Tories scapegoat migrants

Submitted by AWL on 3 October, 2018 - 10:33 Author: Editorial
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Despite being castigated and forced into retreat over the “hostile environment” and the Windrush scandal on immigration the Tories are now, as Brexit looms, preparing to betray EU migrants present and future.

They plan a new White Paper on immigration policy. We don't yet know exact details but we do know for certain that it will put the rights of business first and not human need. There will be restrictions on immigration based on skills and wealth.

Currently, any EU national, skilled or “unskilled” can move around Europe to work or to look for work. Under new proposals, visas will only be granted to those classed as skilled workers and only when the skills in question are said to be in shortage. It is also likely that EU nationals will not get preferential treatment in the skills market.

As socialists we are for parity and free movement between all nations, not just a select few. But the proposal to reverse current conditions for EU nationals and introduce a tiered system based on skills (de facto on income) and wealth is both wrong in principle, discriminates against the less well off, and it will help underpin strict and hostile immigration rules for all working-class people from all parts of the globe.

At the same time as restricting the movement of so-called unskilled labour, virtual free movement is to be retained for the better off. Priti Patel, writing in April 2018 argued that “people from the EU who are self-sufficient, and thus not competing for jobs, and entrepreneurs wanting to set up businesses and create jobs should be able to benefit from a presumption in favour of being able to come to the UK”.

The rich have no borders.

In sum, the post Brexit landscape for migrant workers from Europe and beyond has become very uncertain and unclear, even though for now existing EU migrants will be able to stay in the UK. We expect policy from the Tories to reflect their priorities. What is difficult to understand is the reticence from sections of the left to take a stand against the biggest single attack on migrants in a generation. The consequences of Brexit for migrant workers is downplayed or obfuscated. Whilst many who support or have supported “Lexit” blast the unfairness of fortress Europe, they fail to explain how a successful Brexit involving the reversion to little-England borders will help to extend freedom of movement to those outside the EU.
In the current lexicon of the left “working-class” and “migrant” are often two separate categories; the working-class in this context means “native” working class and the migrant is classed as a tool of capital, a means to divide the working. The most basic level of international solidarity is missing. The left has long had a poor record of pushing for unions to organise migrant workers.

For the months after June 2016, Corbyn stood firm on the question of migration and free movement, refusing to talk in terms of numbers or caps. That stance has changed; Labour has now more-or-less conceded on the question. While continuing to state that immigration is not the cause of depressed wages or the strain on public services, Dianne Abbott has announced an immigration policy with some of the same basic components as the Tories; a system based on the demands of the labour market and not on the human need to travel to find a livelihood. Even the Tories know that migration does not suppress wages. Theresa May has suppressed nine separate government reports that make this quite explicit.

Labour cannot hope to undermine the Tories racist scapegoating of migrants and refugees whilst pushing policies like “500 extra border guards” or a commitment to retain most detention centres or indeed, a promise to fight illegal immigration – that eternal and mythical “problem”. Labour should welcome migrants and refugees.

We need to keep up our arguments against Brexit and all it brings with it, in defence of free movement and its extension to workers around the globe. Human beings are not illegal. We need solidarity between workers of all nations, not divisions and borders.

Brexit: a feint rather than a victory

Normal procedure at Labour conference, is that when there are lots of motions on an issue, then they are “composited” (merged), usually to produce two alternative texts, for voting, to summarise the main variant views.

It is also normal that if one mover wants to refuse to be in a composite, then they can insist their text stand alone. It will get debated only after the composites, but it is on the order paper. At Labour Party conference on 22-24 September in Liverpool, Labour officials overrode those norms in a way rarely even under when the party was under the most right-wing leadership. There were more motions on Brexit than ever before on a single issue at Labour conference.

Officials gathered all the delegates with such motions into a compositing meeting, and browbeat them into accepting a single composite, so that there would be no debate on conference floor. The delegate from Stevenage CLP demanded that their motion, upholding free movement from EU countries to Britain and Britain to EU countries, stand outside the composite.

The chair just brushed him aside and closed the meeting.

The composite which conference then had no choice but to vote for featured a number of “warm words” which made many anti-Brexit, pro-free-movement campaigners see it as a step forward. But really they budged Labour policy not at all. The text did say “a relationship with the EU that guarantees full participation in the Single Market”, but it was deliberately those roundabout words rather than “remain in the Single Market”, and the logical implication of free movement was directly contradicted by reaffirming the “six tests” which are supposed to set the frame of Labour policy on Brexit.

It did say “if we cannot get a general election Labour must support all options remaining on the table, including campaigning for a public vote”, but the composite's movers, the GMB, have explicitly opposed any new vote with “remain” as an option, and so did Unite's Steve Turner and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell.

Labour leaders had already said that they would keep another referendum open as an option, so the warm words were a feint rather than a substantive shift.

Labour's “six tests” on Brexit are as follows. Instructively, when Tom Watson was interviewed in advance of the Labour Party conference Brexit debate, he tried to avoid embarrassment pre-emptively by telling the interviewer not to ask him what the six tests are. Maybe Keir Starmer knows off-hand. Few others do.

1. Does it ensure a strong and collaborative future relationship with the EU?
2. Does it deliver the “exact same benefits” as we currently have as members of the Single Market and Customs Union?
3. Does it ensure the fair management of migration in the interests of the economy and communities?
4. Does it defend rights and protections and prevent a race to the bottom?
5. Does it protect national security and our capacity to tackle cross-border crime?
6. Does it deliver for all regions and nations of the UK?

No.6 is a coded version of the Irish border issue. No.5 is a coded version of cross-Europe police cooperation, which the Tories are as keen on as Labour. No.4 is a coded version of: don't scrap TUPE, Redundancy Payments, etc. But the majority of the Tories, all but the deregulation ultras, don't want to scrap those (not for now, anyway, and they'll be happy to promise they won't).

No.3 is code for end free movement. It leaves open how vicious the crackdown on migrants will be, but you can surmise that “communities” there means “British people”, excluding people in Europe who want to migrate to Britain, or people in Britain who want to migrate to the EU.

Thus no.2 is the only hard divide between a Labour Brexit and what the Tories are likely to negotiate, if they negotiate successfully. Really, even no.2 scarcely distinguishes Labour from the Hammond wing of the Tories.

The “tests” accept all the market-oriented rules of the EU which the Lexiters cite as the EU's great evils and their reason for backing Brexit, but reject what from a left-wing viewpoint is a boon of the EU, i.e. free movement.

The “tests” are also undeliverable. The only thing in the short term which can deliver the “exact same benefits” as the Single Market and Customs Union is... being in the Single Market and the Customs Union. That contradicts ending free movement.

The “six tests” serve only as a device to justify Labour voting against any Brexit deal the Tories fix up. Indeed Labour should vote against any such deal. But it needs better positive policies than the “six tests”.

With the “six tests” policy, the proposal of an early general election to settle the Brexit issue is an empty one. We want to see an early general election. As Labour policy stands, if the Tories have negotiated a deal, Labour's pitch will be, in effect: we are better negotiators, so can negotiate a deal broadly like the Tories' one, but better. Doubtful. Certainly giving the electorate no chance to deliver a clear line on Brexit through the ballot box.

Even if the Tories stumble into a “no deal” Brexit and then an early general election Labour explicitly promises the following pitch: we are better negotiators, so we can go back to the EU and make a good deal out of “no deal”. Even more doubtful.

The conference showed a groundswell against Brexit. The job now is to build Left Against Brexit activist groups which will campaign both for proper democracy in the labour movement, and for a substantive shift of labour-movement policy.

• Full text of conference composite here

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