Strangers Into Citizens: open arms bringing down the shutters?
Today there was a rally in central London called by the Strangers Into Citizens campaign, a coalition with an apparently bedazzling array of backers from the unions, parliament and from (largely religious) community groups. Its aim was to call for a one-off “earned amnesty” for migrants who live and work in the UK without legal status, and who have been here for over 4 years. They argue that there is a strong case for such a legal change, on grounds that it:
– recognises the dignity of human beings who have made new lives in Britain;
– extends and reinforces the rule of law;
– levels the playing-field for low-paid workers;
– enables businesses to employ legally the labour it needs;
– recognises the role that migrants already play in society;
– ensures that tens of thousands of British workers receive the protection of the law;
– shrinks the black economy;
– frees up billions of pounds in taxes for the Exchequer;
– enables local authorities to plan better;
– solves the expensive, inhuman delay in processing old asylum claims;
– builds a more cohesive British society;
– turns outlaws into neighbours – “strangers into citizens” –in the best British tradition of pragmatism and justice.
All apparently reasonable points, albeit rather superficial and topped off with a sick-inducing crust of meaningless pap about the “British tradition of pragmatism and justice”. But is it something that people who (as I do) believe in open migration across borders as a moral right for all, would be able to support? It is possible to argue that this is a step towards that goal. However I believe there is a sting in the tail.
You see, the proposed amnesty would be a “one off”, which makes it remarkably easy for some very interesting people to endorse it. In the UK, supporters of an earned amnesty include Boris Johnson. In the USA, similar proposals have been endorsed by that well known friend of progressive causes, 2008 Republican Presidential nominee John McCain. We will return to why endorsements from the political right should be easy to garner, later on in this post.
The rather mealy-mouthed way in which this campaign argues its case – based not so much even on the usual quibbling over stats so much as upon emphasising how non-universal the amnesty would be and stressing that it is just a one-off – should ring alarm bells in and of itself. In reality there should be no question of “earning” the right to live and work in the UK. Indeed, it is only because the conservative press have been allowed to frame the terms of debate that we consider “economic migrant” to be a pejorative term at all.
The real basis for a pro-immigration argument here isn’t one of compromise or even of statistics. It is political and it is moral. As far as I am concerned, as a rule if someone wishes to come to the UK in order to improve upon the quality of life which they and their families currently have, then there is no good reason why they should not be allowed to do so. There is nothing dishonourable in them having that wish. People rightly want to live in comfort and security, and when they do, most of them become productive within their environment. This campaign evidently does not take such a stance as its premise. Furthermore, given some of the nonsensical rejections of asylum claims which I have seen in my time, it also strikes me that people wrongly slip into “illegal” status more often than they should. There is no future safeguard against this continuing to be the case, which leads me on to my next point.
Now, let us return to that “sting in the tail”. What happens after this amnesty? As it stands, the proposal would cover people who have been in the UK for more than 4 years. So, if someone has fled here from Afghanistan and is currently working in (say) a restaurant in Birmingham, and has been here for 2 1/2 years, then they are not covered. What happens to them, once either the current government (you know, the one that spent last week trying to stop a Commons amendment to allow retired Gurkha soldiers to settle in the UK) gets another term or (as seems likely) a Tory government is elected? Neither party has any cynical political gain to make from making immigration laws more liberal, and nobody that I am aware of is predicting that either party would break with public expectations if elected. And of course, if you’re anti-immigration then an amnesty gives you the perfect opportunity to shout “clean slate” and place walls of steel around the UK. I don’t believe that this is the intention of most supporters of Strangers Into Citizens. But neither is it antithetical to the campaign’s main aim, especially given the somewhat Uriah Heep-esque manner in which its arguments are posed, presumably to mollify perceived xenophobic sentiment. An one-off amnesty now leaves the door open for a clampdown at a later stage.
An amnesty is a proposal that I would not stand against, but neither will I give it active support. Those who support the welfare of all those who choose to make their lives in the UK should support campaigns and demands which unequivocally put positions which defend the right to move to this country in and of itself. The No Borders Network puts it thus:
No Borders is a network of groups struggling for the freedom of movement for all and an end to all migration controls. We call for a radical movement against the system of control, dividing us into citizens and non-citizens.
We demand the end of the border regime for everyone, including ourselves, to enable us to live another way, without fear, racism and nationalism.
… and I couldn’t put it better myself.
The central demands here are simple and clear: no to national borders, yes to the right to freedom of movement. It’s time we stopped apologising for wanting to end the global apartheid of immigration controls, and I hope that more and more of us will do so.
Shiraz Socialist 
Will said,
May 4, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Good post
see also
http://www.noii.org.uk/
maxdunbar said,
May 5, 2009 at 7:31 am
Bang on
Sue R said,
May 5, 2009 at 10:11 am
Right, so who’s e,migrating to Somalia and Pakistan then? or, do you fancy Saudi Arabia?
NOIIUK said,
May 5, 2009 at 12:05 pm
There are no ‘just’ or ‘fair’ immigration controls, they are institutionally racist.
A No One Is Illegal discussion paper on so-called ‘amnesty’ is available here.
Laban Tall said,
May 5, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought No Borders were only keen on there being no western borders, and that, for example, they didn’t support the right of Israelis to settle anywhere they liked in historic Judea and Samaria.
Is this correct ?
maxdunbar said,
May 6, 2009 at 7:23 am
Well I support the right of Israelis to live in the Middle East. I can’t speak for No Borders though.
voltairespriest said,
May 6, 2009 at 8:47 am
Laban: as far as I’m aware the point is that they don’t support that right to the exclusion of all others – for instance the right of Palestinians to re-settle in Haifa or Tel Aviv.
Dave Stamp said,
May 6, 2009 at 9:55 am
I was actually at the SiC rally and, for me, one of the most interesting points about it was the really quite evident gulf between the organisers and great swathes of the participants. While the “branded” SiC banners were the most numerous, what was revealing were the demands made on the home-made placards: “Papers for all”, “No one is illegal”, “NHS for all”, “Stop Starving asylum seekers”, “No deportations” and so on.
The march itself was really quite incredible: really vibrant and energetic. What was striking was just how flat the atmosphere became once we reached Traf Square and started listening to dull speech after dull speech by innumerable “Faith Leaders”- but only after we’d been called upon- three times!- to sing “God Save the Queen”. An invitation which, on the basis of what I could see and hear, was declined by a good two-thirds of the crowd.
It’s undoubtedly impressive that a crowd of some30,000 mostly marginalised and, until now, voiceless people took to the streets to demand recognition and regularisation. What might be more interesting, though, is just how the situation develops in the light of Strangers’ evident inability to contain the expectations and demands of the people it purports to represent.
Bob said,
May 6, 2009 at 3:39 pm
I don’t see this as exactly a “sting in the tail”. It is true the SiC campaign demands are too small – I take a No Borders line myself. But surely we all march for things that are only a percentage of the way to what we want, without seeing that as an indictment of the march’s organisers. So far, we have not succeeded in getting the No Borders message into the public sphere to any degree, so we should be glad that SiC is pushing the consensus in the opposite direction to that which all the political parties want it to go. I think, in fact, that in beating fascism in this day and age, one of our key tasks has to be to start un-doing the bullshit around migrants that totally dominate the media, and the SiC campaign is a (small) step in this direction.
By the way, I assume most readers know that SiC is a front of the same outfit that has pushed the Living Wage campaign – see e.g. http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Another-politics-is-possible?var_recherche=%22living%20wage%22
The whole faith/union alliance issue is interesting. Obviously, Shiraz Socialist folks are suspicious of the churches. But the potential of these campaigns to mobilise people from way beyond the left/activist ghetto is not to be sniffed at. Some of the Living Wage actions, e.g. at Tate Modern, Barclays Bank on the Isle of Dogs, etc, have managed to mobilise the most exploited sections of the workforce in ways that very few of the campaigns left groups have been involved in have managed to do.
Left Outside said,
May 6, 2009 at 4:04 pm
I was initially suspicious of the Church connection, but after being at the rally in Trafalgar Square I have to say that it was a great show of strength.
There was a certain aspect of mealy mouthed compliance – in essence the terms of discussion were not challenged. The right wing press still frame the debate on immigration and there seems little attempt to challenge this.
I feel that SiC are doing a good job. They have set themselves a realisable aim and are putting alot of energy into it. They could do alot more but for the moment they get my full support.
maxdunbar said,
May 6, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Bob makes good points. Change is gradual rather than sudden. The problem with the amnesty is that once it’s over the rightwingers (who still frame the terms of this debate, as Left Outside said) can just go: ‘Okay, you’ve had your amnesty, we’ve done it your way, all the others can just fuck off now.’
And yes, local churches do support asylum seekers, at least in my experience. Finally the pro-faith left can be of some practical use.
Rosie said,
May 6, 2009 at 6:12 pm
I’ve heard of so many examples where an asylum seeker or someone whose papers weren’t in order was taken up by their local church group who saved them from being deported that I wonder if that would be the best advice to give someone in that situation – get in with your local church and congregation. They’re a better bet than a political pressure group as they look eminently respectable. They’re also easy to find.
I don’t know if your local mosque or temple would carry the same cachet.
voltairespriest said,
May 6, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Bob;
I appreciate your argument but it’s not the way that real politics works, in my view. Pressure groups exist to attempt to swing opinion, or to put a position, or to at least win half of a set of demands. The problem with Strangers iInto Citizens is that it precisely isn’t a matter of a show of strength – it’s a campaign that goes cap in hand to government trying to reassure it that its (negligible) demand will not deflect from wider political agendas. That won’t work.
Since writing the article I’ve heard some appalling tales from someone who was there on the demonstration, for instance of being approached by a “failed” asylum seeker who was carrying a union flag and saying “I am British now”. Not only is that statement factually untrue – no legislative change has happened whatsoever – why on earth also should he be asked to give up his heritage (and “earn” that right) in order to be accepted in UK society?
The whole thing just doesn’t work, and has quite unpleasant undertones for me to boot.
Dave Stamp said,
May 7, 2009 at 8:50 am
Bob makes some valid points- and it’s because I broadly agree with them that I was there in the first place. like I say, it was an interesting, wildly complex event. It was just dispiriting -to me- to hear repeated references to mass deportations voiced primarily on the grounds that they’d be too expensive. Or hear people repeatedly urged to sing a National Anthem which quite explicitly denies the concept of “citizenship” to *any* of us!
Bob said,
May 7, 2009 at 10:18 am
VP, I get what you are saying, but I think that the need to challenge the right-wing hegemony on the immigration question is very, very pressing. Without doing so, we can never defeat the BNP and their ilk, and of course the question is very urgent for the thousands languishing in detention centres, risking the trafficking industry and working illegally while dodging the immigration cops. I see SiC as the ONLY campaign in my memory that has really made any difference in shifting the debate away from the right-wing hegemony. The no borders/no one was illegal message was inserted into the demo quite successfully and got more of a public hearing than it has on any other occassion. And the concept of “strangers into citizens” is in itself a positive one, even if a one-off amnesty is a limited goal.
As for the “I am British now”, I don’t see it as a big deal. “Britishness” is not just about “identity” and “heritage”; it is about citizenship too. We should be fighting for a form of citizenship that does not have to be “earned” by giving up “heritage” (whatever heritage might mean) but is racially blind and truly cosmopolitan. The self-presentation of the march, with Union Jacks blending with very obviously “foreign” markers (Colombian flags, slogans in French and Spanish and Chinese, etc) worked towards this, suggesting a very different “Britishness” than the one Brown is promoting.