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news
1st October 2006
Migration promotes prosperity
By Mohamed Azam
Over recent months an intense tabloid campaign has gathered pace, stirring up a backlash against further immigration from central Europe, focussed on calling for the imposition of new restrictions before Bulgaria and Romania almost certainly join the EU next January. The coverage of immigration has abounded with headlines about crime, corruption and drugs, with the possibility of Roma immigration eliciting particular venom, and we are asked to believe that our ways of life, jobs and services are all being sacrificed because of the country’s liberal stance on migration.
This reactionary scaremongering needs to be confronted head on for the racist deceit it is. All evidence confirms that Britain overwhelmingly benefits from immigration. The country’s recent levels of economic growth, in no small degree have been boosted by migrant workers, by between half and one per cent according to government analysis. Migrant workers additionally make a net contribution to government finances, paying annually £2.5 billion more in taxes than received in benefits.
There is no overall link between immigration and unemployment. Migrant workers tend to go where vacancies exist, and perform the least desirable jobs. They play a vital role in maintaining our public services; hospitals, schools and other essential services, and help meet labour shortages in the private sector; in agriculture, construction and hospitality.
Britain’s advanced developed growing economy has an immense capacity for labour. There is no economic justification for further restrictions on migration. It makes economic sense to have an amnesty for the estimated 500,000 undocumented migrant workforce. The campaign being mounted by the TGWU on this issue correctly points out that there would be no benefit from deporting all these people. Spain indicated the benefits of pursuing just such a course, last year, when it offered residency to 500,000 undocumented migrants.
Migrant workers are not the cause of low wages, as Brendan Barber TUC General Secretary has explained, such exploitation is best combated by a united labour movement acting in solidarity with its migrant sector. Restricting immigration is no solution to changing patterns of demand on public services. These should be responded to with the appropriate adjustments to infrastructure investment and local authority assistance necessary to match population shifts, irrespective of whether these originates from migration or indigenous change.
One particularly counterproductive falsehood being floated is the idea that the immigration system needs tightening to counter the extreme right. To defeat the BNP it is necessary to destroy its racist arguments, not concede to them. The TUC’s call for the UK job market to remain open should be supported, any new work permit system designed to restrict the entrance of central European workers would be economically detrimental. It would politically strengthen Labour’s opponents who benefit when racism is conferred with additional credibility.
There must be no pandering to xenophobia. The racist myths about migrant workers should be countered by explaining the real positive impact immigration has on raising living standards.
Taken from Socialist Campaign Group News, October 2006.
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