Politics – Page 13 – Mark Argent

The EU-wide migrant problem

Concern over migration is shaping up to be a EU-wide issue — it is frustrating that it is an issue in the referendum debate as if this is not something we share with our EU partners.

Last weekend’s elections in Germany have sent shockwaves because of the progress of the right-wing, anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Writing in The Guardian, Philip Oltermann also points out the success of some pro-refugee candidates as an illustration of the increasingly complex and fractured nature of the argument.

Schroedingers_immigrant It sounds very familiar: in the UK the proponents of Brexit are pushing an anti-immigration case to “take back control of our borders” while Liberal Democrats are tending to point out the value of immigrants. In narrowly-financial terms, the awkward reality is that immigrants to the UK contribute substantially more in taxes than they take out of the system in benefits. Even the argument to restrict benefits to new arrivals is questionable: if someone comes to the UK, claims benefits while they settle, starts earning and starts paying tax and more-than pays back what they received, then the “benefit” payments look like a prudent investment. The idea’s been pithily summed up in the idea of Schrödinger’s immigrant: simultaneously stealing our jobs and too lazy to work.

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Refugees, Turkey and the width of the Channel

There’s a startling gap between the English and French media on the agreement yesterday (8 March 2016) on migrants from Turkey which has worrying implications for the EU referendum debate.

In the afternoon I spoke with two friends who are usually well-informed, and who expressed concern at the deal being done with Turkey over migrants. My mind went into “euromyths” mode, wondering what the kernel(s) of truth in the story might be. Later caught a radio news bulletin which seemed to confirm what they had said — that a deal was being done with Turkey that would mean Syrian migrants reaching Greece from there would be returned, and one migrant from the refugee camps would be allowed to settle in the EU for each migrant returned. That’s an elegant way of removing the incentive for the human trafficers who are putting lives at risk. The implication is that this was a last-ditch attempt to head off Syrian migrants on their way to the UK, and linked to the sweetener of fast tracking Turkey’s application to join the EU (ignoring concerns at press freedom and democracy in Turkey).

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Iain Duncan Smith and “facts”

The Times on 29 February had a surprising front page story about the “Rising fury of ministers muzzled over Brexit”.

The vocal complainant was Iain Duncan Smith, upset that civil servants in his department were being asked to produce “propaganda” to support Britain’s remaining in the EU.

The snag is that that Times article says they were sharing facts about the levels of benefits claimed by migrants from other EU countries.

But with migrants from EU countries paying very much more in taxes than the take out of the system in benefits, this looks a little weak. It gives the impression of Iain Duncan Smith being keen to stop his civil servants circulating facts that don’t support his case.

So: does he expect us to vote on the facts, or to dismiss as “propaganda” facts that don’t support his position? That’s not a sane way to make a decision.

“Who will speak for England?”: the Daily Mail getting it wrong

The Daily Mail for 4 February managed to give the impression of sort-of link Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Nazi Germany and David Cameron’s EU renegotiation and gets it spectacularly wrong. One of the primary reasons for the European project was to prevent another war: far from being talks on the eve of war, we are now in talks about the continuance of peace.

It’s hard not to read the comments in the Daily Mail as linking Chamberlain returning from Munich in 1938 and announcing to the press “I have in my hand a piece of paper, signed by Herr Hitler, in which he assures us that there will be no war in Europe”, and Cameron returning with the outline of an agreement with the EU.

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A wise ALDE proposal on the refugee crisis

ALDE Group leader, Guy Verhofstadt, and VP of the European Parliament, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff — ALDE Group leader Guy Verhofstadt and VP of the European Parliament Alexander Graf Lambsdorff

ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) have made some very constructive proposals for addressing the problem of people from Syria seeking asylum in the EU.

In the UK the debate around immigration seems to swing between discussions of free movement of people within the European Union, “economic migrants” (who come to the UK and pay taxes here) and comments on those seeking asylum which swing between seeing them as threats and seeing them as people who deserve compassion. That mix mobilises lots of fears of “others” or “foreigners”, particularly among those with least actual experience of people from other countries.

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Introducing Cambridge for Europe

The grassroots Cambridge for Europe campaign brings together a buzz of Cambridge’s communities from local businesses to researchers and universities, from political representatives to local interest groups. It’s the first such self-organised regional campaign in the country, and the fiery multi-community nature of the effort makes the campaign a model for how other pro-EU groups can get among their local communities to make the case for remaining in the EU. But what has driven Cambridge to be the first to rally itself?

Cambridge is a multi-cultural, vibrant and successful city. It’s open, engaged and looks naturally to the wider world. Walking through the city centre recently, I heard a group of people talking in French and grumbling, as Cambridge residents do, about the number of tourists. I went into a pub and found myself sitting by a table where people who didn’t seem to be visitors were talking in Italian. Being European is woven into the fabric of the place.

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Not turning the clock back: the EU and our story

The Houses of Parliament, from the Thames

My eye was caught recently by a super watercolour of the Houses of Parliament in the mist, viewed from the Thames, in the days before motorised boats on the river. As it was hanging on the wall of the room where the Liberal Democrat European Group held its AGM, I was tempted to quip that that might be the age to which Eurosceptics seek to turn back the clock. This was the age of empire and Rule Britannia. I can see the appeal of that romanticised vision but golden ages don’t usually stand close scrutiny, and this vision is particularly deceptive.

The European Union is a newish body, but it builds on a rich heritage. The Britain that “ruled the waves” was one of the European powers with a colonial story. We have been rivals, but we and our European neighbours were neighbours across the world.

Scratching the surface barely more deeply, there are the seemingly-unending stories of migration, preserved in some of our surnames, and in the genetic mapping of the UK which shows England’s genetic debt to the Saxons who settled here.

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