06.08.2026

They will keep coming

Driven by lack of opportunity, poverty, wars, social chaos and climate change, millions of Africans head north in the hope of eventually getting to Europe, Ceuta being just an extreme example. So, asks Eddie Ford, how should the workers’ movement respond?

At the end of July an estimated 80,000 predominantly young men crossed over the border from north-western Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, while smaller numbers attempted to get into another enclave, Melilla, about 250 miles away along the Mediterranean coastline.¹ These small Spanish “autonomous cities” form the European Union’s only external land border with Africa. Most entered by swimming around the Tarajal and Benzú breakwaters or by crossing on foot along the shoreline, and by August 4 at least 99 were reported to have drowned.

Spain claims that these enclaves form an “integral part” of its national territory, though Morocco claims sovereignty over both cities and often refers to them as “occupied lands”. Rabat, of course, is being hypocritical as it has absolutely no qualms in occupying somebody else’s land - in the form of Western Sahara since 1975, dubbed “Africa’s last colony”. Anyhow, the leader of the Spanish enclave - Juan Jesús Viva of the People’s Party (PP) - described last week’s border crossings as an “atrocity” and fundamentally an attack on Spain’s “territorial integrity” that was “if not orchestrated, at least encouraged or permitted by Morocco”.²

In fact, though their location has repeatedly made them focal points for migrant entry into Spain and the wider EU, the majority of such arrivals to Spain have come via maritime routes to the Canary Islands rather than through Ceuta or Melilla. However, a previous ‘migration wave’ in 2021 saw Morocco trying to exert political pressure on Spain by temporarily increasing the border’s “permeability” and it has been widely suspected that Morocco’s growing alignment with the US and Israel has presented it with an opportunity to (a) be seen to punish Pedro Sánchez and his Socialist Workers Party government in Spain for, amongst other things, its stance against the Iran war and general anti-Zionist posturing, and (b) assert its historic claim over the enclaves.

Desperate

This mass influx overwhelmed local reception facilities and prompted the Ceuta administration to request that the Spanish government declare a national emergency. But nothing should divert from the international emergency that has 80,000 risking death to escape intolerable conditions in both Morocco and their native countries.

While a few originate in Morocco itself, a clear majority come from other parts of Africa: some 58% are reportedly natives of countries in west Africa, 9% from east and central Africa. Many head to Morocco seeking opportunities there, but most are seeking a way into Europe. They are escaping war, persecution, debt and the effects of climate change. Torrential rain, severe flooding and rising temperatures have displaced millions in Nigeria, Niger and Chad.

Their stories are heart-rending. Having survived robber gangs, paid corrupt border guards and eventually arrived at the Mediterranean, they live hand-to-mouth doing this and doing that, till they have the wherewithal to make the hazardous crossing to Europe. Seemingly encouraged by the Moroccan authorities, Ceuta offered a short-cut. Prompted by social media rumours - eg, that the border had been opened, presumably based on the recent supreme court ruling that the legal procedure known as summary return (‘hot return’) could not be applied to migrants intercepted - they took their chance. For many it was a death sentence.

One young man, who had defied his mother’s warnings, recalled swimming past floating bodies to reach Ceuta - saying “everyone was trying to grab on to you to save themselves”, but you had to “move forward, so they wouldn’t drag you down or drown you”, with the Moroccan police “pushing us toward the water and telling us, ‘Swim, swim’.”³

On August 3, Spanish government officials said about 70,000 had ‘voluntarily’ returned to Morocco - but hundreds are still sleeping in parks, public squares and on pavements, it being virtually impossible for migrants to leave Ceuta for mainland Spain. Another migrant left in limbo on Ceuta’s streets said, as people steadily returned back over the border, that his goal was simple - get a place in a protection centre, spend the next year learning Spanish and, once he turns 18, find work as a barber.⁴ What he fears most, of course, is ending up without legal documentation. “All I need,” he said, “is a chance”.

Fatima Hamed Hossain, a member of Ceuta’s assembly, cried crocodile tears at the prospect of the crisis deepening divisions within the city. “Everything we’ve lived through has created tensions between neighbours,” she said. “That’s exactly what feeds the far right” (she means Vox, not PP itself). But, of course, across the board the global right is “hyperventilating with happiness” over the Ceuta crisis, as one journalist wrote in Spain’s El Pais newspaper.⁵ Donald Trump called it a “catastrophe” and an “invasion” - just as Nigel Farage and the rest of the UK right does over the small boat crossings in the English Channel. The Brothers of Italy, the party of prime minister Giorgia Meloni, has been quick to post images of migrants racing through the streets of Ceuta - “this is the model the Italian left wing likes so much,” the caption crowed.

Meloni and others on the right maintain that Spain is a ‘soft touch’ on migration, especially over its decision in early 2026 to “regularise” 500,000 undocumented migrants and asylum-seekers.⁶ And in response to the Ceuta crossings, Italy temporarily suspended the Schengen arrangement with Spain, citing ‘national security’ concerns - a move backed by Finland and Denmark - while the Czech Republic’s prime minister, Andrej Babiš, urged a temporary suspension of Spain’s Schengen membership. In return, Pedro Sánchez declared that he had “serious concerns” about those European governments that had chosen to attack Spain, “driven by prejudice, fake news, ignorance, or political interest”.⁷ Of course, for all his occasional ‘left’ talk, Sánchez is a wily bourgeois politician. His main concern - getting re-elected - means pleasing not only the mainstream media and his traditional electoral base, but also those to the SWP’s left. He needs them if his coalition government with Sumar, Catalonian left nationalists and the ‘official communists’ is to survive - hence his ‘combat social democracy’ posturing.

Elsewhere, the general picture is of ‘supine social democracy’ and aping the far right, especially when it comes to migrants - Shabana Mahmood being the perfect example. Labour’s home secretary bangs the chauvinist drum whenever given the opportunity, in an attempt to compete with Nigel Farage, Rupert Lowe and even Tommy Robinson … which actually, in reality, normalises the likes of Farage, Lowe and Robinson.

Emergency

The EU held a hastily arranged video conference on August 4 to discuss Ceuta after the tense exchanges between Spain and other member states, at which Ursula von der Leyen - European Commission president - called for “united action” on border security, reacting to Giorgia Meloni’s joint letter with 21 other leaders from Finland to Malta that implicitly criticised Madrid’s plan to regularise undocumented migrants and asylum-seekers as a “pull factor” for “illegal migration”. Not to mention saying that Spain’s supreme court ruling over migrants arriving by sea acted as the “trigger” for “this attack on our migration and asylum system.”⁸

Introducing a slight note of discord, Magnus Brunner, the European commissioner for migration, said that, while the EU could not currently see a direct link between events in Ceuta and Spain’s regularisation plan, the policy was “definitely not a good signal for the rest of Europe”. He also declined to criticise Italy’s decision to reintroduce air and sea border checks with Spain for one month, though diplomatically adding that any suspension of Schengen rules had to be “proportionate and temporary”. France was quick to point out that EU leaders had agreed that the Schengen zone was “not the problem” - definitely not! - and it was one of the few member-states not to sign the open letter. Denmark’s interior minister, Morten Bødskov - despite being a signatory of the letter - said he was “very satisfied” with Spain’s handling of the crisis, but then doubled down on the message that the EU needed tougher border controls: “Uncontrolled immigration is a threat to Europe and Denmark.”

Ministers broadly endorsed a five-point plan set out by von der Leyen to strengthen Europe’s external borders: preventing irregular migration in the first place via cooperation with partner states; strengthening external borders; implementing early warning systems; dismantling smuggling networks and reinforcing returns. Brunner also said the EU’s foreign policy service was investigating the possible role played by Russian “disinformation” - keep banging the war drum - but it was “too early to reach conclusions”.

Grotesquely, in a letter to Pedro Sánchez the previous day, Ursula von der Leyen praised the fact that Spanish officials had begun installing a 500-metre floating barrier at the border with Morocco: “Order has been restored and the returns system in place worked,” she wrote. The ramparts of Fortress Europe must be secured and outsiders kept out.

Principle

In the CPGB’s Draft programme, we say communists, “as a matter of principle” are for the free movement of people and against all measures preventing them entering or leaving countries.⁹ Communists also fight for citizenship and voting rights for all who have been resident for longer than six months.

But we are well aware that, all things being equal, most people would not choose to leave the land of their birth, their friends and relations, and take their chances in a foreign, often hostile, land. That is why we seek to end poverty, lack of opportunity, war and persecution everywhere.

We also make the vital point that the bourgeoisie “uses migrant workers, especially illegals, as worst paid labour” - something ensured through immigration laws and quotas, police raids, detention centres and deportations. In other words, the working class needs strong political and trade union organisation - otherwise workers’ living standards and rights will be eroded and driven down.

Withdraw

As for an enclave like Ceuta, communists should be for withdrawing from all such possessions. When it comes to Britain, that not only means tax havens such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and the Virgin Islands. It also means Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands. It means Northern Ireland too. France should likewise give up on its overseas territories such as Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana. Of course, it is not only the old European colonial powers. The United States should hand Guantanamo Bay back to Cuba and withdraw from the US Virgin Islands, Guam and Samoa. People living in such places should be encouraged to seek unity with bigger countries and regional federations ... and join the struggle for democracy and socialism.

Hence, in the case of Morocco, that means fighting for the abolition of the Alawi monarchy. Note, while there is an elected parliament and a prime minister, king Mohammed VI holds supreme executive, military and religious authority, derived from his position as Commander of the Faithful. While the Muslim religion should be respected, there should be no state religion. People should be free to believe and not to believe. The Royal Moroccan Armed Forces should certainly go - replace it with a popular militia which elects its own officers.

Though we support the integration of Ceuta into Morrocco, we do not extend that to the Western Sahara, the so-called Southern Provinces - another former Spanish colony. Most of the territory was seized by Morrocco in 1975 when Spain withdrew. It should be up to the Saharawi people whether they want to join with Morrocco or to declare independence - as long demanded by the Polisario Front.