16.02.1995

Minister rats on Major

CHARLES WARDLE’s resignation from his post as junior trade minister on Saturday bears all the hallmarks of a rat deserting a sinking ship. Wardle has long held the view that vast numbers of illegal immigrants could find their way into Britain under the Single Europe Act despite article 7A which states that members can “take such measures as they consider necessary for the purposes of controlling immigration”. However, he felt no obligation to resign when he was the junior minister for immigration for two years up till last July.

Major’s reproachful reply of “I am sorry you think it necessary to resign where there is no disagreement between us on the government’s objectives” is fair comment. The European Union’s very essence is the free movement of both capital and workers among member states. Yet home secretary Michael Howard assured his cronies, “We have no intention of dismantling frontier controls.”

Wardle says he is frightened ministers will not fight hard enough against European pressure to ease ‘our’ immigration controls. He has thrown in his lot with the Eurosceptics at precisely the time Lord Tebbit is declaring that “in a united Europe, Britons would become a subject race like the Chechens in Russia” and the single currency is under attack. The Tories are more concerned with their internal problems than ruling the country.

One thing parliament is not divided on is immigration. Wardle has cross-party support for his stance. Jack Straw for the Labour Party said, “Britain needs, but has not got, a just and robust system of immigration rules and controls. Whatever its sympathy, this country cannot sustain a large influx of economic migrants, for example from Eastern Europe.”

Parliament’s interest is not working class interest. Remember how the ‘collapse of communism’ was going to produce healthy capitalist economies based on the verities of Thatcherism? The system that produced unemployment here has worked the same magic there. The furore about migrants taking British jobs serves to make workers compete against workers rather than combining to protect themselves against their bosses. What workers need is full employment and decent wages. The economy is organised on a worldwide basis. Unemployment has to be combated internationally. It is not true that there are too many people, too few jobs, an incapacity for humanity to create enough wealth for everybody: it is just the way capitalism runs things.

Making immigration illegal does not stop it happening. Employers give jobs to ‘illegal’ immigrants because they must accept whatever terms the bosses offer. Without legal rights they cannot complain. This in turn forces down wages and conditions for everyone.

This does not mean that we should fall into the trap of supporting immigration bans or crackdowns, on the specious grounds that we are trying to stop ‘our’ conditions and wages from being undercut. We are internationalists and for us no worker is illegal. We are for decent wages, conditions and full citizenship rights for all workers, no matter what their country of origin.

Phil Kent