BRITAIN will not become a ‘safe haven’ for migrants, David Cameron warned yesterday, referring to the groups of migrants in Calais as ‘swarms’.
Correctly the Refugee Council responded by attacking Cameron’s use of the word ‘swarm’ as ‘irresponsible, dehumanising language’ – used to make declaring them public enemy number one all the easier!
After dehumanising them, Cameron warned that illegal immigrants would be removed from the UK.
Speaking in Vietnam during his tour of South East Asia, Cameron said, ‘Everything that can be done will be done to make sure our borders are secure and make sure that British holidaymakers are able to go on their holidays.’
This is after he virtually forced British workers to end their holidays in Tunisia, when many of them wanted to remain there. They were told that if they did not get on the planes they would not be going back to Britain at all.
Cameron said the situation was ‘very testing’ because there was a ‘swarm of people coming across the Mediterranean, seeking a better life’. His remarks were the signal for an outpouring of anti- migrant propaganda with practically every capitalist newspaper urging the PM to ‘send the troops into Calais’, as if it was still a British colony. In fact, the French took it back in 1558.
Conservative MP David Davies echoed calls for the army to be sent to Calais, as did UKIP’s Farage, while the Police and Crime Commissioner for Surrey, Kevin Hurley said that the local regiment, the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Gurkha Rifles, should be deployed to help tackle the crisis.
However, the Gurkhas are not British. They are Nepalese mercenaries. They are, however, so valuable to British imperialism that those who retire from the army are allowed to remain in the UK! So there are definitely exceptions to the rule. Swarms of Gurkhas are welcome!
The facts of the matter are that there are millions of British people living throughout the European Union and in different parts of the world where the UK was once the colonial power. There are no calls to send them back, despite the racist ravings coming out of the UK!
Over the centuries, even before the UK existed, England was enriched by great waves of migrants who brought with them new skills and the ability to work hard. The British people are made up of various waves of migrants, from Ireland, Eastern Europe, the Indian sub-continent and the Caribbean islands. Now post-EU they are from Poland and Eastern Europe.
All of these waves have been, or are being, integrated into the British working class, are at home here, and have made a huge contribution to society. The growth of the ‘keep-them-out brigade’ is in fact part of the decline and now the fall of British capitalism.
Another big issue is that the UK has played a major role in laying waste, in the past decade and a half, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. These countries have been devastated by US and UK invasions to steal their resources. Since 2011, a vicious imperialist intervention has been seeking to destroy Syria.
It is these invasions that have spurred hundreds of thousands to risk their lives in dinghies on the Med, and to seek a better life in the UK, Germany, and Sweden etc. Cameron has declared that he is ready to bomb Syria and Libya despite the fact that this will create hundreds of thousands more refugees. British imperialism is reaping what it sowed.
British workers must welcome the migrants and make them feel at home. These dispossessed are part of the working people of the world. Migrants fleeing imperialist wars are not our enemies, they are our friends. Our enemy is at home and it is busy destroying the NHS and the Welfare State and bringing in new anti-union laws.
The ruling class must not be allowed to split the working class on the issue of migration. To make the world a fit place for all to live, all workers must unite to organise the British socialist revolution to smash capitalism and imperialism as part of the struggle for worldwide socialism.
