Home: Blog: 2019-04-05 A Letter to Jeremy Corbyn

Recently, I was forwarded a link to a project being run by the Labour Campaign for Free Movement at labourfreemovement.org. They describe themselves as "Labour members and supporters united in our commitment to defending and extending the free movement of people in the context of the debate around Brexit".

They were asking Labour members and supporters to email Jeremy Corbyn, urging him to support of the principle of free movement, and to fight the demonisation of migrants.

The campaign offered a template email, beginning "As a Labour supporter, I was deeply disappointed by your office's recent announcement that our party continues to support the end of free movement for people. I am writing to urge you to turn over a new leaf and speak out boldly and unequivocally in defence of free movement."

It's a good email, but perhaps to release some of the frustration I felt on this issue - I want back the £25 I spent registering simply to vote for Corbyn - I decided to write my own.

Dear Jeremy Corbyn,

I understand that there will be disagreements even between socialists. I can even accept that sometimes, lesser battles must give way to greater ones.

But if we cannot agree even that human rights are universal, and that people have a right to live and work where they wish, then I do not see what more important goal we can possibly be serving.

The instinct to feel that the people of one nation, or religion, or language group, are suffering poverty or injury through the selfishness or violence of those of another is older than humanity itself, and was probably favoured by the amoral logic of evolutionary advantage as family groups of animals competed for scarce resources. Xenophobia preceded not only rational ideas of justice, but reason itself.

And this is why it is the lifeblood of populism. The logic that each home or job found by a migrant is denied to a British born citizen is economic illiteracy. Economists have shown that migrants are net contributors: and in an aging society, desperately needed friends. Crime has a hundred complex causes, and thrives in regions with large and small migrant populations alike. But we are programmed by evolution to feel - with our "common sense", in our guts - that migration is a cause, or even the main cause, of our problems.

Strikers at Lindsey oil refineryAnd so it is political rocket fuel. To acquire followers and power, find a group to fear and to blame - Irish, Afro-Caribbean, Jewish, Muslim, Romanian, any clearly identifiable minority will do - and tell people that the suspicions they feel but have perhaps doubted and felt slightly ashamed of are all justified: and that a snotty, over-educated elite is patronising them when they say otherwise. We feel more than merely a predisposition to agree. Our very nervous systems will move us to act against the perceived threat.

So far, so obvious. But we - the socialists, the left - have built a movement based on precisely the opposite idea. That humanity is one. That an injury to one is an injury to all. And that poverty and injustice are the result of a society in which an ever tinier minority - defined not by race or nationality but by wealth and social privilege and found all over the world - exploit all others, driven by the logic of international capitalism, undermining the individuality and freedom of not just the exploited, but of the exploiters themselves.

You might expect, (and I'll confess I continue to hope despite long experience), that we would clearly, consistently, and passionately counter the lies about migration, and put the blame where it lies: on the prioritising of profit over people.

Labour Party leader Gordon Brown calls
for "British Jobs for British Workers"And yet, Gordon Brown called for "British Jobs for British Workers", trade unionists have raised this demand on placards, Bob Crow formed "No2EU" in response, and to this day some socialists - who do not themselves support such slogans - still complain that we should not "sneer" at those who have "legitimate concerns about migration". Of course no one should sneer. But to pretend one finds "legitimacy" in ideas one disagrees with in order to win someone's support is to truly patronise them.

These are not legitimate concerns. These are emotionally resonant lies, repeated by well-funded, cynical, and skilled politicians and marketers. And, worst of all, they have not been daily and hourly exposed as the inhuman and evidence-free rubbish they are by the only political force which can effectively do so: the labour movement.

RMT Union Leader Bob Crow
campaigns for NO2EUYes, the EU is a capitalist club. And yes, it is undemocratic and dominated by a bureaucratic civil service, while a near powerless parliament looks on. I have no illusions in the current institutions of the EU.

But this too is the result of nationalism. Individual governments fear granting greater powers to the European Parliament precisely because it does have democratic legitimacy, and might compete with them for power. The Commission might be an inconvenience on this issue or that, but it does not represent the same threat. The EU's lack of democracy is not the result of scheming commissioners. It has been deliberately maintained by fearful national governments, driven by world politics into cooperation, but desperate to maintain control over their own fiefdoms.

And what of it? If the EU is a capitalist club, Britain were the very founders of that capitalism, and our government has been perhaps the most ruthlessly neo-liberal and war-hungry member of that club! Our fight - Labour's fight - is also the fight of working people across the 28 states, who share a truly common interest, unlike the mass of competing company bosses and nationalist leaders they face.

If you fear that the EU might intervene to prevent you pursuing progressive policies, such as (say) renationalising rail, then stand and fight! Form alliances with labour movements across EU states: with parties and unions in France, Germany, Spain, and Ireland. Defy not the idea of European unity, but the politicians and bureaucrats attempting to harness it to eternal capitalism. Set new precedents for not tens but hundreds of millions: and win the support of hundreds of millions.

Brexit, in any form, will be a victory for those who would exploit fear and unreason to achieve power. And when the chaos, the tarriffs, the supply problems and the inflationary prices they cause, the predatory trade deals sought by the US and China, and the general economic insecurity it brings all take hold, those who promoted it will double down. We've Brexited, they'll say, but the migrants are still here, still making us poorer.

This is a first step down a dark road.

Unless we offer a clear alternative, the failure of nationalism and xenophobia to solve any of the problems they claim to solve will lead not to their rejection, but to their deepening.

The claim that free movement is the cause of poverty, injustice, or crime is a lie. Any Labour leader who does not say so, loudly and constantly, has little moral authority to say anything else. And even if any concession could be won by trading away the rights of migrants, of fellow human beings, of other workers impoverished by capitalism or terrorised by wars - our wars - it would not be worth the price.

Yours most sincerely,

Manny Neira