Philip Hammond is completely wrong about migrants
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Version 0 of 1. The fact that the UK foreign secretary’s recent comments about migrants were probably not meant to be provocative tells us quite a lot about mainstream attitudes to immigration in the 21st century. Philip Hammond articulated what may well be considered common sense by many across the UK, although it is seldom expressed as clearly: living standards enjoyed by Europeans need to be preserved, and that means keeping out poorer people from other parts of the world. Related: Philip Hammond grossly overstates the problem of 'marauding' migrants Common sense? Perhaps. It depends what principles underpin your worldview. No one would deny that achieving a workable immigration system, which takes into account some of the difficult social and economic implications of mass migration as well as its benefits, is no easy task. But the first step is agreeing a moral framework within which to work. For anyone with a modicum of internationalist perspective, the idea that European living standards need to be preserved for Europeans is hard to accept as a first principle. In a way, it is even more worrying than the idea that British living standards should be preserved for Brits. At least the classic nationalist sentiment is one that will resonate with people the world over – competition between ethnicities and nations is a universal reality. But there is no precedent in political or ethical writing for suggesting that one particular region of the world should seek to defend its prosperity against another. “Europe” is neither a tribe nor a country – it is a political and geographical construct that can expand, in the case of the EU, on the basis of voting. While clear themes of cooperation and mutual wellbeing underpin the construction of the EU, the founding and more recent texts of the union do not imply, to my knowledge, that this wellbeing should be to the exclusion of other parts of the world. Quite the contrary. Europe prides itself on being (in theory at least, and sometimes in practice) a generous and outward-looking part of a global community, steeped in solidarity and concerned as much for the rest of the world as it is for itself. So there is a reason Hammond’s views are so infrequently stated in public. At first glance a neutral statement of reality, they in fact rely on a principle that is hard to defend: that Europeans should seek to preserve their prosperity against threats from outside the region. People everywhere have a strong preference to stay near where they were born, near their families and land Someone should tell Hammond that this notion is unlikely to go down well at the UN next time the foreign secretary visits New York. The good news is that the analysis in these remarks is no less askew than the ethics that underpin them. The assertion that a “gap in standards of living” drives people to migrate on any serious scale is fallacious. People everywhere have a strong preference to stay near where they were born, close to their families and land – the things that give them meaning and security. Only when things become intolerable for some reason – conflict, extreme deprivation, the continued absence of decent work – will they up sticks. So we don’t need to see African living standards on a par with Europe to massively reduce migration – we just need to see the basics of security and jobs. When there are no jobs, people from much richer countries will migrate – as they are at the moment from Spain and Poland, two of the world’s richest countries. This is a modern reality that will continue and for which the world needs to prepare – most countries will experience both emigration and immigration in future, depending on how well their economies are doing. Nor is it clear why Hammond picked on the African continent, as if it is destined always to be exaggeratedly behind. It is more than possible for Africa to catch up significantly, and within our lifetimes. South Korea, a country as poor as many African countries in the 1950s, has done just that, and now belongs to the club of rich nations. Sure, it will take time, but it should be our hope and expectation, rather than implying that significant difference will perpetuate. Related: Lesbos landings: Migrants risk all to reach Greek island by boat – in pictures Having said that, we don’t know the future, and it may be that life for many Africans will remain intolerable for decades to come. While it is understandable and fairly common to respond to this reality by pulling up drawbridges and prioritising one set of humans over another, such an attitude has no basis in ethics and can be challenged forcefully. The reliance on the legal distinction between refugees and economic migrants is also a common part of the discussion, but one wonders how long it can be maintained. As we know from some of the distressing stories we have heard in recent weeks, migration often means great danger and the risk of never seeing loved ones again. It is not considered lightly, and implies harrowing situations at home. Rather than trying to prevent people in desperate circumstances sharing in its relative prosperity – which has often been built, one might add, on centuries of rampant buccaneering around the world – Europe’s first instinct should be its best instinct: to look for ways to spread its wealth as far and as wide as possible. |