MASS MIGRATION

The Workers Party of Britain offers a migration policy that reflects the anxiety felt among the working class about an influx of migrants which appears to be out of control. While some of this anxiety is stoked by the racist Right, people are not wrong to worry about undue burdens being placed on local services, about disproportionate herding of migrants into poorer parts of the country, and about the cost of hosting escalating numbers of asylum seekers.
A distinction needs to be made between refugees and migrants. Migrant workers fill gaps in the labour market e.g. inadequate numbers of trained nurses. There is an issue over immigrants depressing wages but this can be addressed by long term labour reforms in the interest of all, not by immigration quotas.
Refugees, however, that is those claiming asylum, while representing only about 10% of inflow, pose greater immediate challenges in terms of publicly funded absorption. Nothing has worked for long, if at all. The flow of poor people into our country represses wage rates, but British imperialism has shown it is incapable of reforming itself, and unable to deal with the consequences of its warmongering.
We need to turn the telescope around and look at how our own actions as a relatively powerful Western country are creating the flow of asylum seekers. A glance at the countries of origin of many if not most of the asylum seekers shows that those countries have been subjected to deliberate attempts by the US, EU and Britain to impoverish them with sanctions, often following Western military action against them or use of proxy militias to destabilise them.
Countries like Syria, Eritrea, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran are haemorrhaging many of their best young people because of our own imperialist actions. Refugees from Central Africa are often fleeing countries impoverished by French exploitation backed up by military interference designed to keep pro-French cliques in power.
A proper policy for a socialist party will focus on removing the spurs to desperate emigration caused by our own actions. This means – no more wars of aggression – lifting all sanctions on developing countries – no more funding of proxy militias – removing unfair trading practices which hamper economic development in poorer countries. It is surprisingly simple when you think about it.

Seven Policies for a Humane and Sustainable Migration Policy

1. We will undertake a major diversion of resources from the military-industrial complex and from inappropriate investment in NATO towards domestic defence and security structures, national social infrastructure and targeted international development. Neither the free flow of capital out of Britain, nor the free flow if labour into Britain, are conducive to economic planning, we will tackle both.
2. We will undertake investment in border security, including heightened sea-going and coastal patrols, but also in fair and equitable visa and citizenship arrangements that discourage organized crime and help the most vulnerable to a new life as well as ensuring that migration flows are matched to the ability of local communities to absorb new entrants.
3. We will make a regular calculation of the sustainable levels of migration with entry directed primarily at the protection of those most placed at harm by the operations of foreign state terrorism and war and discouraging economic migrants except in areas of demonstrable labour shortage.
4. We will rebuild social infrastructures to match the requirements not just of the working class as a whole but to take account of migrants and refugees who meet legislated status requirements – housing, schools, healthcare, social care. This will mean a commitment to the full funding of local authorities in their efforts to provide a wide range of high-quality services for everyone in the community, including refugees as soon as their status is accepted, with follow up fast tracking to citizenship that screens out criminals.
5. We will invest in training for refugees to fill gaps in the provision of services to the wider population as respected members of the working class and in technical skills to support the use of new technologies for all workers rather than be complicit in driving down wage rates.
6. We will divert a significant portion of the funds saved from the excessive scale of the military-industrial and oppressive security structures to development projects that target the most vulnerable populations in the rest of the world.
7. We will challenge global neo-liberalism and global debt and free trade agreements that impoverish overseas working populations while building local middle classes at their expense – for the first time in its history, the UK under the WPB will cease exploiting the world and work with the BRICS to share resources and skills for the betterment of humanity.