Does the Left understand what is going on?

The ‘Unite the Kingdom’ Freedom of Speech Rally in London on Saturday the 13^th September was significant. While official estimates from the BBC and law enforcement placed attendance at around 150,000, some participants and observers have suggested, based on aerial footage, that the actual number of attendees could have been considerably higher. This event comes on the heels of many smaller scale protests in the country over the past year. A key feature of these protests is a hostility to unrestricted immigration. Traditionally the Left has dismissed such events as ‘fascism’ but the numbers at the recent march would make too much of the UK population ‘fascist’ for this to be a plausible account. Instead, ‘austerity’ is taken to be a plausible alternative explanation. The British Left favours immigration, even though there is ample evidence that most of the population, including of immigrant origin, is ambivalent or downright hostile. In fact most of the British Left has signed up to the neoliberal dream of a completely open global labour market. 

Why should this be? Eamon Dyas, in this issue of ‘Labour Affairs’ makes out a case that the Left’s image of the working class is at odds with the reality and that they are unwilling to make their image conform with the reality. This is true, but there is a darker side to the Left’s attitude to the British working class. Some in progressive circles simply don’t like what they see when they look at today’s working class: the tastes, the opinions, the way of life. Immigration can feel like a way to change that reality, to make Britain look and feel a little more like the cosmopolitan world they want to live in. In addition immigration provides a ready source of cheap labour to carry out their domestic labour, serve in their restaurants, care for their frail and elderly etc.  Sahra Wagenknecht has pointed this out, writing about the ‘Self-Righteous’ leftists and Greens of Germany.

Working class people are not stupid and are well aware that much of the Left regards them as ‘deplorables’ even though the Left would never admit it.  They thus turn to alternatives such as Reform and, most recently, to ‘Unite the Kingdom’ to express their frustration. So long as the British Left continue with this attitude they will be rejected by much of the population. What makes it even worse is the Left’s refusal to recognise that racism is not the same thing as having a negative attitude to unlimited immigration. Thus those who do not like mass immigration are insulted as racists, bigots and even fascists. Eventually that population will turn to alternatives and the Left will be marginalised. Those who insult the marchers may feel good about themselves, but they are unlikely to win over working class people and will only make themselves irrelevant.

So what is at stake here? The main British parties (Labour, Conservative, Liberal) and even Reform have policies that depend on ‘essential immigration’.  But how much of immigration is essential? On a narrow economic analysis the claim is highly doubtful. According to research carried out by parliament, immigration has a broadly neutral effect on per capita GDP. Furthermore it seems to have a negative effect on the earnings of working class people:

“The available evidence suggests that immigration has had a small negative impact on the lowest-paid workers in the UK, and a small positive impact on the earnings of higher-paid workers. Resident workers whose wages have been adversely affected by immigration are likely to include a significant proportion of previous immigrants and workers from ethnic minority groups.” (House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs).

When you put this together with neighbourhood changes, waiting lists at GP surgeries and pressure on the housing stock, it cannot be surprising that not all UK residents are enthusiastic about mass immigration. However, it is easy to see why employers might be enthusiastic.   Increasing the stock of available labour exerts a downward pressure on wages; there is a ready supply of low-skilled labour which fits the business model of many employers in the UK; training costs are minimised in the case of skilled and semi-skilled labour. There is thus a distinct element of class struggle in the attitudes of different groups to the issue of mass immigration.

However, the available research does not tell us what would happen to the British economy were mass immigration to cease. The consequences, we are told, would be dire. But the evidence quoted above does not bear out this claim. What would happen to per capita GDP if immigration were restricted to a significant degree? We can’t supply figures, but certain factors stand out as worthy of consideration. First, there would likely be a positive effect on workers’ wages, holding overall demand for labour steady. This follows the evidence given to parliament. Second, employers would have an incentive to make their employees more productive through higher investment and more training. In the case of skilled work, they would no longer have a ‘free lunch’ of ready trained workers at the expense of other countries. Third, a general labour shortage would have the effect of encouraging innovation to make the most of the labour available. This is not to say that immigration should be eliminated where there is simply no substitute domestically. Even here we should try to avoid poaching skilled labour from countries that can ill afford to lose the skilled workers they have trained. As things stand, a highly liberal labour market, with poor regulation and a large informal sector is an important ‘pull’ factor for economic migrants but does no service for the working class. 

A final point is the Left’s ambivalence about Britain’s imperialist foreign policy. With their ‘human rights’ agenda, it is all to easy to co-opt the British Left into supporting the destruction of other countries such as Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria. The dismemberment of these countries under imperialist interference and attack is a powerful ‘push’ factor driving international migration. The Left should always oppose these imperialist adventures which are usually directed at plundering the resources of the victim countries under the guise of ‘humanitarian intervention’ or other excuses.

At this stage it is impossible to say whether the discontent evidenced by ‘Unite the Kingdom’ or Farage’s Reform UK will develop into mass right wing parties with a working class support base. But if it does, the Left will have itself to blame as it sinks into irrelevance.  This would leave British politics in uncharted territory making it difficult for socialism to survive as a recognisable force.