Anti-racist protesters in Walthamstow. Photo: Isai
Anti-racist protesters in Walthamstow. Photo: Isai

Isai Marijerla, Socialist Party Executive Committee, responds to questions about immigration, including those that have been raised with Socialist Party members campaigning on the streets.

Is immigration as big an issue as the media portrays?

There has always been migration as long as humanity existed, but we are also in a period of multiple capitalist crises with poverty, war and destruction dominating many countries. Increasingly it is impossible to find a stable country. War and conflicts are a feature in many countries. It is estimated that at least 50 countries worldwide experiencing active conflict, an increase by 25% in a year alone. 1 in 8 people across the world have been exposed to conflicts in 2024. The UN estimates that 305 million people will require humanitarian assistance in 2025.

In such a case, we are seeing an increase in the number of people forced to flee their home country. No one chooses to be in that situation where they are forced to leave everything they have known and go and start their lives elsewhere.

Most working-class and young people have an instinct of solidarity with those being forced to flee. Most understand that ordinary people are not responsible for the wars, repression and poverty that exist. In fact, it is the capitalist system to blame, a system based on nation states and exploitation.

In Britain, we have seen all the capitalist parties – Reform, Tories and Labour  – trying to blame migrants for the multiple crises caused by their system.

We say, stop blaming migrants for the crisis in Britain – a crisis created by the ruthlessness of capitalism and what it breeds, like privatisation, low pay, housing crisis and unemployment.

We blame the system for the cost-of-living crisis. We know there is huge wealth in the economy that, if in public hands and under the democratic control of the working class, could be put to use as part of a plan to improve the lives of all.

Is it fair that asylum seekers are being put up in hotels while thousands are homeless and my family are sofa-surfing unable to get on the council house waiting list?

No one should be homeless, sofa-surfing or forced to wait for years on council housing waiting lists. Decades of privatisation, underfunding, and a lack of investment have left housing services at breaking point. Council housing has been systematically sold off, with the stock not replaced.

The Socialist Party says take over the empty properties, bring them into public ownership and under democratic control of working-class communities so they can be used to house all those in need. We fight for a mass building programme of high-quality, affordable council housing.

It is not only on the issue of housing that immigration is being used by establishment politicians to distract us from the consequences of their policies.

Our public services including the NHS, social care, education system are crumbling and in crisis. But this is the direct result of cutbacks and privatisations by the Tories, now being carried on by Labour. Meanwhile, private energy and water companies are hiking up bills for private profits.

Faced with working-class anger about the consequences of their policies, capitalist politicians point the finger at immigration, attempting to divide the working class.

We are fighting urgently for a mass united struggle, of all working-class people – against austerity and for fully funded public services, and decent jobs and housing for all.

We call on councillors up and down the country to use all the powers at their disposal to resist austerity from Starmer’s Labour – funding services and building council homes, and rallying the support of communities and trade unions to demand money from central government.

Immigrants are willing to work for less pay and for longer hours, surely that just drives down my pay and conditions?

The capitalist class tries to use migration as a source of cheap labour that is often unorganised and seen as easy to bully and intimidate. Bosses looking to undermine workers’ organising collectively try to use social and language differences to try to set sections of workers against each other as a tool for divide and rule.

And it isn’t just migrant workers; agency workers and young people are also used by the bosses to drive down wages through lower pay rates and zero-hour contracts. It’s not exploited workers who gain from this ‘race to the bottom’, it’s the bosses!

It’s in the interest of all workers for there to be a united struggle for rights, pay and conditions for all. That’s why it is essential for the trade union movement to organise to bring in migrant workers, just as it is essential to organise agency workers and the new generation of workers too.

We, as workers of all backgrounds, have more in common with each other than the bosses and the capitalist system that seeks to divide us.

We demand that every worker gets the rate for the job. An immediate increase in the minimum wage to at least £15 an hour now with no exemptions, and above-inflation pay rises for all. We also defend the right of asylum seekers to work, to stop further exploitation of labour.

There have been plenty of examples of the capitalists using immigration as a tool for divide and rule. Capitalist politicians made it a high-profile issue during the EU referendum, and anti-migrant, anti-refugee rhetoric resurfaces again and again in times of crisis.

The capitalist establishment wants cheap labour, but it doesn’t want to pay to provide decent homes, services and jobs for all. We instead campaign for ‘Jobs, homes and services for all – not racism’.

I understand that people are fleeing for their safety, but surely the situation needs to be brought under control. Who decides who get to claim asylum and who doesn’t?

The scenes on our screens of deadly crossing of the English Channel show that people will risk their lives to find safety and with the hope of a better future, feeling that they have nothing to lose.

There are those who are desperate and will risk everything, no matter how high the wall or how strong and dangerous the obstacles or fences.

Would you put yourself and your children in a small boat in the sea knowing that people have died on the journey? The answer will be no – unless you felt you had no other choice.

The vast majority of people’s natural instinct is one of solidarity with those affected by war and poverty. We have seen how people come together in unity when tragedy strikes. For example, in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire, or when thousands opened their homes for Ukrainian refugees in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion, or in the outpouring of grief when the body of small Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi, was washed up on Mediterranean shores in 2015.

We defend the rights of workers to move to and work in the country of their choice. We fight for a genuine right to asylum, which does not exist for many people who are fleeing war and dictatorship under our current racist immigration laws. Those laws are created and enforced in the interests of big business not the working class and poor, either in Britain or internationally.

The trade union and workers’ movement should fight against every injustice of the racist immigrations laws. Control of decisions about whether or not to grant asylum cannot be left in the hands of a capitalist government. We demand that elected committees of working-class people, including from the trade unions and migrants’ organisations, have the right to review asylum cases and grant asylum.

What is the solution to immigration crisis?

The ‘immigration crisis’ is a crisis of capitalism. We live in a world full of war, poverty and inequality in which the working class and poor are made to suffer. There are no obstacles for a million-dollar migrant investor to enter the UK, for example, as a so-called ‘high-value migrant’.

The richest 10% of the global population currently take home 52% of the income. The poorest half of the global population earns just 8%.

The immigration crisis cannot be dealt with on its own. It has to be part of an overall fight to deal with the cost-of-living crisis and the conditions facing all working-class people in Britain – building council homes, funding services, fighting for decent pay rises, and more.

By building a united fightback for these demands, and against racist division, the workers’ movement can cut across support for the anti-migrant propaganda from right-wing capitalist media and politicians.

As part of that, we need a mass party of the working class and young people. One which can give an expression to the working-class anger that is bubbling below the surface, and which far-right forces are trying to tap into.

By fighting for socialist change, taking wealth and power out of the hands of the capitalist class and putting it into the hands of the working class, a democratic plan can be developed to meet the needs of all in society. The working class could have a democratic say over all aspects of life and society, including over borders and immigration control.

A socialist government acting in the interests of the working class would not be one competing with other capitalist states to maximise profits, taking part in capitalist wars, and backing up repressive regimes for strategic profit interests. Instead, it would reach out for collaborating with the working class internationally.

The only permanent way to end the immigration crisis is to fight for a democratic socialist world free from war, poverty and oppression. Join the Socialist Party and the Committee for a Workers’ International to fight for it.


Refugee rights protest. Photo: Senan
Refugee rights protest. Photo: Senan

£400 million: Rwanda policy an expensive, dangerous flop

Had the last Tory government’s Rwanda plan to deport migrants to the African country gone ahead it could have cost up to £400 million.

The cheques to the Rwandan government were already written. And for every one of the first 300 refugees and asylum seekers to be deported would have cost an extra £1.8 million.

The Tories were prepared to pay hundreds of millions of pounds to posture as being ‘serious’ about immigration and to try to make Britain a ‘hostile environment’ for migrants. They were hoping to shore up votes. It didn’t work. Their vote collapsed.

£4 billion

The Asylum Accommodation and Support Contract (AASC) is set to cost the government an estimated £4 billion over its ten-year duration. Three companies – Serco, Mears and Clearsprings – are getting huge sums from government to cram asylum seekers into substandard accommodation. All have recorded rising profits.

How many council homes could £4 billion build?

Meanwhile, waiting lists for asylum application assessments are huge. Tens of thousands wait for months in limbo. The Labour government threatens further cuts to civil service jobs. And the pound signs keep rolling in the bosses’ eyes.