Here’s an open secret: we already live in an open border world.
The borders are open for those with sufficient capital and/or the right passport. Anyone privileged enough to have either of those, or both, experiences a much more open world than those who do not have that privilege. For everyone else, the world is either fully or partially closed.
There’s a reason we hear about people walking on foot to try and reach the USA. The others have the money to buy flights, and in some cases to buy golden passports that allow them easier visas. It’s not like Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs were struggling to live in Europe before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and many of them still live comfortable lives to this day. To this day the vast majority of Russian and Ukrainian oligarch money – ie stolen money from the Russian and Ukrainian people – sit comfortably in offshore and Swiss bank accounts.
Capital can move freely while most people cannot because we live a world with a specific system – neoliberal capitalism facilitated by the nation state. This system is not the law of gravity. It had a start date and it will have an end date, the sooner the better.
We still talk about ‘the border’ or ‘our border’, as if it’s some abstract idea. The people from ‘over there’ are coming ‘over here.’ If we are progressives, we are more likely to say that’s a good thing. If we are conservatives, we are more likely to say that’s a bad thing. Liberals are usually somewhere in-between.
The problem is that conservatives often have the upper hand here because they do not need to prove anything. They can simply say, usually accompanied with misleading data and decontextualized or downright fabricated stories, that immigration – or ‘too much immigration’ – is not a good thing. If they’re smart about it, they can say hey it’s not always bad but it’s sometimes bad, so we need to be very careful.
That’s how you get disarmed. As a sentence, it is not wrong, anymore than saying that sometimes rain is good and sometimes rain is bad. Its vagueness is their strength because they can stop there. The rest of us, meanwhile, will spend energy and resources debunking false or misleading beliefs and statements.
By the time we’ve debunked 10 of them a 100 more pop up. It is not a winning strategy. We can’t spend the rest of our lives repeating time and time again that in order to have a functioning society with a welfare state you need immigrants. It’s true and it’s always been true, but that’s the thing. The facts haven’t changed. What has changed is the discourse around this issue, and the discourse does not care about the facts.
They already have their conclusions. What’s ours? In my view, it should be this: border politics are complicated, but this should not stop us from having a human rights-centered approach to immigration. It just so happens that it is also a win-win for ‘us’ as well. We’re not only helping other people by being kind, we are becoming kinder by helping other people. It is not one way but rather an exchange.
The problem is, again, that this was always true. If we continue relying on the utilitarian argument for immigration, we leave the space open for stories that sound equally valid. We can say we need 100,000 more nurses and it is far easier to allow nurses to immigrate than it is to train nurses from scratch. I don’t actually think that’s a good story, but it is one that can be told. The other side, however, can simply say yes but surely it’s better if locals rather than foreigners become nurses as that would strengthen social cohesion. They can make that argument without following it with any actual policy. They usually don’t want to make education free for all, thereby making it easier for one to become a nurse in the first place. Their story feels nicer though. Who wouldn’t want their neighbor down the road to be able to be a nurse if you’re told it’s either them or some foreigner?
The greatest strength conservatives possess is the lack of imagination that we all suffer from. To use our nurse example, why not both? Why is it that difficult to say that making it easier for both these people to become nurses is good for everyone, that it’s good for them and good for us too? Not just because we benefit as a society (the utilitarian argument) but because doing the right thing is an inherent good.
We are constantly told to take part in debates that have been narrowed from the start. If we don’t take part in it, we can be labeled as close-minded, the real authoritarians. The right just wants to ask questions, just wants to debate. They’re also restricting basic human rights whenever they get the power to do so, but let’s put that aside a sec and have this debate, shall we? And suddenly we have to be on the defensive and say that no, gender affirming therapy is not the same as mutilating kids and no, global warming isn’t good, actually, and no, antifascists standing up to fascists is not the same as fascists.
We see this with border discourse all the time. We need to stop ceding ground to the far right, and take back what we’ve lost. It is a good thing that people want to come here, actually. It says something great about us, actually. It means that in today’s harsh world our country can still be a safe haven, actually. This could mean having something to be proud of for once actually. We can take this in so many different directions without conceding anything to the far right on immigration (or anything else).
Instead of the random shop-owner who happens to have been born outside of this country, can we talk about the transnational billionaires who are able to simply come here whenever they want, and buy whatever they want? Why are the British ‘anti-immigration’ folks concerned about that shop owner and not the fact that the Arsenal Stadium is now called Emirates Stadium because the United Arab Emirates (via its airline company ‘Emirates’) owns it? Harrods is owned by Qatar. The Shard is owned by Qatar. Barclays is partly owned by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, China Development Bank and, yes, Qatar. Heathrow airport is owned by a consortium owned and led by multinational companies and pension founds from Spain, Quebec, Australia as well as by Singapore and Saudi Arabia and, yes, Qatar. Large parts of the Canary Wharf financial district as well as the HSBC Tower are owned by, you guessed it, Qatar. Sainsbury’s is partly owned by, again, Qatar. Chelsea Barracks is also owned by Qatar. Manchester City Football Club is owned by the UAE.
Do I need go on? The UK has already been sold off to the highest bidder. The state of affairs is clearly untenable as well as immoral, but it is also rendered invisible. What is rendered invisible is not the facts – they are easily accessible with simple online searches – but the very possibility of an alternative. The very possibility that this simply does not have to be the case is treated as non-existent. It’s not even worth imagining it. It is discursively impossible. Nope, can’t be done.
The greatest trick pulled by the British ruling class is convincing so many people that one of the richest countries in the world is running out of money. The LibDems used that argument to ally themselves with the Tories once. Labour continues to use that argument to act as if they have to continue on this downward spiral of neo-liberal accumulation for the few. The LibDems were wrong, and Labour is still wrong.
This lie has usually been combined with the argument that it is costly to have more immigrants. Therefore, we would need fewer immigrants because, the logic goes, we simply can’t afford it. We want to be nice and caring and humane and everything, but we can’t. We have to be realistic, not naive. Just please don’t dismantle that statement and ask why the perimeters of the debate are so narrowed down in the first place, why to be ‘realistic’ today means to reject reality in favor of simpler abstractions.