Fight the millionaires, not the migrants

Racist pogroms in the North of Ireland, masked men trying to prevent the landing of a small boat in Portsmouth, violent deportation raids by ICE in the US, tens of thousands crossing the Morocco-Spanish border at Ceuta… The question of migration is now at the centre of the political debate in many countries and is a crucial part of the political platform of the populist right wing in ascent. Why is that, and what should the position of communists be on this important question? 

Public opinion stances on migration have varied widely even in recent years. In 2015, there was an outpouring of sympathy and solidarity with migrants when public opinion was shocked by the picture of two-year-old Syrian Alan Kurdi dead on a Turkish beach, after the boat he was travelling on capsized attempting to reach the European Union. 

That was also the time when a migrant caravan mainly of Syrian refugees attempted to reach the EU border through the Balkan route. Tens of thousands marched in Barcelona in solidarity with migrants and against ‘Fortress Europe’ policies. In Britain 400,000 signed a viral petition to Parliament with a call to “accept more asylum seekers and increase support for refugee migrants in the UK”. 

In the case of Britain, that was just before the Brexit referendum campaign which was permeated by strong anti-migrant sentiment. 

Today, the idea of the so-called ‘great replacement’ – that somehow there is a plan by ‘globalist’ elites to replace the native population with foreigners – has spread widely and, to one degree or another, is a key part of the rhetoric of the populist right political parties. 

Has there been a growth in migration? Yes, all reliable statistics show there has been a growth in global migration in the last 20/30 years. According to UN population estimates, in 2000 there were 174 million migrants globally, representing 2.8 percent of the population. In 2025, the figure had gone up to 307 million, or 3.7 percent of the total population. That is a 30 percent increase in the number of migrants as a percentage of the total population in 25 years. In 2022 there were 167 million migrant workers, 4.7 percent of the global workforce, which is an increase of over 30 million since 2013. 

The world crisis of capitalism is driving migration, through wars (Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.), famine, and environmental disasters / Image: Wikimedia Commons

The number of people displaced by war and humanitarian crises has gone up from 38 million in 2000, to 82 million in 2020, and to 123 million in 2024, or about 1.5 percent of the world’s population – although about 60 percent of those are internally displaced. 

The world crisis of capitalism is driving migration, through wars (Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.), famine, and environmental disasters, while the process of capitalist ‘globalisation’ has intensified the imperialist exploitation of ‘third world’ countries. The decline in the rate of population growth in advanced capitalist countries means capitalists need to bring in tens of millions of migrant workers.  

Some have argued that right-wing populist formations are growing because of the prevalence of fake news and deliberate campaigns on social media. This is an ‘explanation’ that explains nothing. It is clear that the algorithms that dominate social media drive polarisation and thrive on conflict. But it is not as if previously the traditional media were telling the truth while now social media is spreading fake news and misinformation. The traditional media is just as racist and xenophobic when it wants to be. 

In fact it is the widespread discrediting of traditional media sources – which are rightly seen as promoting the interests of the rich and powerful – that has allowed social media sources to gain prominence as the main source of news for increasing layers of the population. In any case, in normal times, the dominant ideas in society are those of the ruling class. 

There are several reasons why it has been possible for reactionary right-wing demagogues to use the question of migration to effectively win over popular support. The main one is that they are tapping into real existing social and economic problems – such as a lack of affordable housing, collapsing health and education services, a general economic malaise, and the impact of de-industrialisation in working class communities – and then scapegoating migrants for those. 

All of these problems have aggravated in the recent period, particularly since the 2008 crisis of capitalism and the protracted period of economic stagnation which has followed. 

The scapegoating of migrants has been driven by traditional conservative, liberal, and social-democratic parties and governments, who have nothing else to offer the workers. Like their upstart right-wing counterparts, they prefer to talk about migrants arriving in boats than the policies they themselves are carrying out. 

This is compounded by the fact that no-one else is offering any alternative explanation, nor an answer to these very real and worsening social problems. The official ‘left’ and the leaders of the official labour movement are, at worst, part of governments carrying out austerity policies, attacks on the working class, cuts on social and welfare spending, or, at best, are unable to offer any real alternative. 

This is the fertile ground on which racist and anti-migrant sentiment has developed. 

What is the attitude of the ruling class towards migration? The ruling class is divided on this question. In 2024, the Financial Times published an opinion article with the headline ‘Immigration crackdowns are good politics but bad economics’. On the one hand, they need migrant workers as a reserve army of labour to drive down wages and conditions. But on the other hand, they realise that scapegoating migrants is useful to divert attention from the capitalists and the rich at the top and their system, who are the real culprits for worsening conditions.

Most advanced capitalist countries are experiencing population decline. This is also partly driven by the crisis of capitalism. As the cost of living goes up, particularly the cost of housing, childcare, etc., couples are more reluctant to have children, or to have more than one. 

In order to replenish the labour market, capitalists need to bring in migrant workers. Furthermore, migrant workers generally are forced to accept worse conditions, fewer rights, and work longer hours for less pay. Their conditions may be bad, or worse than native workers, but they are probably better than those of their countries of origin. And at least they have the expectation of improving them. In this way, migrant workers can be then used to undermine the overall conditions of the working class. 

It is therefore useful from the point of view of the ruling class that a layer of these workers is kept in illegal or irregular conditions. Their lack of formal legal rights can be used to further undermine their conditions. On one occasion, when migrant workers at a cleaning contractor in a London university attempted to organise a union, the company tricked them into attending a ‘training day’ which turned out to be a police migration raid and they were detained and deported. 

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In some cases migrant workers are brought in for seasonal work and then sent back home when they are not needed. This is the case with Eastern European farm workers in the East of England, or Moroccan women workers in the strawberry fields in Huelva, Spain.

All of these factors tend to cheapen the costs of labour for the bosses and are therefore extremely useful for the ruling class. 

Also, bringing in migrant workers with certain skills (be they computer programmers or nurses, electricians or carers) cheapens the cost of labour, as it saves on the cost of training them, which is carried out by the education system of their countries of origin. The ruling class of the receiving country then does not have to invest in education and training, but gets ready-trained skilled workers. Through migration, the countries of origin are robbed of their most able, most skilled labour. 

But this need of the ruling class for cheap labour is in contradiction to the political use of migrants as scapegoats for problems created by the crisis of capitalism. Trump found this out when his capitalist chums told him to stop immigration raids in meatpacking plants and farms, as they were leaving them without workers to exploit. 

So, what are the interests of the working class regarding migration, and what should be the position of communists in dealing with this question? 

This question should be approached from two sides. 

First is in relation to the country of origin. Working people are forced to leave their countries, sometimes to abandon their immediate family, the places they know and where they grew up, because they cannot make a decent living and provide for those they care for and their loved ones. Many are forced to embark on an often perilous journey, risking their lives and spending large amounts of money in order to look for a better future in a far away place. 

When they get there, if they manage to get there, often their expectations are not met. Some will be able to make a decent living, after a period of time, but many will be condemned to conditions of extreme exploitation, subject to violence and sexual abuse, and will always be wary of being deported. 

The ruling class in the imperialist countries, which is responsible for creating the conditions  which force millions to uproot themselves and migrate, then receive them with barbed wire, detention camps and gunboats, or pay reactionary regimes in border countries to prevent them from crossing over. 

We are of course not in favour of that. We fight for a better world, one in which working people can live decent lives and where they are not forced to emigrate to far-off lands to eke out a living, a world where misery, hunger, exploitation, and war are a thing of the past. That requires a struggle to abolish capitalism and imperialism which are the cause of these ills. As long as this rotten system exists people will be forced to emigrate, no matter how dangerous it may be or how many barriers are raised, as has been proven time and time again. 

In relation to the countries receiving migrants, the ruling class use them in several ways. As a source of cheap labour, which is used to drive down the conditions of the working class in general, as has been explained. But also as a way to divide the working class, by fomenting racism and bigotry. 

Under the guise of clamping down on ‘illegal immigration’ the ruling class has been making it ever more difficult for migrants to arrive and establish themselves legally. In the recent period more measures have been taken to limit the rights of migrants, forcing them into insecure work visas, making them completely dependent on their employers, and therefore at risk of deportation for trade union and political activities. 

The only effective way to fight that is not for the working class to line up behind any of the sections of the ruling class in supporting their interests – neither those who use migrants as cheap labour nor those who use them as scapegoats – the only effective way is for the working class to approach this question from the point of view of our own independent class interests. 

To prevent migrants from being used to undercut the general conditions of the workers, they must be organised in a fighting and militant trade union and political movement of the working class, struggling for equal rights, wages and conditions for all workers. Only by bringing the wages and conditions of migrant workers up to the level of the rest of the working class through the joint struggle of workers, migrant or native, can their common interests be defended and the ruling class defeated. 

The organisation of migrant workers into the ranks of the trade union movement requires a break with its present bureaucratic, conservative leadership steeped in class collaboration and so-called ‘social partnership’, and the adoption of militant class struggle methods. 

The labour movement must fight against any and all discrimination against workers on any basis, including their ethnic background, country of origin, or immigration status. The lack of rights of migrant workers is used to enforce extreme conditions of exploitation which drive down overall conditions for all workers. 

The labour movement must fight for the defence of any section of the class against racist pogroms, including the organisation of workers’ self-defence to protect targeted communities, as we have seen in the inspiring movement against ICE raids in Minneapolis. An injury to one is an injury to all. 

The labour movement must fight for the defence of any section of the class against racist pogroms

But in addition to defending migrant workers against super-exploitation and repression in the workplace and on the streets, the labour movement must go on the offensive. In order to prevent right-wing ruling class demagogues from using the question of migration to divert attention from the fact that the capitalist system is the real cause of the cost of living crisis, the lack of affordable housing, the collapse of social services and infrastructure, and so on, a revolutionary, militant, anti-capitalist policy to address these very real problems is required. Only such a policy can expose these demagogues for what they are: defenders of the same rotten system.

This class approach is at odds with the policy of the liberals and the so-called left, which address the question of migration from a purely sentimental or moral point of view. Sectarians follow in their footsteps with empty moralistic slogans such as ‘refugees are welcome here’. 

At a time when there is a dire lack of housing, for instance, it is not difficult to demagogically turn public opinion against refugees being housed in hotels at the taxpayer’s expense. That cannot be countered by moral appeals, but rather through a serious campaign to solve the problem of high rents and high housing costs – one that involves a serious programme of housebuilding in the public sector, the expropriation of landlords and construction companies, etc. 

The recent explosion of anger over the question of housing in Spain is an excellent example of how the struggle to solve real social and economic problems facing working class people can cut across the appeal of reactionary demagogues. Prior to this movement, the whole political debate was dominated by reactionary anti-migrant ideas. The question was being posed of who should have priority in access to scarce housing. Now, as a result of the mass movement in the streets, the centre of attention has turned towards the need to expropriate corporate landlords and other similar anti-capitalist measures to guarantee housing for all. These proposals have overwhelming popular support – even amongst the voters of right and far-right parties!

Even worse is the position of lefts and liberals who join or support capitalist governments carrying out cuts in social spending, with the ‘lesser-evil’ argument of the need for unity of all ‘democratic forces’ to stop fascism and the far right. 

The struggle for scarce resources leads directly to the division of the working class into different competing groups. Anyone who accepts the idea that there are scarce resources will end down this road, in one way or another. Only by posing the question in class terms can division be overcome. There are plenty of resources available, they are in the hands of the capitalist class, the real enemy of workers, native or migrant. 

The unity of the working class is paramount and anything which undermines it is reactionary. The fight against racism and anti-migrant prejudice is a life-and-death matter for the working class, for these are used to divide the workers and pitch one section of the class against the other. But this struggle can only be undertaken on the basis of a working-class militant programme against all sections of the ruling class. 

The working-class movement must adopt revolutionary militant methods to fight against the crisis of capitalism in all its manifestations: against cuts in welfare, for decent housing, education and health care for all. Above all, these struggles must be seen as part of the general struggle against the capitalist system.