British Home Secretary Theresa May’s jaw-dropping comments the other day that an influx of migrants into England would make it impossible to build a “cohesive society” is enough to make one’s head spin. May even pulled out the old xenophobic trope that mass immigration would steal thousands of jobs from British citizens. She said there “is no case in the national interest for immigration of the scale we have experienced over the last decade.”
This comes from a country that colonized half the world over three centuries to instil Anglo-Saxon values on people who were perfectly happy with the lives they were leading. If you think this is ancient history, the British Empire still had control of one-fifth of the world’s population as late as 1922 and hung on for dear life to Hong Kong until 1997.
Today’s potential mass immigration to England? This is what I call it: The chickens are coming home to roost. I was fortunate enough to have lived in Newcastle, England, for five years and have grown to love the Northeast. The Geordies can be a tough lot, but during my entire stay there I have never felt isolated, and certainly never abused or threatened by anybody although I wore the headscarf proudly each day. Certainly, there are elements in British society that don’t want to see any immigrants in their country, but I also believe there is a profound disconnect between the British people and their government.
While critics of mass immigration may roll their eyes at the argument that England must atone for its genocidal policies of the 17th through the early 20th century, the United Kingdom does have a responsibility to accept war refugees whether or not the government believes immigrants can assimilate into England’s so-called cohesive society. We can’t ignore that sectarian rivalries and subsequent bloodshed in the Middle East are in part the result of British policies after World War-I to establish arbitrary borders to break up the Ottoman Empire.
Nor can we ignore British policies that displaced the Palestinians to create Israel, and the violence that has resulted since 1948. And more recently, we can’t ignore England’s role in the Iraq war and its support of American policies that outlawed the Iraq Army. By disbanding the army the subsequent power vacuum strengthened Al-Qaeda and led to the creation of Daesh. Now that Daesh has seized control of large swaths of territory in Syria, we have the civilian population escaping to Europe.
England has broken from the European Union over the EU’s strategy to accept refugees. It opted out of the EU’s quota system to distribute 160,000 refugees already in Europe and instead plans to take in a mere 20,000 immigrants over five years. And they are not taking in refugees now in Europe, but those in camps in Jordan and Lebanon.
This, of course, does not relieve the burden of EU dealing with the ever-increasing number of refugees flooding onto the continent. Europe may be near the breaking point, but British Prime Minister David Cameron seems to think it’s doing its part to take in 20,000.
To help create conditions that have led to the refugee crisis, and then stand back and say, “Our British way of life will be threatened if we accept the migrants” is the height of hubris.
England is enjoying a relatively strong economy and has the economic means and infrastructure to accept migrants. Evidence repeatedly shows, despite the conservatives’ wishful thinking, that migrants help improve the economy not destroy it. The United States in recent years has discovered that establishing laws that make it impossible for migrants to find jobs in small communities have led to economic disasters.
Perhaps less attention should be paid to rhetoric and more to England’s global responsibility.
