Read more: Immigration is Cameron's biggest challenge
Read more: Do ethnic majorities now need special protection?
In three ill-chosen words, the Prime Minister summoned up the largest question facing not only Britain, but also Europe and the United States. The “bunch of migrants” to which David Cameron referred at Prime Ministers’ Questions were specifically those who huddle in the desolate wastelands around the French port town of Calais, an unprepossessing place at the best of times, its defining characteristic being the access that it offers to mainland Britain. But that camp is just one of many similar ones, its inhabitants a small fraction of the many millions of people now dispersed across Europe who have made their way to the countries of the European Union in search of a better life.
The semantic colour of the word “bunch” is open to debate—whether it is derogatory to the extent suggested by Labour MPs is uncertain. More than the word itself, Cameron fell foul of his occasional tendency to deploy a somewhat dismissive, rather didactic tone, and in this case it jarred with the subject matter at hand. Immigration is the defining political question of our time. More than the last remnants of the financial crisis, the deficit, EU membership or the ructions of the Chinese economy, nothing has a greater power, or triggers a greater reaction among British voters than the question of immigration.
Those on the left have always welcomed the immigrants who not only propel economic growth but whose presence helps the development of a multicultural society of equals. Those on the right have tended to accept immigration as a necessary consequence of the open liberal economy which, to maximise growth, must draw in as much talent as possible.
But those arguments are losing their grip. Dissatisfaction with immigration is now spreading across global politics like a rash. Danish politicians are introducing a scheme under which immigrants will have valuables confiscated and sold to pay for their upkeep. Angela Merkel is facing vicious political opposition at home for her policy on immigration, which her domestic critics and those in other European capitals regards as too liberal. The French Front National, a party growing in political heft, has a longstanding reputation for anti-immigrant sentiment, and Italy, Hungary, Greece and Sweden all have anti-immigrant parties that are enjoying growing support.
Ukip, originally a party devoted to severing Britain’s ties with the EU, has a body of supporters whose views on immigration would not be welcome in any other mainstream UK political party. And last but not least, the US has Donald Trump, whose comments on Mexicans would have ended the career of most other politicians. In contrast, his remarks caused his poll numbers to climb.
What will cause the current flow of immigration to stop? In Europe, perhaps the defeat of IS, followed by the confinement of President Assad either at the Hague or a well-guarded dacha near Krasnoyarsk, would help. But many of the immigrants in the camps of Calais and Dunkirk, and in camps across Hungary, Macedonia and elsewhere, are not Syrian or Iraqi. They are Iranian, Pakistani, North African, people who are coming west for reasons other than the Syrian war. Then there is the southern route, up through Libya and Tunisia towards Lampedusa and the Sicilian coast, immigrant lines that also have little to do with the Syrian conflict, although IS is present in the Maghreb. There is much to suggest that, even if the conflict in Syria were to end, large numbers of immigrants would continue to make the journey to Europe.
If a country is successful, people tend to want to live in it, and now anyone with a smartphone, be they a resident of Aleppo, Kashmir, Tripoli or Michoacán, will see very quickly where the world’s wealth and opportunities can be found. And so long as this imbalance exists, people will flow from low to high-income countries. The question is whether that will always be so.
The irrepressible human impulse to go out and seek a better life, manifested so poignantly in the “bunch of migrants” currently living in the edgelands of Calais, suggests that the answer to that question is yes.
Read more: Do ethnic majorities now need special protection?
In three ill-chosen words, the Prime Minister summoned up the largest question facing not only Britain, but also Europe and the United States. The “bunch of migrants” to which David Cameron referred at Prime Ministers’ Questions were specifically those who huddle in the desolate wastelands around the French port town of Calais, an unprepossessing place at the best of times, its defining characteristic being the access that it offers to mainland Britain. But that camp is just one of many similar ones, its inhabitants a small fraction of the many millions of people now dispersed across Europe who have made their way to the countries of the European Union in search of a better life.
The semantic colour of the word “bunch” is open to debate—whether it is derogatory to the extent suggested by Labour MPs is uncertain. More than the word itself, Cameron fell foul of his occasional tendency to deploy a somewhat dismissive, rather didactic tone, and in this case it jarred with the subject matter at hand. Immigration is the defining political question of our time. More than the last remnants of the financial crisis, the deficit, EU membership or the ructions of the Chinese economy, nothing has a greater power, or triggers a greater reaction among British voters than the question of immigration.
Those on the left have always welcomed the immigrants who not only propel economic growth but whose presence helps the development of a multicultural society of equals. Those on the right have tended to accept immigration as a necessary consequence of the open liberal economy which, to maximise growth, must draw in as much talent as possible.
But those arguments are losing their grip. Dissatisfaction with immigration is now spreading across global politics like a rash. Danish politicians are introducing a scheme under which immigrants will have valuables confiscated and sold to pay for their upkeep. Angela Merkel is facing vicious political opposition at home for her policy on immigration, which her domestic critics and those in other European capitals regards as too liberal. The French Front National, a party growing in political heft, has a longstanding reputation for anti-immigrant sentiment, and Italy, Hungary, Greece and Sweden all have anti-immigrant parties that are enjoying growing support.
Ukip, originally a party devoted to severing Britain’s ties with the EU, has a body of supporters whose views on immigration would not be welcome in any other mainstream UK political party. And last but not least, the US has Donald Trump, whose comments on Mexicans would have ended the career of most other politicians. In contrast, his remarks caused his poll numbers to climb.
What will cause the current flow of immigration to stop? In Europe, perhaps the defeat of IS, followed by the confinement of President Assad either at the Hague or a well-guarded dacha near Krasnoyarsk, would help. But many of the immigrants in the camps of Calais and Dunkirk, and in camps across Hungary, Macedonia and elsewhere, are not Syrian or Iraqi. They are Iranian, Pakistani, North African, people who are coming west for reasons other than the Syrian war. Then there is the southern route, up through Libya and Tunisia towards Lampedusa and the Sicilian coast, immigrant lines that also have little to do with the Syrian conflict, although IS is present in the Maghreb. There is much to suggest that, even if the conflict in Syria were to end, large numbers of immigrants would continue to make the journey to Europe.
If a country is successful, people tend to want to live in it, and now anyone with a smartphone, be they a resident of Aleppo, Kashmir, Tripoli or Michoacán, will see very quickly where the world’s wealth and opportunities can be found. And so long as this imbalance exists, people will flow from low to high-income countries. The question is whether that will always be so.
The irrepressible human impulse to go out and seek a better life, manifested so poignantly in the “bunch of migrants” currently living in the edgelands of Calais, suggests that the answer to that question is yes.
