Dear Editor,
In the July 2024 UK General Election, the limited company known as Reform UK ended up with five MPs, having received 14 per cent of the votes cast, some 4 million votes. Under proportional representation they would have gained about 94 MPs. This is a problem, because Reform UK has a political ideology that tends towards fascism, and they are climate change deniers.
Sure, Farage has prospered as a result of getting far more than his fair share of attention from right-wing press and broadcasting (including, shamefully, the BBC), but it is no good for his opponents just to apply labels such as ‘racist’ to him and his followers. We must pin down their ideology and policies, and refute them carefully, dispassionately and patiently, not in an attempt to persuade them (committed Faragistes are well beyond persuasion) but to show undecided or wavering citizens exactly why they are wrong, and why they should have nothing to do with them.
Opposition to immigration is their flagship policy. They want to block all immigrants, except a few who have skills that they feel we need, and if possible send them either to Rwanda (although that disastrously expensive policy is, happily, off the agenda) or back to their country of origin.
Reform UK is a hot air balloon, lifted by the flame of discontent and anger felt by people who are affected by poverty, unemployment, poor quality and shortage of housing, the difficulties in seeing a GP or getting social help. In short, people who are affected by the consequences of Conservative austerity. Farage is using classical scapegoating techniques, blaming migrants for the effects of neo-liberal policies, just as Hitler blamed the Jews for everything that was wrong in 1930s Germany.
Progressives must begin by putting the blame where it belongs, but that is only the beginning of our response.
Analysis should always start with the widest view of the issue, and this applies very much to migration. Nobody leaves their family, community and country of birth, to walk thousands of miles, paying huge sums to people traffickers, at risk of illness and death, on a whim. Most migrants leave their home country because their lives are at risk, or at least deeply uncomfortable. Some are fleeing war zones. Many are on the run from possible imprisonment or even murderous death squads in the pay of fascistic, oppressive governments. Some are tired of endemic poverty, and aim to help their families by sending them remittances, by working in the (relatively) enormous wealth of a European economy. A few at present, and many more in years to come, find that climate change is destroying the ability of their traditional land to support life.
War, oppression, poverty and climate change are the ‘Four Horsemen’ of the migrant’s apocalypse. Ironically, those conditions that papers like the Daily Mail see as irrelevant to us here in the UK. Only the consequence of the Four Horsemen – the people in the boats – are seen as a threat to the Mail and its readers.
The effect of net immigration is not anything like as bad as right-wing extremists portray, but neither is it an unmitigated blessing to the country. Immigration is a problem not just because it stimulates right wing sentiment, but also because Britain is a densely populated island, well over its ecological carrying capacity, and therefore our long-term aim should be to stabilise human numbers – but not at the expense of sacrificing our humanitarian principles.
The case is made for welcoming migrants to expand our workforce, especially in areas like care of the elderly, but this only applies in the short term, since eventually migrant workers will retire and become elderly, needing care in their turn.
If we really want to reduce the flow of migrants, we have to work with the United Nations to address the causes of migration, but here we immediately come up against the first major block: the near-universal mental conviction that nothing can be done to stop the Four Horsemen. This is not so. It is not the case that nothing can be done, it is just that politicians cannot be bothered to try.
This is not the place to detail the many UN initiatives concerning peace and good governance, but rather to give a flavour of the opportunities.
For instance, the UN could fruitfully intensify its efforts to end current wars and conflicts by putting in place measures to control ammunition transfers, since consignments of ammunition, by virtue of their volatile chemicals, are very easily identified by sniffer dogs.
The UN can also use its skills and good offices to set up negotiations on separatism, since separatism lies behind a large section of the wars and conflicts currently burning in the world.
The UN can have an impact on the number and status of authoritarian governments in the world by giving more prominence to its Index of Human Rights, presenting it in such a way that the position of all governments on a range of measures of liberal democracy is visible at a glance.
National poverty can be significantly reduced by international agreements to close tax havens and clamp down on tax evasion. Poorer countries can then be supported in their efforts to tax rich individuals and corporations who are siphoning wealth out of their country.
On climate change there is an almost bewildering array of well-known opportunities. One effective measure that is not much mentioned would be a diversion of the massive subsidies to fossil fuels – away from oil and gas corporations and into the renewables industry. The problem here is that politicians are still being ‘bought’ by the massive profits of the fossil fuel corporations. If transparency does not work, a ban on such donations will work wonders. We can affect climate change; the problems are not a lack of technical options, or even of money, but a lack of political motivation.
The beauty of approaching migration from the standpoint of reducing its causation is that the result is a more pleasant world for everyone. Paradoxically, Reform UK may influence politicians to start to take an interest in world peace, justice and equity.
Having looked at the global background of migration, we can now begin to look at the immediate, local situation. The progressive approach, rightly, is to offer a humanitarian response to those in the migration process. It is well known that about 70-80 per cent of migrants have a valid claim to be granted asylum, so it is perfectly reasonable to allow asylum seekers to make their claim before they reach the UK. An office at Calais is clearly a sensible thing to set up. The reason that migrants attempt the dangerous ‘illegal’ route across the Channel is that the legal routes are just not open to them.
The punitive Daily Mail approach to asylum seekers has been ruinously expensive and ineffective, with the lives of young people put on hold for two or more years while they languish in hotel rooms, unable to work, unable to contribute anything to the nation, waiting for their claim to be heard. Measures to fast track the claims process are already in hand from the incoming Labour government, but the cost and waste of the situation caused by the Conservatives is truly shameful.
Finally, we come to the problems of unemployment, housing shortage, and the failure of the NHS, education and other public services, which need to be fixed so that Farage cannot blame migration. The Labour government aims to reduce these chronic problems through economic growth. However, we cannot wait for economic growth to work its way through and deliver, not least because economic growth alone cannot deliver. The evidence is that economic growth benefits those at the very high end of the economy, but not the high street economy. We have to have a radical new method of getting people into work in housing, education and health. There is a proposal called Green Wage Subsidy that ticks this box.
We start by identifying areas of the economy that need to be stimulated – not just housing, health, education and social services, but other activities that are needed, such as energy conservation and water services. Businesses and services that meet our social and environmental needs will be allowed to take on new staff who will bring their benefits into work with them, while their new employer brings their wage up to the correct rate for the job. This is a triple win, which helps society, the employer and the worker. In addition, by bringing us closer to full employment, Green Wage Subsidy will raise all wages, since employers will have to improve their offers in order to fill vacancies.
In summary, the problems associated with migration can be addressed by addressing the causes of migration, and by improving the NHS, education and other services by directly expanding their workforce. These interventions will go a long way to reversing Britain’s unfortunate political lurch towards the extreme right.
Richard Lawson,
Devon
