Asylum distribution scandal less about immigration and more about inequality

Photograph: The clock tower of Rochdale town hall from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

Over the weekend, there were reports of anger at the way those seeking asylum in Britain were being distributed across the country. These people were being sent to the poorest communities, while the richest communities often took not a single person (Lyons & Duncan, 2017).

One town particularly affected was Rochdale, a small town with an outsized history as a progressive beacon. It was the birthplace of the co-operative movement and, against the grain in Britain, supported the Union and the abolition of slavery during the American Civil War (Keegan, 2010; Cash, 2013) - despite the pain of the loss of cotton imports from the Confederacy.

Even in a town with that historical backdrop, there is anger that is framed and understood through the lens of anti-immigration sentiment (Lyons, 2017). But that misses the point, as much of the distracting immigration anger has done so far. The real issue is inequality.

As the figures show, without the funding to match, the burden that comes with caring and including those people seeking asylum is being dropped into the hands of the country's poorest communities (Lyons & Duncan, 2017).

Communities that have already been hit hard by cuts to local government budgets (Butler, 2017) - services have been stretched and funds are scarce. It has been Conservative policy for some time to shift responsibilities away from central government without funding.

All the while, the Right seeks to misdirect the anger at this situation onto 'immigrants' - to those fleeing danger and murder, or the refugees of war. But the figures clearly show the real problem: Britain's wealthiest communities are not pulling their weight or sharing the burdens.

This isn't isolated to asylum. Look at the energy and the environment. Communities, particularly Conservative constituencies, have refused green energy technology, like wind farms, as 'eyesores' blighting their communities (Hennessy, 2012). But where is their outcry against their energy coming from dirty plants in poorer neighbourhoods?

While this unequal distribution of burdens paints Britain in a bad light, . Part of the opposition to the expansion of green energy has been the unequal distribution of its financial benefits (Mason, 2012) and in every community there can be a found positive and charitable support for those seeking asylum from danger.

From Saffiyah Khan, the woman who stood up and peacefully faced a nationalist group when they surrounded a counter-protesting woman (BBC, 2017); to the peaceful and charitable disposition found in communities across the country (Lyons, 2017); there are innumerable examples that Britain has broad shoulders and can make light of its burdens.

But not when all of the burdens are dropped on the poorest communities. Not when the wealthiest communities exempt themselves, sending the unfortunate and desperate somewhere else without even the support funding to match.

It's one rule for conservative Britain and another for everyone else. Like in ancient Athens: "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must". That adage is not good enough and should be left buried in the past where it belongs.

Fear and hatred have found fertile soil amidst the artificial scarcity of austerity

Today sees the latest in a sustained run of demonstrations in the UK since Donald Trump was inaugurated President of the United States. For many progressives, his election has crystallised their anxieties.

They have watched, maybe even supported under the banners of New Labour, years of exclusionary conservative neoliberalism. That system reaped unequal rewards and ultimately unleashed widespread consequences. The austerity that was imposed to manage them has created an artificial scarcity.

Those actions, results and reactions have left some quarters of society - not few in number and faced on all sides by shortfalls and cutbacks in the name of 'scarce' resources - deprived, disregarded and ultimately disaffected. The political disconnect is tangible.

As wary progressives have worried, this fertile ground for fear and anger - prepared under the inattentive rule of those who were too busy enjoying the fruits of the good times to tend or care for it - is now being exploited.

The most virulent of the poisonous crop that has been sewn is xenophobia. That dangerous weed is being grown deliberately in some places and spreading all by itself in others - though it is perhaps reassuring that it must first be dressed up and sold only through distorting and distancing filters, that shows blatant hatred of outsiders, without an 'excuse', is not accepted.

But people are bringing it home. Making it part of their everyday. It would be a toxic mischief to allow the mistrust and hatred of outsiders to be normalised. The frontline against that threat is challenging the negative attitudes towards people seeking refuge or looking for a better life in a new land.

A major part of events will be the 'One Day Without Us' event, a 'labour boycott' by migrants, and those standing in solidarity with them, to demonstrate the value of migrants to our economy - an event months in the planning (Garcia, 2017; Taylor, 2017).

The day was chosen because it coincides with the United Nations World Day of Social Justice. It theme for 2017 is "Preventing conflict and sustaining peace through decent work":

"Social justice is an underlying principle for peaceful and prosperous coexistence within and among nations. We uphold the principles of social justice when we promote gender equality or the rights of indigenous peoples and migrants. We advance social justice when we remove barriers that people face because of gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, culture or disability."

Therein lies the inclusive message that has so far run through the opposition to Trump. The exclusivity that the new President stands for is being opposed by a movement for a more egalitarian and inclusive society.

But to create such a society, equality and inclusivity needs to be achieved on an economic as well as social level - and the times seem to be making clear that you really cannot have one without the other.

The anger that stewed within those who felt discarded or ignored, even during the so called 'salad days' when the global economy was booming and Labour was in office, is now fueling a desperate turn inwards that public policy has frequently, if often unwittingly, aided.

Austerity, by slashing public spending, has imposed an artificial scarcity. That sense of a finite limit is being used to fan fears that were more easily assuaged during the years of plenty. Fears of shortage, of limited places and supplies, are forcing people into adopting a triage mentality.

While conservatives talk of austerity in terms of of doing things efficiently to save tax payers some money, myths are spreading, and being spread, about the skivers and the cheats that is feeding sectarian and segregationist mentalities.

These are lines being drawn - borders, classes, and talk of the deserving and the undeserving - and with the fear of scarcity at their backs, no one wants to be on the wrong side of those lines.

After years of exclusion from the gains of globalism, austerity has turned a economic setback into desperation and a society-wide scrambling retreat. Those gathering at today's protests must think carefully on how to reach out with their message, beyond the progressives who will gather around them.

The rise of xenophobia and the rising fear of scarcity have gone hand in hand. Progressives must poke through the propaganda that surrounds the supporters of their opponents and find the desperate people within that noxious cloud and let them know: the choice between aiding our kin and aiding a stranger is a false choice.