The Derrick Campbell Column

What's the problem with Immigration?

25-08-2006

This week, Britain's undergone one of it's periodic bouts of hand-wringing about immigration, with the revealtion that since Poland became a full member of the EU more than 447,000 migrant workers have come here from East Europe.

Derrick Campbell assesses what the figures mean for race relations in Britain...

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In 2004 the then Tory leader, Michael Howard was vitriolic in the House of Commons as he proudly claimed his first New Labour scalp, forcing the resignation of immigration minister Beverley Hughes.

The scandal that led to her resignation was aired on Newsnight when Kirsty Walk asked Ms Hughes a killer question about whether the governmentknowingly allowed workers from Romania and Bulgaria to enter Britain on false papers as part of a ruse to lower the asylum figures.

It was her “stranded in the middle of the road” moment…”with a speeding car bearing down on her…. headlights blazing” too.

In that frozen moment she and the government were exposed, and it allowed the Tories to mount a campaign to expose the failings of official immigration policy.

The number of people who work legally in Britain who were born abroad has increased from 1.8 million workers in 1995 to approximately 3.6 million today (and that's a very conservative ‘guesstimate'…(which incidentally is what the government do when asked to give us the true state of affairs…so if they can do it so can I).

Net immigration to Britain is at its highest level for 150 years, a situation which has clear advantages for the British ruling class, in whose interests both main parties operate.

Increased immigration presents big business with an opportunity to create a balance that can offset Britain's ageing population and offers redress for bosses who have suffered at the hands of demanding unions, forever lobbying for higher wages.

In this sense, it is a progression of neo-liberal policies and worldwide capitalism, which has used the globalisation of the economy to increase profits.

It had been the trend to move production abroad to countries where labour is cheaper such as China and parts of Europe.

But now they want to try and globalise labour by encouraging workers from poorer parts of the world to travel to richer countries and therefore to drive down wagesto bring about some form of equilibrium.

New Labour has talked tough on immigration but this is the reality - and it's done nothing to thwart the growth of the far-right, racist British National Party (BNP), UKIP and of course…the recovery of the Tory Party.

Instead, it seems to have helped them all to flourish. Wasn't it, Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, who described former Home Secretary David Blunkett as the BNP's ‘best recruiting sergeant'.

So what should we do? The arrival of new immigrants has always had the potential to create dangerous instability for the country, both because of straightforwad xenophobia and the economic consequences of new arrivals.

Should Britain set quotas and become a fortress? Orshould we allow anyone and everyone in?