For some weeks now, the pro-EU pressure group, Open Britain, has been warning of the dangers of Nigel Farage getting into No 10 if he succeeds in using Reform as the vehicle for a takeover of the Conservative Party. On 5 November, US democracy faces its own existential crisis with the possible election of Donald Trump. Both men thrive on stoking the fear laying at the heart of expressions of racism and xenophobia. But what should their progressive opponents do to counter this? Here I argue that nothing less than a policy of free movement and open borders will cut it – for reasons of principle and of practice.
Some basic assumptions
First, we are all connected. The life that exists in you is the life that exists in me and vice versa. In short, we all partake of, and express, life. Therefore, the idea that we are separate beings is an illusion. I had a graphic reminder of this at dusk one evening driving uphill along the M62 towards Manchester and seeing the lights of the cars driving in the opposite direction. I was struck by how they were all winding their way around the downhill bend like a single giant snake slithering forward. I reflected on the fact that though each car and its driver was an individual entity, what I was actually observing was a single phenomenon made possible by the fact that the actions of each of its components was coordinated with the actions of – and connected to – all of the others.
It also reminded me that we are all dependent on each other – and not in a superficial way: we depend on each other for life itself.
Second, as a society, we pride ourselves on our opposition to discrimination on grounds of race, sex, age and other things the individual cannot control. Surveys consistently show that Britons identify racial and gender equality as key societal values, with the majority expressing strong opposition to discrimination. But we routinely discriminate against people on grounds of their nationality, allowing them – or not – to cross borders, and on varying conditions, depending on the passport they hold. It is not entirely true that you cannot change your passport: you can buy one from St Kitts and Nevis, for example, if you’ve got $200,000 to invest in real estate there. But for most folks, their passports depend on where they were born or on who their parents were – and these are things no one controls. It is simply not possible both to claim to be opposed to arbitrary discrimination and to defend border controls.
Border controls – yes or no?
On what grounds might such controls conceivably be defended? That the UK and any other nation is entitled, by virtue of being an internationally recognised sovereign state, to allow some nationals to cross its borders while denying the same right to others? While this may be legal – is it ethical? And what of the suggestion that open borders would be impractical as all who wanted to come could not possibly be accommodated? The challenges are by no means insurmountable. In the 19th and early 20th centuries the US and other countries had mass inward migration and minimal restrictions yet continued to grow and prosper. Between 1870 and the First World War, approximately 23 million people emigrated to the United States. The 1920s, years of unprecedented prosperity, were widely referred to as ‘The Roaring Twenties’.
Migration is self-limiting: uprooting is traumatic and people do it only if they have no alternative. Migrants fill labour shortages, create businesses and add to the tax base, more than offsetting the costs of their settlement. With access to the education, work and resources of wealthier nations, migrants from less developed regions are able – by their remittances, and by using their newly acquired skills and qualifications in their home areas – to help lift their countries of origin out of poverty. Limiting migration forces many to remain in dangerous and impoverished circumstances. The ability and the willingness to help others and lift them out of danger and poverty is what makes us human. Abolishing the state’s power to restrict freedom of movement reflects a commitment to the universal values of human rights, individual freedom and dignity.
Our fears are the problem
It is only because the world is organised into sovereign states that international migration is a ‘problem’. And it is only because of our fears that we are unable to solve the problem. Because we perceive migrants as ‘others’, we feel separate from them. What we feel separate from, we fear. What we fear, we feel separate from. But as we have already said, the impression of separateness is an illusion. Therefore, to the extent that migration is a ‘problem’ to be solved, it is a problem created by ‘us’, not by ‘them’, and the solution lies with us.
What are we afraid of? That we cannot all get on? The town of Riace in southern Italy became globally recognised for its unique approach to integrating migrants under Mayor Domenico “Mimmo” Lucano. Faced with depopulation and economic stagnation, Lucano saw immigration as a solution to revitalise Riace, transforming it into a ‘global village’ that welcomed migrants and gave them housing, jobs and access to community facilities. This approach not only filled homes and revived local services, like schools, but also created an integrated, multicultural community where locals and migrants could coexist and contribute to each other’s lives. Is it social and cultural change that we are afraid of? But change is an inescapable part of the human condition. Everything is always in a state of change. So why not embrace it rather than trying to resist it?
Countering Farage and company
Rejecting the stances on migration of Farage and the populist right obliges their progressive opponents to say what they would offer in their place. Accepting the underlying premise that international migration is an issue that needs to be governed, a problem to be solved, makes the stances, ultimately, difficult, if not impossible to resist. For if, as they assert, migration is indeed a problem, why would voters not also look to them, rather than to their opponents, to provide the solution?
The populists’ framing of migration as a security issue really works from their point of view because such framing creates even more fear, and fear creates the demand for an authoritarian populist leader. It is precisely for this reason that at a Trump rally last Sunday a comedian was allowed to call Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” while Trump himself reiterated plans for a mass deportation of migrants, speaking of his wish to “rescue” places that had been “invaded and conquered” by “vicious and bloodthirsty criminals”.
The only hope for progressives looking to counter such appeals is by enabling people to see that in reality there is nothing to be afraid of. And the only way of doing that is by standing up for open borders, mindful of the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and of Arthur Schopenhauer. Roosevelt said at the start of the Great Depression that, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, reminding us that fear is disempowering, paralysing our or all efforts to find solutions, and ultimately, without having any foundation in reality. Schopenhauer observed that “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident” – reminding us that a radical idea, like free movement and open borders, may initially meet with resistance but if robustly defended will almost certainly become part of conventional understanding at some future stage. Now, how many examples of this phenomenon are there to be found in history? I challenge the reader to make the case that there are not dozens and dozens.
