WORKERS OF ALL LANDS UNITE

A growing number of Scots believe that too many people are entering the UK. In June 2018 found that 38 per cent of respondents believed that immigration levels were too high. In the latest survey carried out by YouGov, 45 per cent of respondents now say that the level of immigration into Britain over the last few years has been too high.

A total of 37 per cent of those polled said they thought the level has been “about right”, with 6% saying they thought the level was too low, whilst 11% said they did not know whether the level was right or not.

Research suggests that 45 per cent of people who voted Yes in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum believe that immigration is too high.

A total of 77 per cent of Leave voters in the Brexit referendum said they thought the level is too high, whilst Conservative voters are most likely to be opposed to more immigration, with 65 per cent stating that view.

The Scottish Government has repeatedly warned that a more restrictive migration system could send Scotland’s recent population growth into reverse, with birth rates north of the Border falling to historic lows. Last week, latest figures revealed Scotland’s population hit 5.44 million. Migration was the main reason for the increase with 20,900 more people coming than leaving, from both overseas and the rest of the UK, over the year to mid-2018. Although Scotland’s population increased by 0.2 per cent over the year, the rate of population growth has slowed for the second year running. This is due to a reduction in overall net migration.

People do worry about the deterioration of their lives and many blame newcomers for the reason. The Socialist Party has never been afraid to take a minority position that is correct merely because it is unpopular with the working class at present. It has never pandered to the prejudices of the working class. Many politicians have indulged in attacks on immigrants over the years as it is necessary for them to have a scapegoat to blame for the ills of the political system that we live under and the immigrant has always served as such a scapegoat. You will not find a Socialist Party member in that number.

We hear it only too frequently; ‘I’m no racist but  I’m in favour of some sort of immigration control. Why give them houses  when we haven’t enough houses for our own people?Why spend money on schooling for them, when the class-sizes are too big for our own children.?’ ‘Why let them use our hospitals when the waiting times are already long enough...’ How often we hear this?

Even some on the Left demand tighter border controls to prevent ‘our jobs’ being stolen by foreigners at a cost to the disadvantaged unemployed.

We know that the politicians who blame the immigrants for the shortages in our society are exactly the same people who are responsible for those shortages. We know that in capitalist society the numbers of people coming into any country will be regulated by the number of jobs available in that country, and we know that overcrowding in that country – bad housing, hospital conditions and the like – are caused not by the numbers of workers in that country but by a system of society which plans its priorities and makes its decisions in the interests of profit and a minority who benefit from that profit. So we know that immigration controls cannot possibly assist the workers already in that country. We also know that immigration controls create all kinds of hardship for workers and their families who want to come here.

As soon as someone says ‘Keep them out’, as soon as he or she talks about ‘Our own people’, they have committed discrimination between one set of workers and another. Our people, cannot be defined by their place of birth, the place where they live, the language they talk or the colour of their skin. Our people are the plundered and the dispossessed all over the world who speak a multitude of languages and have many different coloured skins. The common factor of their exploitation binds them together far closer than the trivial differences of skin colour or language. It is the system of capitalist production that produces unemployment, homelessness, destitution and crumbling health services, not workers, be they 'indigenous' or 'foreign'.

WORLD SOCIALISM