Labour activists are focusing understandably on the leadership process but as it goes on, the Conservative government responds and starts to shape some key issues. One of the most difficult and visceral issues is Calais. At the same time this week the International Organisation for Migration announced that over 2,000 people had now died crossing the Mediterranean.
Labour should have the best arguments on migration but after the past few days it is vital to first challenge some myths.
Calais has been a miserable episode for all concerned – for migrants many of whom have suffered the most harrowing journeys, and suffering in their country of origin – despite tabloid stories to the contrary, around a fifth are from Syria. For British citizens suffering economic loss and disruption it has brought the Mediterrranean crisis closer to home at a time when we, as a nation, were safely opting-out of any common European Union action apart from the late but valued intervention of HMS Bulwark. We thought the crisis was at a safe distance.
No one should be in any doubt, though, that daily television images have renewed the tabloid narrative that the United Kingdom is a ‘soft touch’ and first destination. The government response has been chaotic and reactive, leading to two punitive recycled policies – removing all support from asylum-seekers who are in the appeals process and applying fines to landlords who accommodate ‘illegal immigrants’.
So, what lessons can progressives take away from the issue?
First, an interesting point is that asylum numbers were higher in 1992 672 000, than they are today, 626 000, for the EU, but there are particular challenges today. Throughout Labour’s early years in government we were dealing with unprecedented asylum pressure from all over the world.
Second, Calais has become more of an issue because numbers have increased as pressure has grown on Italy in particular who along with Greece are taking the huge impact of the crisis without solidarity from other member states. Yet the numbers in Calais are relatively small – only 3,000 in the main camp. Compare this to the 175,000 who have already sought asylum in the EU this year. The small number suggests that the UK is not the number one destination of choice – Germany and Sweden dealt with nearly half of asylum applications last year. The tabloids have fuelled the idea that mass numbers do not apply for asylum in other countries but wait to apply in the UK – the numbers tell a different story.
Third, many from the Calais camp want to come to come to the UK not because we are a ‘soft touch’ but because they will join established communities or relatives. The language and perceived freedom such as no ID cards also attract. Eventually they want to work. How do we know this? We know because support levels for asylum seekers are lower in the UK than any other western European country – much lower than France and Denmark. Asylum applicants are banned from working, and they have to apply to the Home Office for support and accommodation. So when asylum-seekers choose Germany or Sweden it is similarly to join communities and eventually work if given status. Making landlords first tier immigration officers is unworkable, Labour rejected it this week and the government does not really believe in it.
Fourth, while many asylum-seekers remain in the UK through a long process of delays – many are detained, removed or deported. You do not hear about it unless you see a rare disturbance at an immigration detention centre on the news. I have seen immigration detention, deportation and removal when I worked at a migration NGO before I was elected. The people involved, sometimes children, are not criminals. It is deeply unpleasant and happens every day.
Fifth, there are no ‘silver bullets’ in migration policy but the only real ‘solution’ agreed by all sections except those who are ideologically opposed is effective EU and global cooperation. The root solutions – development, human rights and conflict resolution – are issues which must always be dealt with in parallel. In the past few months member states of the EU frustrated by similar debates to the one we have experienced in the past few days and hampered by far right and populist parties, have nevertheless stepped up search and rescue operations, agreed an emergency relocation mechanism, a modest refugee resettlement programme and agreed on action against people smugglers. But progress has been slow, with the UK opting out altogether. The numbers are in the tens of thousands. Compare this to the millions of refugees now in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan. The UK gives high levels of aid for Syrian refugees, but what global message did it send out that we took 187 in resettlement and will not take part in any of the new proposed EU action? It is difficult to lecture the other big member states when we opt out so completely.
The alternatives to cooperation are unworkable. As for the opportunistic conflation the United Kingdom Independence party want to make with the EU referendum, the local Conservative member of parliament for Ashford in Kent said recently the UK’s exit from the EU would just make things worse, ‘one effect would be that France would stop the UK having any border control in Calais’ he said. As for this being the fault of the EU – we need a constant reminder that the UK is not in Schengen and we operate our own national border control in relation to non-EU persons. Member states now routinely ignore the Dublin convention – an intergovernmental agreement. This issue would affect us in or out of the EU.
No one is being naive – Calais has the power to affect perceptions beyond the numbers involved, and there is an obvious danger it will affect the wider debate on the EU referendum, whatever the facts. An Ipsos MORI poll in June found 61 per cent in favour of membership – the EU has the tools to help manage this migration crisis, support will ebb if it is seen to abdicate this responsibility. Progressives should be for cooperation and should take on the myths before we set out our migration policy in opposition.
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Claude Moraes is a member of the European parliament for London and chair of the European parliament committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs
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A sensible and measured response amidst a lot of hysteria. We have to address public perception – we can’t pretend people don’t have concerns when they clearly do. Most Brits just want fairness, and we have to keep counter-acting myths when we hear them on holiday, on line, when we read them in the old fashioned ‘chopped down trees’ media, and in the pub. As Claude wrote ‘many from the Calais camp want to come to come to the UK not because we are a ‘soft touch’ but because they will join established communities or relatives..’ If you want to get someone to sing a song from every nation in the world (excluding embassies) you can do this in 24 hours in London – believe me, it’s been done (except Iceland, I think, and one other country, due to factors of time). The only other place in the world you could do this would be New York. If I were a political refugee I would go to any country where I knew people, and work extremely hard when I got there.
Public perception matches reality. Hundreds of thousands of arrivals have put an intolerable strain on our infrastructure and community relations.
What Claude wrote about people wanting to join established communities or relatives is probably true. But it does not give them the right to come here. France is a safe country for those claiming asylum. For economic migrants, then swift deportation is the correct, and humane, response.
No one is being naive Okey dokey Claude..
Claude has “balanced” the debate but who is going to hear the message. Also, Labour has got into a difficult place on Europe and its Manifesto commitment not to have a referendum was a mistake. The Party got it wrong and I got it wrong as I supported the policy.
I represent a part of North-West London that is experiencing a large inward migration of Eastern Europeans. Nothing to do with Calais or what Claude is talking about I hear you say. But the areas of the UK experiencing high EU migration and the effect of that migration on pay and local conditions is what is behind the whole debate and whether the UK will elect to stay in the EU. What I can say as a local councillor representing a growing Romanian community is that there are problems associated with that migration which causes resentment and anger. I am not blaming Romanians, I am half-Romanian myself, but we ignore the problems large-scale migration causes at our peril.
The issues are overcrowding, fly-tipping, exploitation by landlords, urinating and defecation in public places, street drinking and noisy barbecue parties until 2 – 3 in the morning.
In the past local authorities were equipped to engage with new communities and work on assimilation but local authorities do not have the resources and many in the communities we’d be trying to work with are transitory, staying for only 3 – 6 months.
Central Government whether Labour or Conservative is to remote and to bureaucratic to react to the fast changing situations on the ground. What is needed is devolution and powers locally to remedy the problems and its needed urgently or local residents views will be shaped by their perception that our membership of the EU are causing these problems and neither of the 2 main parties give a damn about it.
Claude, I find it confusing that you’d quote numbers from 1992, as if the massive number of asylum seekers now, is somehow a positive? I’m also mythed as to why you’d want mass migration to the UK? Coming to live in the UK from 3rd world nations is easier since Labour ripped off the safety measures. The fact it remains this high in light of that fact is terrifying! When we take into account the strains of mass migration, the damage to our infrastructure, to communities, to housing, the rocket in serious violent and sexual crimes, and so on, it’s difficult to understand why you promote it. You claim many died crossing, yet never pause to consider their own accountability in that? This is part of the problem, many that come here have a very different attitude to what they’re actually responsible for, and many have no intention of ever being held accountable for anything they ever do. Sadly it’s the lower classes in the UK that will suffer as a result of their total lack of responsibility. I guess that’s ok though, as children’s services remove hundreds and thousands of their children in the UK annually and either sell them to adoption agencies, or place them in foster placements designed to embezzle tax payers money and pay off middle class mortgages. They’ve already endured hundreds of years of human rights abuses, if they say anything, you’ll silence them with allegations of ‘racism’ all the while ignoring that most migrants hold extremely racist and often sexist views towards them. If you look at the UN agreement article 2, you’d see it’s actually called Genocide! I think genocide is evil, but I guess labour doesn’t.