Immigration was always going to be one of the big issues in this General Election Campaign. Rishi Sunak made that so when he made “stopping the boats” one of his key objectives and pushed ahead with the Rwanda policy. His opponents were going to be happy with this given that the Tories had been promising since David Cameron to reduce net immigration to the tens of thousands. Instead on their watch it continued to increase exponentially.
The Conservatives’ solutions to high immigration during their time in office have included:
- Seeking to create a hostile environment for asylum seekers under Theresa May’s leadership of the Home Office
- Attempting to renegotiate membership of the EU with primary focus on a deal that would give greater control of our borders.
- Brexit meaning that EU workers were encouraged to return home and greater controls and limits on who could enter the country introduced.
- The Rwanda plan whereby asylum seekers would be moved and their cases processed in another country where they would remain if their case was successful
Now I’ve written quite a bit previously on immigration and asylum so I don’t want to add too much here. First, just to repeat, it is my belief that they Rwanda plan and indeed the overall attitude of the Home Office towards asylum seekers lacks compassion, is unjust and falls well short of how Christians would expect “the sojourner in our midst to be treated.”
However, it is also worth observing that the approach has been flawed. This is so, not least because asylum does not account for the majority of immigration cases. Stopping the boats, even if achievable is not going to bring net migration down significantly. Secondly, some of their other measures look to me like a case of chopping off your nose to spite your face. For example, making it harder for overseas students’ families to come into the country with them is going to cut off a huge funding stream for our universities whilst doing little to tackle the problem. Students are here temporarily and likely to return to their home countries. It would be easier to simply cut those numbers out of the net migration figures. We should no more consider someone here to study as an immigrant than we do someone here on holiday or a business trip.
Labour’s solution appears to be to focus on improving skills training to reduce employment shortages and hence the demand for migrant labour. This does at least go someway towards identifying the causes of mass immigration. Meanwhile, Reform’s approach has been to attempt to make employing non UK citizens more expensive by imposing tax penalties.
However, the problem with Reform’s approach is that it still doesn’t recognise causes whilst Labour must consider first that this will be a long-term fix and so unlikely to change the numbers for some years yet. Secondly, again, the presumption seems to be that it is simply about giving people the skills to enable them to fill the gaps. However, the career and training options have to be attractive and affordable too.
The elephant in the room here is that both Labour and Conservatives are working on the basis that immigration is a bad thing and needs to be at least controlled if not stopped altogether. Some Christians would accept that presumption and have even argued that controlling immigration has a Biblical imperative. One reason for this is the assumption that immigrants will change the culture and that this will further the decline of public Christian values. There are a lot of assumptions there of course, not least that British culture is superior, worthy of preserving and without immigration would not evolve and change. Further, the evidence from London has been that immigration has contributed to a renewal in Christian faith. The challenge there though is to encourage Christian immigrants to have a missional concern for the lost here and for church leaders not to become complacent and dependent on immigration to boost numbers, just as business fills job quotas. It is great to see growing, multi-ethnic churches in London but unless indigenous unbelievers are reached and converted, this is just transfer growth on a macro-scale.
Brad Littlejohn attempts to make a “theological” case for strong borders and immigration control here. I’m not convinced his arguments are very strong. First, he attempts to draw a comparison between the state and a home, immigration and hospitality. This doesn’t work because whilst some immigrants are temporary sojourners, many are looking to settle permanently. Most countries owe their existence today to mass migration including the UK and in more recent history the US. Secondly, this seems to be a variant on “charity begins at home” and I’m not sure that the Bible, does vouch for a limited approach to hospitality. The sense in the Gospels seems to be much more of open handed, risk taking generosity. We might argue that in the parable, the first two passers-by are careful to ensure their four walls are in place and look to their own first. The Samaritan forgets about his four walls, personal safety etc and helps the injured man.
Secondly, he puts attention on Israel as a model, again to emphasise the need for boundaries. However, the Israelites themselves leave Egypt as a mixed company and the boundaries put in place in Deuteronomy 7 are religious rather than ethnic. More importantly, I’m not convinced that Israel is meant to provide a model for modern statehood. The lessons are primarily for the Church. The church certainly needs to protect its boundaries from false teachers and false converts. I’d be cautious therefore about attempting a theology of immigration beyond general principles of compassion to those in need.
What this means is that Christians may freely disagree over whether mass immigration is a good thing or a bad thing and whether immigration controls are necessarily and good. If you take the latter view, then the crucial point is that those controls reflect integrity, transparity and compassion.
Personally, I’m of the settled opinion that if you accept that free trade and free movement of goods and services are important then free movement of people goes with it. The reality is that the UK is not being swamped by migration. Shops and restaurants, seem to cope okay with migration. The challenge of course is public services including health and education. There’s an argument for insisting that economic migrants must fund their own healthcare and education and may not claim benefits until they’ve paid into the system. That would of course deter some but also mean that the usual reasons given for immigration being a problem would go away.
Faithroots 