The Socialist Party recently received the following email:
I’m very concerned that some of my friends are making a distinction between refugees, legal immigrants looking for a better life and so-called illegal immigrants, saying they only have a problem with the latter. I need a counter-argument urgently. They seem to be buying the right-wing fascist argument.
Can you advise?
Steve Score, Socialist Party National Committee member, responds:
Thank you for contacting the Socialist Party. We strive to put forward arguments that can help workers and young people unite in struggle against our common enemy, the big business bosses and the politicians who serve their interests by driving down our living standards and whipping up division.
We are all constantly bombarded with stories about asylum seekers and ‘illegal immigrants’, and not just from right-populist Reform and the far right. “Stop the boats” was a main Tory slogan in the last election. Starmer’s Labour are constantly echoing the same points. They announce ever harsher measures, primarily designed to make them look effective. Scapegoating a minority is a tool that unpopular governments pick up as they try to maintain their position.
The billionaire-owned media have whipped it up for years, including the supposedly “impartial” BBC giving daily figures on the number of asylum seekers arriving in small boats (but not on days there are none). This constant divisive rhetoric goes largely unanswered in the establishment media and can therefore find an echo at this stage. Those who suffer when the minority of racists in society are emboldened have reason to fear this whipping up of prejudice and it must be answered by the workers’ movement.
Strained services
There are many people who are concerned that the numbers of immigrants mean fewer doctors’ appointments, less housing to go round, longer NHS waiting lists, low wages, etc. These problems are real – but they are caused by successive Labour and Tory government cuts to the NHS and all public services; unaffordable rents arising from the sell-off and lack of building of council housing, privatisation, and a capitalist system that seeks profit from exploitation of the working class.
Austerity has been a disaster for working-class people. For example, local authorities across England cut their spending on domestic violence refuges by 24% between 2010 and 2017, leaving thousands of women turned away. It’s estimated half of councils have cut streetlights in a society where 97% of young women report sexual harassment.
But, at the same time as scapegoating minorities for these problems, big business also seeks to profit from their presence. The reality today is that low-waged, insecure workers brought from abroad have been used to keep the NHS and social care running in the face of staff shortages. Migrant labour is also used as a means to keep wages low.
The RMT union is organising against the brutal changes to visa rules that threaten over 200 workers in London transport with deportation. The RMT has given a glimpse of the power of the working class with its four days of strike action on London Underground estimated to cost big business £230 million.
We need to campaign for the trade union movement to address all these problems, fighting to take the wealth from the super-rich to put money into services, raising the minimum wage to £15 an hour with no exemptions, and building a million council homes. Nationalising the top 150 banks and corporations that dominate the economy would be a great start.
Divide and rule
The richest 350 people in the UK have between them just short of £800 billion, enough to reverse the worst effects of a decade of austerity. Divide and rule is the age-old tactic used by the rich and powerful to divert attention from the fact that it is their profit-driven system that is to blame for the very real problems working-class people face and prevent the working class from realising its potential collective power. The working class is stronger to fight to take the wealth off the super-rich when it is united.
Distinctions between economic migrants, asylum seekers and refugees are deliberately distorted and blurred. Asylum seekers are fleeing war, civil war, repression and persecution. When they have their applications accepted, they are legally recognised as refugees. Capitalism means an increasingly unstable and violent world. Repressive regimes, war and conflict, economic crises and environmental disasters are the conditions that create refugees internationally. Labour defends this system including its wars.
The propaganda around people coming to the country “illegally” neglects to mention the fact that many of those coming here, especially on small boats across the English Channel, are denied any opportunity to apply for asylum and to travel by legal routes. No one is going to risk their life to travel unless they are desperate.
Between April 2024 and March 2025, six in ten of small boat arrivals were Afghans, Syrians, Eritreans, Iranians, and Sudanese fleeing war and dictatorship.
Cuts in the civil service mean that there are huge backlogs for those waiting for their asylum claims to be heard, during which time they are not allowed to work.
Workers’ control
In 2024, there were 108,000 people going through the application process; a minority of those, 44,000 are classed by the government as “irregular arrivals”. In comparison, 210,000 people were granted visas for work.
Making legal and safe routes for people to claim asylum in Britain would eliminate the criminal gangs who take people’s life savings to transport them. Having a fair, democratic, properly funded system for dealing with appeals would also end the need for asylum hotels.
The three companies running these hotel contracts – Mears, Serco and Clearspring – have an interest in the delays. They made £383 million in profit since 2019 and Clearspring boss Graham King, a Tory donor, became a billionaire! The process should be under the democratic control of the workers’ and trade union movement.
This has to be linked to organising in our communities for council budgets that reject austerity, and instead are based on funding the jobs and public services, and building homes needed by the entire local community. This requires the building of a united movement.
Funding is the start, but the working class also needs to be fighting for how public services are democratically run to meet the needs of all sections of the working class. We want services for women fleeing domestic violence and for those who have suffered brutality in the world’s wars. A trade union-led struggle to fight for this and against division is necessary – linked to building a political voice for the working class.
By fighting on these basic class issues, a new mass working-class party could cut across support for Reform and the ability of the far right to have an influence in our communities. The response to Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s Your Party announcement shows the huge potential. If built as a collective voice of our class it could start to gain authority with people, answer their fears, and provide a real alternative.
Also a party like that in Britain with a bold socialist programme would have a huge effect and be a step towards the mass struggles needed to get rid of capitalism worldwide. This would be a start to eliminating the need for mass movements of people fleeing war, civil war, repression and poverty.
