THIS pamphlet from the Communist Party’s Anti-Racism Anti Fascism Commission is a bold and timely intervention in the toxic debate on migration, Brexit, populism and the steady march of the alt-right in the wake of the capitalist crisis and crash of 2007-8.

Packed with statistical information, historical analysis, topical commentary and political strategy it attempts to formulate an internationalist position that is both anti-racist and anti-fascist and capable of winning support within the working class and wider society. 

This is a tall order. It has to grapple with the key conundrum of progressive and left politics today: how to integrate economic and historical analysis of class with the cultural elements of ideology (nationalism and identity) to produce a political approach capable of mobilising the support of the 99 per cent?

The text is divided into four distinct sections: Immigration and asylum — the facts; Capital and the free movement of labour; The EU, right-wing populism and social democracy; and A labour movement response.  

It begins by interrogating the key terms of migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees. The result is precision in what these mean as opposed to looser, common usage of the terms. 

Such definitional clarity produces thought-provoking conclusions about “bogus” or “illegal” asylum-seekers — “there are none.”

This parade of definitions is followed by a wide-ranging collation of data on migration from a diverse range of sources. Again, we encounter statistical revelations that “long-term immigration into Britain by non-British citizens has stayed fairly constant over the past 10 years, at around half a million annually, and has fallen a little from its post-crash peak in 2014. Of these, between 39 per cent and 45 per cent are from the EU, while the proportion from southern Asia has fallen by half to around 11 per cent as the immigration and citizenship barriers to the non-EU world have risen.”
  
This is far removed from the rhetoric of Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and their ilk that claim Britain is being “swamped.”

Aggregate immigration data is then broken down in terms of country of origin, different categories of migrants such as workers, students, families. This is complemented by a thorough discussion of the different reasons that propel people to migrate to Britain and Europe.

Such a commendable overview of definitions, followed by gathering together of the statistics, could be a mini-pamphlet in its own right as an antidote to what is bandied around in headlines in the press and social media.

From definitions and statistics, the pamphlet moves on to an analysis of the theory and politics of migration that is generated by capitalism as a global system and how it is playing out on the European political field.

In the European scenario, we see the displacement of millions of people from the theatres of imperialist war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya among others. A proportion have headed for Italy, France, Germany and Britain.

At the same time the migratory patterns have been the result of the EU single market. It enshrined the “free movement” of labour with the intention that movement “from areas of high unemployment to those of lower unemployment would remove inflationary hotspots by cutting wages. 

“The resulting increase in profitability would stimulate renewed investment. This was the new neoliberal model.”

Other factors include outsourcing by transnational companies (TNCs), the economic breakdown and shock therapy in eastern European nations followed by their rapid absorption into the EU and the deregulation of labour markets in conditions of mass unemployment. 

This has cumulatively added to the overall sense of labour market insecurity and put the issue of migrants centre stage in political debate.

In their “common sense” perception, the victims of neoliberal austerity have identified migration as the “cause” of their deprivation rather than a “consequence” of neoliberal measures.  

Such an inversion has been fodder to the populist right in dredging up “the other” — outsiders — as the source of all our discomfort and malaise. 

And the “other” in every country in Europe have been the migrants: in Salvini’s Italy, Orban’s Hungary, the AfD’s Germany, Le Pen’s France and the Brexit Party of Nigel Farage in Britain.

The concluding section briefly looks at the vital components of a labour movement response to counter the populist right narrative. This includes a programme in the form of political education for the labour movement, a comprehensive humane and progressive immigration and asylum policy, greater social rights and provisions, increased rights for trade unions and, most importantly, the full restoration of collective bargaining.

To win the ideological battle it is of overriding importance to ensure “a political education drive across the labour movement to equip workers with the understanding, the arguments and resources to challenge neoliberal orthodoxy and racism, making the case for workers and citizens’ rights in a society which celebrates its cultural variety and richness.”

The rise of the extreme right is a worldwide phenomenon with Erdogan in Turkey, Bolsonaro in Brazil, and Modi in India, who have been able to muster majority support in elections around the narrative of the “nation.” The populist right has done the same around the issue of migrants in Europe. 

The left has to engage with this and draw up alternative narratives which link with their trenchant anti-austerity analysis and economic programmes. Only then will a progressive politics that is embedded in real issues be capable of winning the support of the majority. 

After all, Marxists are “proletarian internationalists.” They have to represent a proletariat before they can be internationalists.  

In dealing with the issue of migration and migrants in present-day Europe, the left often takes up rhetorical and “pure” positions that remain one-sided and are politically ineffective. There is the danger of gaining working-class support while spurning internationalism, with a result that verges on the xenophobic.

Or one can opt for a spurious internationalism that fails to link politics to either identity or class. This short pamphlet admirably sets the stall for a holistic and integrated account.

The pamphlet is full of clarification on what we are trying to define, pinpointing the appropriate data and analysing the immediate causes of apparently abrupt patterns of migration. It puts forward an analytical framework that understands and exposes the needs of capitalism as a globalised system, with particular emphasis on Europe. It ends by outlining the key areas where the left needs to develop a progressive and radical response to the siren calls of right-wing populism. 

This valuable work needs wide circulation and discussion as a prelude to concretising the political basis for convincing the 99 per cent of the rightness of the progressive working class and internationalist approach.

Copies can be ordered from CPB (Publications), Ruskin House, 23 Coombe Rd, Croydon CR0 1BD (£3.50 inc. p&p) or online at https://communist-party.org.uk/shop/pamphlets/2404-workers-of-all-lands-unite.html