Fighting the Tide

Apparently¹, the word “crisis” first originated a couple thousand years ago in ancient Greece. Its literal meaning is to “separate”, suggesting that such an occurrence should place those involved at an immediate crossroads where decisions need to be made.

What has become evidently clear is that during the peak of the 2008 global financial crisis², where we were faced with the immediate collapse of the entire global banking sector, we shied away from making that decision. We seemingly lacked the imagination and/or ambition to offer a substantial alternative, opting instead to continue with the status quo.

We’ve continued to flail around our arms aimlessly pulling the levers of legislature, with little to no improvement. We’ve tweaked the interest rate³ a bit here and there, we’ve sold off our nations assets to the free market, we’ve even resorted to literally printing off money and giving it to banks⁴: all to little to no avail.

And when all else fails, it’s only natural for those in power to blame others for their own fundamental failures.

I think it’s safe to say that immigrant bashing is in vogue at the moment. If you’re ever unfortunate enough to spot the front page of our well established and extremely powerful gutter press, 60% of the time there will be a headline about immigrants ruining your life.

Seemingly nobody is immune. One of my own low points as a member of the Labour Party was Gordon Brown’s feeble attempt to triangulate the UKIP/BNP vote with his half-arsed ill-fated regurgitation of the “British jobs for British people”⁵ mantra: associated to the far-right.

This was a prime example of a politician that had given in to the irresistible temptation of shifting the blame to a minority community for his own clear oversight.

The build up of contemptuous rhetoric has left our nation in a position where people feel it’s acceptable to racially berate people on public transport⁶, permanently scar people with the use of corrosive chemicals⁷, whose atmosphere has driven children to suicide⁸, and the murder of Jo Cox MP by a far-right extremist on the account of her pro-migrant stance rendered her a “traitor”.

In spite of the overwhelming tide of public opinion regarding immigration, I still stand firm on my belief that immigration is by far the most powerful tool to fight the global battle with poverty.

Before I continue, it’s important to understand that I despise the failed experiment of neoliberalism with every inch of my fibre. I do not believe for one second that the ‘free market’ can fix every single problem we face, nor do I believe that marketeers should be given a free pass from every transgression they commit.

Now this may shock you, but two of my heroes are Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman: the forefathers of neoliberalist thought.

During the post-war period Europe was driven by Keynesian ideals. In a matter of months the war state had been transformed into the welfare state, prioritising the enrichment of the livelihoods of the working class: as opposed to the state-support of the marketeers.

Both Hayek and Friedman worked tirelessly throughout this period to push their neoliberal agenda, with much of it being disregarded as being too radical and economically imbecilic. Regardless, Friedman kept to his fundamental belief that thinkers should always offer alternatives; regardless of whatever atmosphere is clouding out the debate. They both understood that, much like the British weather, atmospheres can suddenly and violently change.

1973 saw the change of atmosphere that Hayek and Friedman dreamt of. Following the Yom Kippur War⁹, the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries imposed an oil embargo¹⁰ leading a sudden spike in inflation: resulting in a major recession amongst almost all oil-dependant nations. Thatcher, Reagan, and the shrinking of left-wing ideology would follow soon after. Neoliberalism had prevailed.

Within a matter of years, an idea once banished as being too radical had become mainstream: driving policy agenda for nearly half a century. Friedman would later reflect that “only a crisis, actual or perceived, produces real change”. The 1917 Russian Revolution, which oversaw the dismantling of the Tsarist autocracy, didn’t happen at the peak of the Russian crisis. When the masses are undergoing an extended period of devastation, rarely does the fightback happen immediately. Similarly, Thatcher was only elected 6 years after “Stagflation” and years of tinkering with the Keynesian systems of old. Time and time again, major changes tend to occur only after the peak of the crisis has subsided.

So with that comes my belief that we, the left, can shift and transform public opinion to make our country a fundamentally better place to live, learn and work. No consensus is too engraved in public opinion to not bother fighting it against it.

Change can prevail, as long as people remain true to their convictions.

Which takes me to the crux of the argument. Freedom of movement.

During the EU referendum campaign, I noted the concerns of the people I spoke to on the doorstep. It’s safe to say that much of the concern surrounded immigration, with parliamentary sovereignty coming a distant second.

I could complain about the democratic deficit in the EU until I’m blue in the face, but that’s not the point of me writing this (that’s for maybe another time). So I’ll focus answering the three most prevalent concerns I heard during my travels:

1. “They come here, work for less, and drive our wages down” Interestingly, the Center for Immigration Studies (a think thank that overwhelmingly anti-immigration) compiled a study¹¹ that concluded that immigration had “no downward effect on wages”. Moreover, in a study by the London School of Economics¹² found that “changes in wages and joblessness for less educated UK born workers show little correlation with changes in EU immigration”: instead implicating the 2008 global financial crash as being the major reason as to why wages had stagnated.

2. “They come here, take our benefits, and contribute nothing to society” The logic behind this is understandable. In Poland, the minimum wage amounts to a measly €450 a month¹³: whereas in the UK a Polish family of 4 can expect around £1,200 in benefit payments a month if they move here today. However, in reality immigrants actually make less use of public services than the UK-born population. Moreover, on average the net value of immigrants amounts to them bringing in more tax revenue per capita than UK nationals¹⁴. Additionally, we have the legislative right to put an end to welfare assistance to migrants, or limit it to those that have only paid a certain amount in taxes. We could have mandatory IELTS/Welsh/Gaelic tests for migrants to enter employment, or take away their right to vote if they fail to integrate: as unfair as all this may seem, it’s a damned side better than just shutting up shop.

3. “I can’t find a job, and yet the country is full of immigrants” Following the invention and mass-distribution of the contraceptive pill, women begun flooding the work force in 1970s at a rate that makes the current level of immigration look minute in comparison. Those days the press was full of news and predictions that working women would displace or undercut male workers, where in reality the only real change was the creation of even more employment opportunities. Something that’s lost amongst much of the public is that a larger workforce results in more consumption, equalling and more jobs.

I don’t have any ill-thought for those who voted for us to leave on the basis of migration alone. The vast majority of people trust those in power to speak with sensibilities on the basis of facts. We listen to Question Time to inform ourselves as to the perceived realities of the country. But the facts are false. The realities are figures of imagination, with no coherent statistics or numbers to back them up.

June 8th was a turning point in my own political development. For years, I had been involved in a party that was stuck in the malaise of New Labour. I realised that Labour is at its strongest when it’s radical, preaching from principle rather than validating far-right attitudes.

But I’m afraid to say that we’re regressing. Jeremy Corbyn’s remarks on Marr about the “wholesale importation of underpaid workers from central Europe in order to destroy conditions, particularly in the construction industry” obscured the fact that it is the fault of the system that we’ve constrained ourselves to that is the problem: not the people within it.

I ask of like-minded Labour Party members to rise up, and replicate the change that turned the tide of public opinion earlier this year. Change must come from the bottom up, in which we can shift public opinion on immigration: and in doing so smash the barriers of the “us and them” ideology that has been a cancer to the progress not only our country: but the human species as a whole.

Sign up for the Labour Campaign for Free Movement¹⁵, get out there, and through our common endeavour bring forward the change we want to see.