Immigration: when the criminals wash their hands of their own crimes

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Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials
21 April 2015

Over 900 women, men and children drowned this weekend as the overloaded fishing boat which was taking them to Europe capsized off the coast of Italy. Another 400 drowned the previous week. 1,800 have drowned so far this year.

Most of last weekend's victims had spent months, if not years, in the inhuman conditions of refugee camps, after fleeing one of the on-going wars plaguing the Middle East and Africa. They knew they were risking their lives. But their despair was such that they saw no other way out.

Acknowledging this reality would be too much for the European governments. Like his EU colleagues, Cameron washed his hands of these deaths and passed the buck: "we should put the blame squarely with the criminal human traffickers". He had the nerve to add that what was needed, was "to deal with the instability in the countries concerned."

They have blood on their hands

But who created "instability" in these poor countries in the first place? Who caused today's chronic "instability" in Afghanistan with a 15-year occupation? Who caused "instability" in Iraq, with 2 wars, a catastrophic economic blockade and now another bombing campaign - all but destroying its social and economic fabric?

Who caused "instability" in Libya by bombing its regime out of existence and handing power to rival Islamic militias which are now tearing the country apart? Who poured oil on the flames of the Syrian civil war by allowing - if not inciting - Saudi Arabia and Turkey to arm local militias in the hope that the resulting "instability" would break the regime?

And, today, who is causing "instability" by supporting the Saudi-led coalition which is bombing Yemen, under the pretext of restoring "order" (but whose "order?) in this country?

Who, if not the past and present British governments, together with their US and European partners in crime, in their attempt to impose their "order" on the populations of the poor countries - that is the "order" of the City and all the western multinationals which owe their profits to the looting of these countries.

Over the past 25 years, every single British government - Tory, Labour and ConDem - has contributed to "instability" in the poor countries. They all have blood on their hands. And they all are responsible for the fact that tens of millions of people have been turned into destitute refugees - left with nowhere to go. Knowing this, they last year voted in the EU to withdraw funding from Italy's "Mare Nostrum" search and rescue operation! Knowing this, Cameron agreed to take in just 500 Syrian refugees last year and took just 143. And now he dares to suggest that the same governments who caused "the instability in the countries concerned", should "re-stabilise" them? How cynical and hypocritical can he get?

Stinking demagogy

The short answer is that there is no real limit to the extent of politicians' lying and pretense in the hope of misleading the public and gaining votes.

But Cameron and the rest of his Tory crew's hypocritical reaction to last weekend's disaster is no more cynical than the anti-migrant rhetoric which they have been indulging in for so long, together with Ukip and Labour.

Cameron, with his nasty twin, Farage, implies that "too many" immigrant workers are to blame for the on-going chaos in the NHS, the rising benefit bill and the housing crisis. When every statistic, including those produced by the government itself, shows that migrant workers get far less out of the welfare system in proportion to their numbers (while contributing to it!), than the rest of the population.

Of course, blaming migrant workers is a way of diverting attention from the severe cuts and under-funding of public services, the shortage of social housing and the increasing poverty caused by under-employment - aided by government policy to help the bosses squeeze yet more profits out of us.

As to Miliband, he is so keen to join the xenophobes' anti-immigration bandwagon, that he comes up with the absurd claim that it's migrant workers who push wages down! Who pays rock-bottom wages? Who invented zero-hours contracts? The bosses, or the workers on the receiving end? But this "business friendly" Labour leader would never dare to say so, for fear of upsetting the City!

These politicians would like us to believe that somehow, migrant workers are "our problem", if not our enemies. When they are our fellow workers and our best allies! There is one single working class - regardless of nationality - and our strength lies in our unity. Our only enemies are the capitalists and their lackeys in government who try to divide our ranks with their rotten, stinking demagogy!