26.02.2004

Border controls - essential weapon

Home secretary David Blunkett - under intense pressure from the tabloids - has announced a benefits clampdown on the 75 million people - mainly from the former Warsaw Pact - who become citizens of the European Union on May 1.

Needless to say, Blunkett’s desire to repel the “benefit tourists” won the support of both the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress. The UK government plans to restrict their access to benefits for up to two years. The only exception are those from Cyprus and Malta. The rest will be required to register their UK jobs. Ministers also insist that they will deport “fraudsters” and are at pains to emphasise how determined they are to stop migrants sliding into “the exploitation of the sub-economy” - like the 20 Chinese cocklers who drowned at Morecambe Bay, for instance. Just think how lucky those unfortunate people would have been if, instead of dying, they had been deported to the squalor and misery of their former lives in China.

Blunkett’s proposals are based on the officially sponsored predictions that no more than 13,000 new EU citizens will arrive in the UK each year. If these calculations prove to be wrong, the UK will follow France, Germany and most of the other EU states in blocking the new entrants altogether, as EU transition rules permit, for up to seven years.

However, if the numbers expected are really so low, you might be forgiven for wondering what the fuss is all about. The answer, surely, is that it suits the bourgeoisie to be able to dip into a constantly replenished pool of cheap labour - mainly the thousands of illegal workers without whom sections of catering, building and agriculture would collapse - but also those like the EU newcomers who will have the threat of deportation permanently hanging over them if they step out of line. Border controls are an essential weapon in the armoury of the capitalist class.