To fight division we need workers’ control and jobs, homes and services
Scott Hunter, Swindon Socialist Party
A recent BBC report claims to have found evidence of law firms coaching migrants to ‘pretend to be gay’ to claim asylum in the UK. This has been followed by predictable responses from all the establishment politicians, with Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood vowing to come down hard on ‘sham lawyers’.
It cannot escape notice that the BBC has published these findings – which its editors surely knew would have an incendiary effect – at a time of escalating war and a looming cost-of-living crisis for many people in Britain. The report has no data on how widespread these practices may be. It hearkens back to the 2000s, when the press carried lurid headlines about supposed ‘benefit fraudsters’, amplifying as much as possible the few confirmed cases.
Where there is demand, there is supply, and these exploitative law firms – who charge migrants thousands of pounds – exist in the gaps created by decades of anti-migrant policy by governments of all colours. The BBC report appears to show that their main clientele is people who have been living in the UK legally for years – as workers or students – whose visas have expired and are desperate to continue their established lives in the UK.
In 2012, then-Home Secretary Theresa May spearheaded the ‘hostile environment’ policy, which famously culminated years later in the wrongful deportation of at least 83 members of the Windrush generation. Starmer’s Labour has continued these Tory policies without the hostile environment branding, proudly touting the number of deportations in its first six months in government, not to mention Starmer’s ‘island of strangers’ rhetoric. All the establishment political parties have used immigration as an issue to divide the working class, which has only contributed to the rise of Reform and the far-right. Given all these obstacles to living and working legally in the UK, is it any surprise that a grey market has emerged?
How can the immigration system be reformed in favour of working-class people? While the bosses and their politicians hold power, we don’t have a say in so many aspects of our lives, including immigration laws. It is impossible for migrants to get a fair hearing under our current racist immigration laws, which are created and enforced in the interests of big business and not the working class and poor. The trade unions – which have more than 6.5 million members in Britain and organise workers of all nationalities – should fight for genuine democratic workers’ control over the whole legal system, including migration and borders. We demand that elected committees of workers, including representatives from trade unions and migrants’ organisations, should be able to oversee asylum and immigration policy.
The ‘immigration crisis’ is a crisis of capitalism: a system built on division and exploitation which breeds poverty and war. There’s more than enough wealth in society to make sure that no one – regardless of national origin – goes cold, hungry or homeless. Fighting for migrants’ rights and against racist and divisive immigration laws has to be part of a fight against the cost-of-living crisis: for decent pay, council homes, fully funded services and more.
To win these demands, we need a united fightback which embraces the working class in all its diversity. And the trade unions must take the lead! Huge numbers demonstrated in March against racist division. The TUC (Trades Union Congress) passed a motion last September committing to organising a national demonstration against austerity. The TUC should name the date and link the struggles against Labour’s austerity, racism and war.
