Closing the Door (2/2)

Many believe that immigrant labour is scab labour, since the bosses had a long tradition of importing foreign workers to break strikes or cut wages. It was one of the reasons to stop scab trade that the International Working Men’s Association (the First International), was formed in 1864. Some on the Left today declare ‘Let’s have a debate on immigration’. And bewail the high numbers of immigrants, and that the ruling class use this increased supply of labour to cut wages in several unskilled and low-skilled job sectors, hitting the indigenous working class. They claim extra demand for housing has forced prices and rents higher, and in many cities local children cannot get into local schools and that the waiting time at the hospital has grown because of foreigners in the line for treatment. These claims are drip-fed daily to workers in order to divide them along the lines of colour and/or nationality/race (and religion), i.e., workers from ‘outside’ lower your wages, take your jobs, put up your rents, deny your children a decent education, etc., etc. Capitalism has always been an international system with capital going to where it will realise the highest returns rather than maintaining loyalty to a nation-state. Even Thomas Jefferson had to admit that ‘merchants have no country’. 

But is an increase in the supply of labour to be explained solely by citing immigration figures and playing with the figures? What of new technology? While not increasing the number of workers it can reduce the number jobs. Are we to become machine-wreckers once again? Then, of course, there is the export of capital to abroad, where it will be used to manufacture commodities cheaply and compete with home products. The point is quite simple for those who choose to see it: it is the owner of the means of production who will decide who will work, with what technology, for what wages, where the work will be sited and what level of unemployment (surplus labour, indigenous or foreign) will be best for his maximum profit. That is not always an easy thing to explain in a country where the working class movement is so pitifully weak ideologically, yet that is what socialists must do. It is the height of treachery to our class (remembering that the working class stretches far beyond Britain’s boundaries), blatant racism, and opportunism to opt instead for a policy of blaming the immigrant for all British workers’ woes, even if this will strike a chord with the basest instincts of many workers. While we are on the subject of the ‘indigenous working class’ just who are they? At what point does an immigrant family become an indigenous family? If the answer to that question is never than even someone with the flimsiest grasp of British history would have to draw the conclusion that there are very few members of the indigenous working class about. The question of house prices, rents, etc., being the fault of immigrants is pure bunkum. Immigrants tend to live in the lowest quality (if any at all) housing, unless, of course, one subscribes to the somewhat popular, but totally incorrect, view that ‘they come over here with nothing and are given the best houses by the council’ that can be heard in any working class area and is merely a reflection of the anti-working class repeating the pap that fills the pages of the gutter press. Workers do say these things and, if not shown the errors of these views, will tend to believe them. The Socialist Party will not pander to these simplistic views or try to give these opinions credibility. Another point about housing is that if immigrants really are causing rents and prices to rise then one must suppose that this is due to a housing shortage, which would be alleviated by, yes, you guessed it, building more homes which would create jobs wouldn’t it?

For sure it cannot be denied that the majority of the UK population now wants far stricter limits on immigration numbers. Our exposure of the level of ignorance and backwardness in the working class, its atrocious level of disunity, should not be cause for celebration or smugness. The fact that this level of ignorance exists does not make it either right or desirable, it only goes to show the staggering amount of work that socialists have to do to bring education, enlightenment and unity to the working class in this country. The Socialist Party is not afraid to take a minority position that is correct merely because it is unpopular with the working class at present. But our approach is to assign blame where it lies, squarely with the rich and not with the average person. The rich are trying to make the people pay for the crisis.

Xenophobia and racism are not the exclusive domain of the right. Some of those Leftists calling for an end to immigration argue that immigration is and has always been a mechanism for depressing wages and undermining working class organisation. And some will cite evidence that West Indian immigrants who came here in the fifties and sixties were invited to take the low-paid jobs that British workers could not afford to take. This helped to maintain the low wages of those jobs. The idea that immigrants can only have a negative effect on wages, etc., is strange that we still remember the Grunwick dispute where immigrants, many first generation, organised themselves and fought courageously for reinstatement and union recognition, being defeated only through the treachery of the Labour Government of the day. Yet, even in defeat, these immigrants achieved higher wages and better conditions for those left inside the Grunwick’s plants. The picture is presented of immigrants coming here to live because we British workers have made life in our country so wonderful through our organisation and principled struggle. What nonsense! If people from the South of England start to migrate North for the cheaper housing, should we drive them back at Watford Gap telling them to go and fight for cheaper housing in the South? When British dockyards, with the full backing of their workforces, compete with each other for shipbuilding contracts and try to win work to their area away from other workers in Britain does this not usually involve bringing down wages and conditions and boosting productivity? The anti-immigrant argument, apart from freeing the employers of all responsibility for the things that they actually have control over, is not just silly but very dangerous and can easily incite regionalism as it already has Scottish and Welsh nationalism.

We in the Socialist Party have the task to educate all workers to realise the need to destroy capitalism and build socialism. No worker should be declared illegal for wanting to work or to better him or herself. Capitalism is the enemy of all workers. It is the system of capitalist production that produces unemployment, homelessness, destitution and crumbling social services (not to mention the incessant wars that creates refugees flee to safety) – not workers, be they ’indigenous’ or foreign. We are all wage slaves and we should not permit the media to constantly slander a section of us by blaming them for the problems created by the capitalist class itself – such as unemployment and homelessness. Red herrings are part of the poison of political life and demonizing those unable to defend themselves is an easy way to divert attention. The capitalists try to turn groups of workers against each other, competing ever more fiercely for dwindling jobs and falling wages in a war of all against all.  Workers of every country are forced to compete with each other in order to force down wages everywhere. Working people have only two choices: either let the bosses play us off each other until we hit bottom, or to unite and fight for decent wages and benefits for all.

One very basic idea, unity of the working class is critical. In capitalist society, a tiny class of people owns the means of production and profits by exploiting the workers’ labour. United, the overwhelming tendency of the working class would be to fight for a decent life for all, which is incompatible with capitalism. Powerful united struggles of the working class would inevitably demonstrate the need to overthrow capitalism altogether. Since the working class is the only class with the power to overturn capitalism, the capitalists use every possible divide-and-conquer tactic to prevent this development. The bosses hope to keep the workers fighting with each other over shrinking pieces of a small pie instead of uniting for better pay and conditions and a higher standard of living for everyone. Workers have nothing to gain by falling prey to any type of anti-immigrant scapegoating. We have to reject all laws that divide the working class into legals and illegals. The rich are the exploiters, a class of idle parasites who live off the toil and sweat of the workers. These big money-bags have only one interest: profits, and not just any kind of profits, but maximum profits. Hence, the rich use nationalism to wring maximum profits out of their employees and to make it easier to rule over the people. They use nationalism to single out certain sections of the people, the immigrant communities, for the worst kind of exploitation and to incite other sections of the people to attack the immigrants. This is the standard tactic of all minorities with state power: divide and rule. Politicians will continue to distract the public by blaming the individual and minority groups, and in particular newcomers and strangers rather than the economic system and the austerity policies it require to survive as the root cause of the problem.

As the gulf between rich and poor becomes greater so too will the desire of the capitalist class to use all weapons to divide working people. The response is to fight for the common interest of working class unity. But unity is not an automatic process. Create and perpetuating national divisions within the working class has always been an essential feature of the capitalist system. This was a point that Marx recognised over 100 years ago when he talked about the prejudice directed by English workers against migrant Irish workers. He called this antagonism the ‘secret of the impotence of the English working class ... It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power.’

The Socialist Party has always approached the question of not from the standpoint of a particular capitalist state, but from the standpoint of the interests of the world’s working class. These are best served by the free movement of workers around the globe. Not only does this enable workers as a whole to get the best price for the sale of their labour power, it also increases the proletarisation of previously peasants and also aids international unification. We therefore reject completely all attempts by the ruling class to restrict or control the international migration of labour.

“I mean, your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, let's blame the people with no power and no money and these immigrants who don't even have the vote, yeah it must be their fucking fault.” -  Iain Banks