By John Pickard
Like peas in a pod, Reform UK and the Tory Party are striving to outdo each other to play the race card. They will both deny it is a matter of “race” but their competing commitments to deport hundreds of thousands of non-UK nationals is a conscious attempt to stir up the worst kind of nationalism, zenophobia and it is a witches brew that includes racism and Islamophobia.
In August, Nigel Farage, leader and owner of Reform UK, announced what he called Operation Restoring Justice, promising that his party “would be prepared to deport 600,000 migrants over five years if it won power at the next election” (BBC report, here).
The predictable reaction of the Tories was to complain that Reform had stolen their clothes. Not to be outdone, the Tories have now brought forward the Immigration and Visas Bill, which, the Financial Times briefing writer noted (October 23), proposes “to deport about 5 per cent of the UK’s legal population”.
The Tories will propose that “indefinite leave to remain”, will be stripped for certain categories of workers. This right is the means by which so many workers are allowed to live and work – and pay income tax – in the UK. For many over the years it has also been preliminary to settling in the UK, as their children attend schools here and set about building a future.
One criteria the Tories would use for stripping a person of their right to stay, according to their Bill, is that “they have received any form of social protection”, according to the Treasury’s definition. The problem is that the Treasury definition is extremely broad.
As the Financial Times briefing explained: “The Treasury’s definition of “social protection” includes, but is not limited to, drawing the state pension, receiving cash benefits or benefits in kind, such as social care”.
No pension, no sick pay, no maternity pay
In other words, your official status may be that you have “indefinite leave to remain”, and you may have worked in Britain all your life and paid income tax and National Insurance Tax all that time, but unless you happen to win the National Lottery and can live on the proceeds, you will lose your right to a pension or to remain. Presumably, deportation awaits if a worker has the temerity to be in receipt of maternity pay, or statutory sick pay.
Another criterion for giving workers the heave-ho is if their income falls below “£38,700 for six months or more in aggregate during the relevant qualification period, or subsequent to receiving indefinite leave to remain”. As even the FT pointed, out, the average salary for part-time workers in the UK is only £31,602 and for full-time workers, it is £37,430.
The Tory proposal is an open door to deport any and every worker who may have worked all their working life in the UK and paid appropiate taxes, but who speaks with the wrong accent. In scale, as the Financial Times writer noted, “these proposals would mean deporting greater numbers and a greater proportion of the population than former Ugandan President Idi Amin’s deportation of Ugandan Asians”.
The plans of the Tories and Reform are economically illiterate. They would mean gutting the NHS and the social care system and creating a massive shortage of workers in many important sectors of the economy. Everyone has met someone working in a care home or in an NHS facility who was not born in the UK, but who plays a vital role in providing a good public service. That is the reason why such proposals are not popular, according to one poll.
When asked the question, “when should migrants who are working and paying taxes in the UK be able to access the same welfare benefits as UK citizins?”, 27% answered “immediately” and only 3% said “never”. (Rob Ford, Politics Professor, Manchester University)
Nigel Farage promises camps to house migrants rounded up
It doesn’t matter of course, to Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch, whose parties are moving closer to one another, and who on current trends well may form a coalition after the next election. But what does matter is that the regulations stripping migrants of rights are in place, on the statute book.
Their policy may not lead immediately to the mass deportation of nurses, doctors or careworkers. Although both Reform and the Tories are dedicated to the destruction of the NHS and the complete dominance of private health and care, there would be social chaos if hundreds of thousands were rounded up immediately.
But such a law will allow a government which they support to drastically weaken the rights and working conditions of workers. Just as ICE in the United States has built special holding centres – camps – for so-called ‘illegals’ who have been swept up in their raids, so the Tories and Reform will be prepared to use the UK Border Force to sow terror among migrant communities and to keep the issue of migrants and ‘illegals’ on the front pages. Farage has already pledged to build “removal centres” – read “camps” – if his party won power.
If Reform were to come to power at the next general election, either with the Tories or without them, it would be a huge setback for the workers’ movement in general. It would also be – and we need to spell this out honestly – the main legacy of “Starmerism”, of a Labour government that has utterly failed to tackle the bread and butter issues that make workers’ lives difficult and increasingly insecure: low pay, declining services, unaffordable housing, rip-off energy costs, and so on.
While Starmer and Reeves have tinkered with a system in a profound crisis, imagining that “the market” will solve all problems, and leaving the fabulously wealthy to dodge taxes wholesale, workers’ lives are becoming more uncertain day by day. And Nigel Farage is laughing all the way to the polling station.
[Pictures of Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage from Wikimedia Commons]
