27.02.1997

Significant silence

Until recently the British Conservatives were considered to be almost alone among the European mainstream parties in extolling the virtues of chauvinistic isolation and opposing every small step towards lifting restrictions on movement within the EU.

However, the Labour Party has adopted the electoral strategy of simply shadowing the Tories and counting on government unpopularity to deliver it victory. Blair’s party now echoes the statement of Britain’s EU ambassador, Sir Stephen Wall, who stated that Britain “cannot and will not remove its border controls”. Neither party wants a common European immigration and asylum policy.

Communists recognise that the European Union is a capitalist club. In reflecting increased and intensifying globalisation of capital, its underlying logic is the tendency to integration. But we are in favour of the coming together of peoples, and even capitalist integration is progressive inasmuch as it facilitates that.

It is true that the EU wishes to remove internal borders, but only to replace them with a ‘fortress Europe’. Nevertheless, the removal of some restrictions on workers’ right to travel, live and work where they please is a positive development. We are for the abolition of all border and immigration controls, not only in Europe, but throughout the world.

Unfortunately this simple internationalist demand for a basic human right is not supported by all on the left. At the Socialist Labour Party’s founding conference in May 1996, this call was rejected by a vote of three to two in favour of a commitment to “re-examine in the cold light of day all existing immigration controls within the framework of establishing a humane and non-racist immigration system” (Socialist Labour - our policies p31).

Echoing the chauvinist view that the removal of border controls - far from providing a universal freedom to be enjoyed by all, including British workers - would mean that only ‘outsiders’ would benefit and ‘we’ would be threatened, SLP leaders held up the vision of an isolated ‘socialist’ Britain needing to protect itself from, for example, white South Africans.

Similarly the Socialist Party (formerly Militant Labour) refuses to take up this internationalist call. In a back page article on the Rochester hunger strikers in issue one of The Socialist, Brian Debus calls for their release - as well as freedom for all asylum seekers and the scrapping of the “racist” Asylum and Immigration Act.

However, in a centre page feature in the same issue entitled ‘Asylum and immigration’, Naomi Byron of the party’s national committee makes no mention of racism. She holds out the vision of a future world of “socialist planning”, where “all restrictions on movement - legal, financial and political - become a thing of the past” (The Socialist February 7 1997).

Comrade Byron writes: “The right to freedom of movement has existed since human society first began. It is only in the last 100 years it has been restricted by law.” Leaving aside the highly dubious historical basis of this statement, it is clear that there is a gaping hole in the Socialist Party’s position. Freedom of movement was all very well in the past and will be fine in the future: but what about now?

The leadership’s thinking was explained to the members in an internal document published last year: “Our position is well known,” wrote Peter Taaffe, the general secretary.

“We oppose all restrictions imposed by decaying and outmoded capitalism ... But truth is concrete and we have to take account of the different levels of consciousness of the proletariat” (Member Bulletin No 13, undated).

“We cannot put forward,” Taaffe continued,

“in the manner of the sects, the bald slogan of ‘open borders’ or of ‘no to immigration controls’ ... This approach immediately cuts you off from the majority of workers in Britain, who, despite all the arguments we use, accept the need for ‘some control’ over entry into the country.”

The logic is clear. If you cannot persuade the workers of the correctness of a principled position through “the arguments we use”, adopt an incorrect, unprincipled one instead. This opportunist reasoning is as old as the hills and a million miles away from Lenin’s dictum that communists “do not deign to conceal our views”.

Taaffe maintains that the slogan, “No racist immigration controls”, had been correct. However, there is a snag:

“Our recent work has brought us into contact with idealistic white youth, as well as a radicalised section of black and Asian youth, whose attitude is very different from the older generation. Their mood is one of implacable opposition to all immigration controls. They understandably react against the possible implication of our slogans that there could, in reality, be ‘fair’ immigration controls under capitalism” (ibid).

Therefore, comrade Taaffe goes on, “it is necessary to re-evaluate our slogans”. You can see he has a tricky problem here: how to appeal to the “backwardness” of most workers while simultaneously trying to hold on to the radicalised youth. But the answer is relatively simple: drop all mention of immigration controls from your slogans!

Taaffe proposes that the key slogans should be: “(1) No to racist laws; (2) No deportations; (3) The right to asylum; (4) No break-up of families - and other demands, such as an end to police harassment.”

These demands are perfectly correct in themselves, but in trying to keep on board two opposing viewpoints simply by dropping the central point of disagreement, the Socialist Party will end up satisfying neither. For example, how in practice could points (2), (3) and (4) be implemented without the abolition of all controls? The “backward” workers Taaffe refers to will recognise that and so reject the slogans themselves. Meanwhile, the advanced elements are encouraged to abandon their instinctive internationalism and are dragged down to the level of what he imagines to be a static consciousness of the masses.

Our job is not to adapt our slogans to the level of the most backward - or, as Taaffe writes, to “jettison or temporarily withdraw those aspects of our programme that no longer fit the needs of working class people in the present situation” (ibid). Freedom of movement is an urgent, immediate demand for millions today.

Alan Fox