How Not to Manage Immigration into Europe

Sweden has gone to the polls today, and I don’t yet know the result. But I do know that the country is like many in Europe, frightened of the looming shadow create by right wing parties. The main issue for these is similar to the now defunct, UKIP party in the United Kingdom – ‘we don’t want any more immigrants’.

While statements like this prompt left, centre and right wing parties to reach for their party policy cue cards, we know what they are going to say. This is because the issue of immigration in Europe is subject to polarised thinking, generalisation and simplification.

Instead of making knee-jerk policy statements, I believe they should all be asking questions and conferring on the answers.

‘Who are these immigrants?’

‘Where are they from?’

‘How many are there?’

‘Will our country benefit?’

When I was a young single man, I acquired a visa to live and work in Australia – but it wasn’t automatic. I had to tick box questions that gave me points as a candidate for residency. I passed, but only just and I must have been in the top ten per cent of eligible applicants.

Those who want to enter Europe almost seem to think they have a right to do so. Perhaps they have a good case for political asylum and a good human rights lawyer, or half a million Euros to invest in property and business.

The majority appear to be arriving with nothing and with nothing to offer except unskilled labour. But even their labour might benefit a country who’s own citizens will not work for the minimum wage or on zero hour contracts or as self employed – ‘turn up in the morning and we will tell you if you are needed.’

A large number of those seeking to enter Europe without documentation are from parts of the world suffering stress from war, inept and corrupt governments or a mistaken believe in a yellow brick road leading to free money; places like Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa. These are not ideal candidates to fill the factory floors of Germany or the poly tunnels of Spain.

But the main question has to be, ‘how many immigrants?’

If Europe had say one million citizens and there was one immigrant asking asylum per year, most Europeans would not have a problem. Even the extreme right wing parties would have the carpet pulled from under their feet and gather little support.

But we know that is hypothetical and not the case. Imagine there were two immigrants seeking asylum in a year in a country of one million citizens. Probably the same response.

So continue this exercise increasing the number of immigrants by one per year. At a certain point on a sliding scale, one of those million citizens will say, ‘Hang on! That’s too many immigrants. I had a bad experience involving an immigrant and now I don’t want them in my country. Who can I vote for who is sympathetic to my view?’

Nobody, except a Social Scientist, really knows when this objection will first be raised. Is it at one percent of the indigenous population or more? But we can appreciate that scale is a massive part of the so called ‘immigration problem’.

Further examination of the subject beyond quantity – is quality. Because most economists will explain that immigration is good for a country and part of it’s prosperity. Just look at the United States of America, or indeed, Europe for the proof. Generally and in the long term over several generations, immigration on a certain scale, is a win win situation in terms of quality of life for the host country and the immigrant.

America had no problem with welcoming rocket scientists of doubtful provenance from Germany, after the second world war. The only problem was how to share them with Russia! Australia paid for the fares for white Europeans to come and boost it’s small labour force in the fifties and sixties.

So whilst it is possible to form a view over whether you like apples or oranges to eat, it is more complex to form a view on immigration. In fact, if management of immigration within Europe is regarded as complex – the arguments of the political parties are mostly at the level of preference for oranges or apples.

Perhaps this complexity accounts for why the European Parliament has failed to come up with a workable plan. Freelance do-gooders like the Aquarius ship hoisting exhausted souls out of boats in the Mediterranean, are free to operate as they feel. They have no concern to stem the tide of immigrants by undermining the criminal gangs taking their last savings or improving living standards in homelands. They don’t even return these lost souls to their homes and dependent families, or even to the ports from which they departed so they might track down the traffickers and get their money back. They don’t intercept unsuitable boats as they enter international waters close to land, but operate further away from shore so that boats may sink before rescue. To the well meaning charity workers, they are ‘saving lives’, but from a political angle surely they are just as much traffickers as the illegal traffickers. Their solution is short term and their responsibility ends on the dock side of a reluctant state. 

With a policy on immigration, agreed by all parties including Italy and those countries that have taken more than their fare share and are now feeling the strain- Europe would survive and even thrive the immigration rush.

By having no policy and doing – well, very little – the EU has shown is vulnerable underbelly and in doing so, missed a chance to keep the United Kingdom within Europe. More importantly it has failed to silence the growning dissent from right wing politicians within the remaining states like Sweden, who whilst being booed in public, are fuelled on successful paths by the failures of the EU.