Comrades not strangers

A statement from the Jewish Socialists’ Group:  The government’s latest attack on migrants, is a disgraceful manoeuvre designed to attract voters who they stereotype as ignorant, racist ultra-nationalists. Aside from the fact that this electoral tactic failed spectacularly in the recent Runcorn by-election and local council elections, it reveals a horrific cold-heartedness.

Rather than denouncing and challenging racism, the Labour Government is attempting to appease it. In doing so, it is building on a dishonourable tradition on the right of British politics in treating migrants not as human beings but as “problems”, “statistics” to be “reduced” – evoking a mythical golden age when Britain was pure and untainted by foreigners, and everyone coexisted happily.

The Jewish Socialists’ Group has always stood together in solidarity with migrants and refugees, regardless of their immigration status. We were, and are, comrades not strangers.

The provisions Labour have proposed include:

• A 10-year wait for citizenship. Currently a minimum of five years.
• A-level English before being granted citizenship – which many native English speakers would struggle with.
• Degree level qualifications in work skills.

Since its inception, the Jewish Socialists’ Group has challenged every new measure introduced by successive governments against immigration, only to be faced with more draconian legislation and codes of practice. This vicious cycle will continue as long as there are immigration controls that define some people as strangers and others as citizens.

Echoing earlier ultra-nationalists and racists, Keir Starmer justified the Labour Government’s White Paper on immigration by claiming that it would stop us becoming “a nation of strangers”. If it is enacted, though, it will estrange colleagues, friends and comrades from each other by subjecting some people to different rules and laws from others, and defining them as a problem, a threat, rather than treating them with dignity as fellow human beings. Echoing Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech, this language will generate fear and result in more racist attacks.

This is not new. When Yvette Cooper was Shadow Home Secretary, she consistently attacked the Tories from the right: complaining that their actions on immigration were inefficient, too costly, and too slow in deporting people. Now she will implement her hardline plan on migration into the UK unless we use our collective power to stop her.

The Jewish Socialists’ Group will campaign against this ruthless White Paper, and will encourage the Jewish community as a whole to challenge it, along with the edifice of anti-migrant legislation enacted over the last 120 years – starting with the 1905 Aliens Act, designed to keep out Jews – which form the foundations for these proposals.

COMRADES NOT STRANGERS!

NO ONE IS ILLEGAL!

This article was first posted on the Jewish Socialists’ Group website on 14th May 2025