Maybe... the Right should support economic migration

“I grew up in the 30s with an unemployed father…” said Norman Tebbit in response to the riots that took place in Brixton and Handsworth in 1981, “…he got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it”. Then as now, the British Right have made clear their view that people should be responsible for their own welfare and this involves doing whatever it takes to find work rather than rely on the state to support you. It is seen as noble to up sticks and relocate in order to find work to help pay for your family, and it plays in to the ideal that people should be aspirational, ever searching to better their own situation.

That is provided this takes place within the confines of one’s own country. Should an individual show initiative and travel many miles and across many borders in order to better their lot in life, they are demonised, labelled as part of a swarm. They become a migrant, a word spat with vitriol from acidic mouths. And yet, they are showing exactly the kind of initiative that Tebbit seemed so keen to extoll.

In addition to this, the freedom of an individual to cross borders to earn more money and find better job opportunities follows the ideology of liberal economics to its logical end. Workers have a product to sell, their worth as an employee, and they can get more money selling themselves in this country than they can in their own. Furthermore, in a global economy where capital and produce can cross borders with relative ease, why is it that labour is restricted and cannot enjoy the benefits of a true free market system?

Many on the Left are likely to disagree with the theory underlying this view, and it is certainly unrealistic to expect right wing parties to start calling for open borders. But, it is possible to view this from a more practical and realistic angle. The European Union’s freedom of movement allowed all within the EU to ply their trade wherever they wished but simultaneously created the fear for the British that this would cause an uncontrollable influx of economic migrants initially from Poland and then later from Romania and Bulgaria. It is true that Britain, as one of the wealthiest economies in the EU, did receive a large number of these migrants. They moved as they were free to sell themselves as employees for more money than they were able to in their home countries and work towards greater wealth. In some cases, probably most famously realised in the building industry, residents of the poorer EU member states were able to come to Britain and undercut the existing workforce, or even fill the employment void left by an increasingly educated British workforce.

This is an almost textbook example of the liberal economic system at play but does not fit with the reality of right wing rhetoric. The Conservative party and UKIP are fearful of this economic migration and yet both are unwittingly betraying the economics they purport to support.

The United States provides another example of strong anti-immigrant rhetoric, and even stronger support for the free market but the US is perhaps the world’s foremost example of an economy built on the back of migration. It is a true immigrant culture. It was aspiration and the promise of a better future that led people there, particularly at the turn of the century, and this once again represents an operational market. It also represents that idea loved by the American Right, the idea of bettering oneself, of the cream rising to the top. And yet, the rhetoric from the groups who so fervently support aspiration is currently divisive, demonising and, in some cases, plain racist.

The Right are meant to serve the interests of the free market in part by promoting individuality, aspiration and self motivation. If some one in their own country showed such initiative and were successful, they would be lauded as proof that it can be done, someone can work from the bottom to the top. Yet, if someone has to make a perilous journey through jurisdictions, risking their life in the process, only to gain a better life for themselves and their family, their achievement is diminished and any would be followers are deterred.