Free movement of people is a right we should fight for. Migration is undertaken by millions around the world because it is the
only way to avoid loss of livelihood through economic
disaster or decline, not to mention those fleeing climate disaster,
persecution or war. There is a clear reason to support free movement of people: in a situation where capital is free to move, people must be free to do the same.
But what about the countries immigrants go to? Much of the Leave
campaign's argument in the EU referendum rests on the supposed threat
to Britain of "uncontrolled immigration." But a recent
report which analysed the effects of European Union migration by
the London School of Economics - far from a left-wing propaganda base - made clear not only migration's benefits for the country
as a whole, but also the lack of almost any local drawbacks.
Drawing on data from a range of sources, notably the Labour
Force Survey, the report concluded that even though the EU
migrant population trebled between 1995 and 2015, almost no
perceivable downsides emerged. In terms of raw economics, they
found migrants made an obvious contribution to GDP: 78.2% of the UK's
EU migrant population are in work (above the UK average). Moreover,
because they are on average better educated than UK born workers and
have the potential to earn more, they add to demand in the economy,
spurring economic growth and creating more jobs than they take.
Immigrants from the EU are not on the
whole taking jobs but making them. "Alongside increased demand
that a rising population brings, greater movement of labour allows
countries to specialize in what they are best at," they
conclude. Half of all net migration to the UK comes from the EU and
the people coming here are not taking jobs from the poorest. Nor are
they placing undue pressure on services or placing any notable
downward pressure on wages. Indeed highly-skilled migrants may
contribute to productivity growth and drive up wages across the
economy. The Migration Observatory does, however, argue
that low-skilled workers in certain sectors do stand to lose. But
this short-term loss can be offset by rising wages and rising
employment in the long-run, both things that can be achieved through
investment, an interventionist economic policy and a restored role
for trade unions.
Britain has seen a 10% drop in median
income since 2008. And the LSE report is equally clear as to where
the blame for this should be placed: "The cause of the fall of
wages is the impact of the Great Recession - not immigration."
And as if that wasn't clear enough, when it comes to unemployment,
the authors state: "There is absolutely no statistically
significant relationship (positive or negative) of EU immigration on
unemployment rates of those born in the UK." Again with the
provision of public services, they note no increase in hospital
waiting times other than those related to the government's squeeze on
NHS funding. And finally housing: "Lack of access to housing has
more to do with the falling supply of social housing." As the
government plans yet
another council house sell-off, it has spectacularly failed
to meet rising needs. The root cause of all this is a government
hell-bent on making the less well-off pay for a crisis caused by
global finance and the collapse of the banking system.
Support for the free movement of people
doesn't have to be a zero-sum trade off in which either foreign-born
or UK-born residents get ahead at the expense of the other. It
doesn't have to be seen that way because indeed it doesn't really
work that way. The enduring tension between the nation-state, so
necessary for supporting and subsidizing the inefficient capitalist
system, and the global market, into which capital self-destructively
over-extends itself, is not the fault of labour. The contradiction
belongs in the final instance to the capitalist class and the system
of gross inequality it creates. Global labour movements are not the
cause of capitalist crises, but one of its few correctives.
Still, it will do no good to get
starry-eyed about the European Union's labour movement policies. The
EU is not really a free movement option: for years mainstream
European politicians of both right and left have been lambasting the "failure of multiculturalism"
(Angela Merkel) and the rise of "benefit
tourism" (David Cameron) while calling for "a
clampdown on illegal immigrants" (Nicholas Sarkozy) and
"strict
migration rules"(Tony Blair). Politicians of both the
centre-left and centre-right have felt no compunction about blaming
the poorest ethnic communities in their countries for social ills
caused by their own regressive policies. Recently fences have gone up
between central and southeastern Europe to prevent free movement; the
ideals of the EU itself are violated by the
agreement to deport non-EU migrants and refugees to Turkey; and
most recently looming deals with criminal states like Eritrea and Sudan will put lives in extreme danger. For those outside the EU and increasingly for many within,
the EU is an impregnable fortress, content to let people die on its
borders and suffer destitution and inhumanity within. Within the EU's
migration system - if the chaos, suffering and death that goes on
across Europe can be called a system at all - the actual dangers are
clear. Yet they are not in anyway dangers for "native"
populations, but indeed for migrants and refugees themselves.
The costs of migration are almost
always negligible while the gains are significant. However, the
threat to migrants' lives from unsafe migration are clear. Punitive,
negligent or even deliberately life-threatening migration policies
solve nothing. Over three thousand migrants and refugees have drowned in the seas around Europe in the last year - yet people continue to come. Thousands more
languish in pointless destitution in camps and on borders. But the
retort goes that surely not everybody can move? Surely, by accepting
those in camps, we are sending the wrong signal abroad? It is
obviously true that not everybody can live in Northern Europe. But
the answer to this is equally obvious: of course, free movement is
only a good insofar as the choice to migrate is taken "freely."
I use this word fully aware of its complexity, especially in choices
like migration, which involve abandoning everyone you know and love
and moving thousands of miles away from home. But we will only have
conditions in which free choices can reasonably be made when there
are no western-backed
or western-imposed wars or murderous
regimes; no globalised neoliberal
state corruption in the world's poorest states, financial
expropriation or resource extraction; no
sucking of the economic life out of poorer states and into
western-controlled tax havens. If you want to curb global
population movements and all the destructive waste of human life that
they presently entail, then campaign to end western wars, economic
exploitation of under-developed countries and against climate change.
Those who do not wish to talk about global war, capitalist economic
exploitation and climate change, should remain silent about
immigration.
It may simply be the case that some
British people will never accept high levels of immigration and that
they are irrepressibly against it. But throughout the history of
postwar immigration there has been a political discourse attacking
it. Neither Labour nor the Tories are guilt-free in this. Even as
inward net migration has increased, mainstream politicians of all
parties have pledged to reduce it and repeatedly betrayed their promises. This is one reason trust in
politicians is so low and why that loss of trust is channelled through immigration. No party leader has ever attempted
to deal with anti-immigrant sentiment or to sell free movement on its own merits because the only consistent way to do so is to simultaneously
oppose the ravages of global capitalism itself. We must change that situation fast - or face the continuing rise of the racist and violent far-right.
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