For a Pro-Immigration Argument – CESRAN International

Dr. Ibrahim Sirkeci | 01 June 2010

In the last five years, parties standing in the UK elections have been forced to debate immigration. The 2005 elections were full of pretty “bigotted” discourses. The then Conservatives’ leader was appealing to the xenophobic vote by saying “are you thinking what I am thinking”. Luckily his party did not succeed. However, every other election since then has been dominated by far right arguments and policies. During the last decade, small parties with well known xenophobic stances set the scene while major parties tried to avert the tide by surrendering to some of these arguments.

In line with the overall securitisation of migration in Europe and other advanced countries, the UK has moved towards a “tough” stance on immigration. This mainly meant human right abuses for the sake of homeland security and covert torture for millions of immigrants through additional hassles and occasional abuse. The Government’s attempts to control immigration have largely failed. As we know from evidence and experience from around the world, migration control is a myth (See Cornelius, Martin, and Hollifield 1994; Cornelius et al. 2004).

It is no different in the UK. Although by definition and nature we can not know for sure, the volume of illegal immigrant stock in the UK is believed to be between 600 to 900 thousands by now. This added to the 5 million minority population in the country represents a significant issue. The anxieties the British public have are understandable given the fact that nobody is communicating the pro-immigration argument. Thus these anxieties are largely based on myths rather than reality. People struggling during the crisis, particularly those at the lower end of the welfare league are wrongly placing the blame on immigrants. Welfare gap in the UK has widened even further under successive Labour governments. Casino banking in this country and elsewhere led tax-payers money to disappear into bankers pockets not only in the last two years but for decades. Similarly, the little Britain pretending to be a superpower alongside the US over the years caused billions of Pounds wasted as well as lives of thousands lost in Afghanistan and Iraq. These are the reasons for increasing poverty, high unemployment and uneven provision of public services across the UK. Detention camps where thousands of asylum seekers kept and a bare room allocated to a refugee couple in a council estate (or ruins) in the most deprived areas of British towns are not and cannot be the source of poverty or any other social problem in todays Britain.

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* Published in the Second Issue of Political Reflection Magazine (PR).