EU and EU “green zone” (Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Balkans, Ukraine, Russia and Turkey). Cut unemployment within Europe by reindustrialising and becoming producers instead of consumers, maybe even have a population decrease, while helping other nations develop their infrastructures.

Small social points should be amended; to live in Britain one must work here, to work one must speak English. It reminds me of a tragedy where a child choked to death because his mother could not speak English and so could not call for help. No welfare payments until five years of residency (The point about welfare is interesting, as only £1.5billion is lost to welfare fraud (contrary to Osborne’s £5billion tag – surely more careless than callous) while £45billion is lost to tax evasion, with £5billion alone lost to public enemy number one Philip Green (scum)). Again, to be controversial, our schools and hospitals are not free – we pay for them through life long taxation. Immigrants haven’t, yet they use the services which they have not paid their dues for. These are rather Draconian measures, but at times one must be stolid.

Whatever our solution is to be, it needs to be a united European solution. The PES and S&D favour an open border while opposing “fortress Europe”; pure utopian. As long as immigration is one way traffic it will be a hindrance to any developing nation and a problem to European nations. The paradox for Europe is that it needs to curb immigration, and yet due to an aging population it needs immigrants.

This raises the question of why population decrease is such an undesirable thing. We have to face to the fact that the human race as a whole is over-populated. Thomas Malthus first suggested this; he stipulated that human growth outgrows food production. Malthus did not, however, count upon the industrial revolution making higher crop yields possible. If all our food was organically grown, we could feed four billion people; unfortunately our population is about seven billion. We are heading towards catastrophe; particularly as diseases are being eradicated and wars prevented (callous, I know, but they are natural checks to human growth). At the same time, there needs to be a more philosophical shift in our attitudes towards death. A tragedy, yes, but we all have to go sometime. But we have developed an irrational fear of death and now preserving people until they’re 100 is the aim. Better a short and happy life than a long and distraught one. Our preservation of the elderly and sanctity of life is not stable.

What is the ‘social democrat’ answer to immigration? We put priority on employment and welfare, so as long as there are jobs and enough to go around then we can justify immigration. But once those pools dry out, then what basis is there? We fall to the emotional. Everyone has a story, but we have to draw a line. You show me a petition to keep a migrant facing deportation back to poverty; I say there’s thousands like him, it is his bad luck. We cannot focus on individual tragedies.  If we ran by emotion then we would not cope, resources would run out, no housing or jobs; in immigration, reason prevails. Cold reason runs on the nib of a pen.

What social democrats and socialists, mostly internationalist by nature, should advocate is the improvement of LEDC’s and corporate responsibility. That means we should be fighting for the rights of poorer nations, not taking their skilled workers. Pressuring the free market to become the fair market and offer a minimum wage to workers in India and China, to improve conditions worldwide so that there is no need for people to migrate. We should improve the conditions of nations, not people.

It has become heresy to suggest anything remotely anti-immigration amongst Labour. Why? When did we become the pro-immigration party? We are not a party of an issue, nor an ideology, nor a “wing”; we are a party of the people and if immigration is detrimental to the wellbeing of the working people and society then we should not support it.

What I am arguing is not the Labour should become anti-immigration or adopt my views but that there should be a discussion about it and that we should not hide from this issue which is perceived as fairly serious. How many heads must roll before we have an open and mature discussion about immigration? We must face this modern taboo, not like David Starkey or Enoch Powell but like Glasman or Jack Straw. We need a grown up debate on this issue; it will be painful and at times controversial. But if we do not discuss it then extreme parties profit, as they have on the continent.