One World - One People

Ed Miliband is under pressure to harden Labour Party policy on immigration after the party’s narrow win over UKIP in the Heywood and Middleton by-election. The appetite of xenophobia grows by what it feeds on; each tightening of immigration control in this country has come after a political panic.

Jack Straw said it was crucial for Labour to show it was on people’s side on immigration. He said: “We’ve also, however, got to be stronger about our messages on immigration as well.”

John Mann, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw, directly urged Miliband “to announce that we’re prepared to renegotiate our role and position in the European Union and stop the automatic free flow of labour. “People feel the speed of immigration is too fast and the price in terms of low pay and too much housing is too high,” he said.

One shadow cabinet member said “the free movement of labour is, as a phrase, a disaster, and we need to move to fair movement of labour at least as a language to describe our policies.”

Miliband and the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, have each made three speeches setting out how they would extend qualification periods for EU immigrants to receive benefits, enforce the minimum wage and prevent the exploitation of cheap migrant labour. Some senior party figures had wanted these messages highlighted.  They would also now like Labour to raise openly in Europe questions about the long-term challenge posed by the free movement of unskilled labour across the EU. There has also been discussion about boosting the Home Office budget to strengthen its Border Force.

It is not really surprising that the Labour Party should have adopted a narrow, nationalist policy with regard to immigration. On this issue their policy is virtually identical to that of the Cameron government. Although the Labour Party  avoids crude expressions of anti-immigrant prejudices it sails as close to the wind here as it can.

 Our SOYMB blog has exposed the manipulations, lies and exaggerations of the media accounts of immigration and arrival of asylum seekers. Migrant workers from Europe or elsewhere are used as a convenient group, easy to label and point the finger at. They are an easily identifiable minority to take the blame for all working class problems and frustrations. For workers fighting over crumbs in lower wage unskilled jobs, the temptation to blame your unemployment or wage level on foreign labour may be strong. But nevertheless such views are false.

Instead of falling for the divide and rule tactics which weaken us all, workers should recognise who their real enemy is and work together to defeat the system that enslaves us all. While the free movement of labour is restricted, capital is of course expected to roam the globe looking out for ever better rates of exploitation, sniffing around the sweatshops for signs of harsher working conditions or longer hours. Migration is the other side of globalisation, the massive increase in the interdependence of various parts of the planet. Investment is directed overseas, as capitalists look for the biggest profit they can extract and build factories or sweatshops in China, Thailand, and so on.

The Socialist Party is unique amongst all political parties left and right in that we have no national axe to grind. We side with no particular state, no government. We have no time for  for border controls or for migration incentives. The world over, workers must do what they can individually and collectively to survive and resist capitalism.  In many parts of the world that means escaping economic poverty. Workers must not blame another worker whether migrant or not, whether illegal or legal for your poverty. It is all too easy to blame migrants for causing or at least aggravating problems such as unemployment or bad housing. It is often objected that migrants move from one country to another in order to claim benefits and live off the backs of 'indigenous' people. But there is no reason to think this is true in the vast majority of cases. Benefits are low, and most migrants are not entitled to them anyway. In a rare example of political honesty a parliamentary select  committee described official attitudes to migrants and paying benefits to them as "a deliberate policy of destitution”.

Poverty and social disruption are caused by capitalism, a social system which requires the vast majority of the population to rely on selling their labour power to survive. With or without immigration there will be unemployment, homelessness, crime.