Is It Really About Economics? The EU and Freedom of Movement

Any political debate in modern Britain is inevitably turning into a litany of issues caused by immigration. This year’s race to Labour Party leadership, following Ed Miliband’s resignation after he lost the general election last May, was no exception. From the four candidates, hundreds of thousands of Labour’s members and supporters could hear about problems ranging from foreign worker exploitation to decreasing wages for unskilled British workers to the right for immigrants to receive social benefits. The now-famous catchphrase of one of the contenders, that immigrants’ “freedom to work is not the same as freedom to claim,” does indeed suggest that the Labour Party is at a crossroads. Labour members’ acceptance of these immigration issues in their discourse seems to be in line with the party’s position as the political force of British working people, who are seen to be most negatively affected by immigration. It also, however, conflicts with principles of internationalism, which led the government to open borders to Poles and other Eastern European nationals when their countries entered the European Union in 2004.

Immigration is a problem… but not for British workers?

We should not be fooled; although the immigrants are mostly unskilled workers, the pressure on the Labour party to discuss controls on immigration did not come from British trade unions. The anti-European and anti-immigration sentiment has been growing since Margaret Thatcher’s tenure on the conservative side of British politics. Ironically, the belief that the stereotype of a ‘Polish immigrant robbing British workers,’ reflects the huge share of the Polish nation in British immigrant population, has a thoroughly nationalist, right-wing character. It contributes little to the debate about the economy, to which immigrants make a net positive contribution. It does, however, strengthen dangerous national feelings both in immigrant and welcoming nations, makes the “Brexit” (British exit from EU) look like a real possibility, and undermines the appeal of Labour’s traditional values of internationalist social democracy.

The distribution of the results of the May 2015 general election across the United Kingdom indicates that these anti-immigration arguments are limited to right-wing voters, concerned with national identity rather than welfare. While Labour remains the main pro-EU and pro-immigration party, it won by huge margins in working-class areas with high immigration, despite the fact that immigrants are generally not entitled to vote. In areas like East Ham in Eastern London, Labour received 77.6 percent of vote, leaving Eurosceptic Conservative Party (which won the election on the national scale) and radically anti-immigration United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) far behind.

Notably, just before the election, the Financial Times published a report showing that Labour voters, if they receive higher education at all, are more likely make careers in teaching or social work, thus making the Labour Party the force of ‘employees.’ The Conservatives, meanwhile, attract those working in management, banking or consulting—‘employers’. And paradoxically the latter, who would potentially benefit from a cheap workforce much more than the former, are voting for the Eurosceptic Conservatives on the basis on their more free-market policy. The Labour and Conservative sides alike give little dynamism to parties in solving this paradox.

Would a Eurosceptic Labour get even more votes?

The wing of British media that targets Eurosceptic and anti-immigration readers might claim that the British political system is becoming obsolete. From this perspective, UKIP is an opportunity for the working people, who would not vote for the Conservatives due to their pro-austerity economics and who are disillusioned with Labour’s support of immigration. An editor of The Spectator, a Eurosceptic British magazine, claims that new UKIP voters “are coming from those areas of the country where mass immigration of largely unskilled labourers and agricultural workers has had its most deleterious effects on the wages of local people.” To his credit, the UKIP won its single parliamentary seat in Clacton and its vote share rose in the 2014 European Parliament Election and the 2015 General Election in some areas that have recently seen high immigration.

Nonetheless, counterexamples dominate on national scale. Most strikingly, in the Western city of Lancaster, which has seen one of the higher rates of immigration in past years, Labour took a seat earlier held by Conservatives, and any rise in UKIP vote share was at the expense of the Conservatives.

The Labour Party thus still gets broad support in its ideological, internationalist approach to social democracy. Championing the cause of British working people can and should go in tandem with support for immigration and Britain’s presence in the European Union, and the recent Labour leadership contest was the ultimate proof of this. When it began in May, few expected Jeremy Corbyn, identified with far-left of the Party, to gain any significant share of votes. Over the following months, he campaigned with policies of scrapping university tuition fees at public institutions, introducing a 75 percent top tax rate and… support for mass immigration. These ideas would give a headache to anyone trying to decide whether to call him a radical ideologue or a radical populist, but in the end, 59.5 percent of Labour Party members voted for him. Three other candidates, more moderate on economic issues and more skeptical of immigration, were left far behind. Apparently,_ there was no need for an economically left-wing and anti-immigration candidate to emerge; traditional, pro-immigration Labour is far from obsolete.

Stereotyping, defense, and the lost reason

Economic logic may not explain British politicians’ concern with immigration; however, involvement of all parties in this political debate is inevitable today as British citizens and immigrants have entered a vicious circle of mutual accusations and stereotyping. It is much more than mere figures that shape the view on immigration in Britain, as a study conducted on 6000 British children earlier this year revealed. Most strikingly, when asked to estimate the percentage of UK residents who were born abroad, the average estimate was among study participants was 47 percent, nearly four times the actual figure of 13 percent. Sixty percent of these young people believe that immigrants and asylum seekers are “stealing” their jobs. By the time they become voters, they may review their numbers about the scale of immigration. Nonetheless, their perspective on immigration will have already been shaped. While they may adopt economic language in pressuring their political leaders, they will often not come from the working classes, which would claim to suffer most from immigration, and in fact be driven by hugely irrational sentiments. We already observe that increasing numbers of people and political groups, which used to be open to both sides of the argument about immigrants, are becoming deaf to the economic defense of the masses of less skilled laborers. There is no reason to think that this trend will soon change for better.

The immigrants, on their part, are obviously aware of those underlying sentiments. Among newcomers from Europe, the Poles, who now number well over half a million in the UK, form a particularly strong group with a developed immigrant identity. They know they come from a country perceived positively by only 30 percent of Britons according to YouGov’s 2014 Poll of Poles. They internalize the stereotype of the Polish immigrant who steals British jobs and robs the British budget of social benefits. When over a month ago they organized a strike and donated blood to the British National Health Service, it could be seen as a desperate move to defend their contribution to the British economy and combat the misleading and irrational anti-immigration debate.

When he was chosen to be the President of the European Council, it was sensible for Donald Tusk, the former Polish Prime Minister, to say, “I come here from a country which deeply believes in the sense of a united Europe.” Thanks to membership in the EU, Poland has seen a great influx of European funds, constant economic growth, and decreases in unemployment and economic inequalities. Moreover, Polish workers could earn greater sums of money abroad and bring them to families in Poland. However, the conflict between Polish patriotism and economic prospect of emigration to a country when they would feel unwelcome caused many young Poles to reject this logic in their political decisions. In the 2014 European Parliament election, the party of Janusz Korwin-Mikke, who compares the EU to Third Reich, got nearly 30 percent of young peoples’ votes. In the presidential election next year, Paweł Kukiz, who calls mass emigration the “extermination of Polishness” got 40 percent of the young vote. While their support remains limited on a national scale, these numbers show that even Poland is becoming less able to stand up against the British anti-immigration sentiment and the prospect of a “Brexit”.

The United Kingdom and Poland are just two countries which, through membership in the European Union, have come to be more interconnected than ever before. Robert Schuman, one of the fathers of united Europe, outlined in his famous declaration of 1950 that both countries hugely benefit from unification. Yet, contrary to his vision, solidarity between the people is fading. Today we hear much too often that European leaders will have to work with David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, to fix the EU before the UK decides to leave it. Yes, some economic issues must be addressed. But those of us who believe in the sense of united Europe and its role to play in bringing security, solidarity, equality and economic growth have a responsibility as well. We should spread this belief before Europeans lose themselves and lose Europe in a debate which too often only seems to result from economic considerations.