Lying with the facts: Labour leaves the left

There’s one thing worse than vacuous bigoted populism fuelled by outright lies: the same thing fuelled by using facts to lie. For example, the UK’s prime minister Keir Starmer attributes the recent spike in net inward migration to the Tories’ “open borders experiment”.

What are the facts?

Oxford University‘s Migration Observatory collects and analyses migration data to and from the UK. And yes, it is true — net migration increased markedly in 2021–2023, peaking in 2023 at more than 900 000. But this figure is misleading as outflows lag inflows. 

There are some categories of migrants who are in the country for a limited time. Students mostly leave after graduating and some migrants might be on short-term contracts. If there is a period where inflows slow, and then tick up again, the outflows need a few years to catch up. So that exaggerates the effect of the increase.

The real question is whether the increase — less substantial that it appears but nonetheless an increase — is justifiable on rational policy grounds. For example, was there a post-Covid skills shortage? And that is precisely what is missing from the debate when it goes to toxic, inflammatory language like “throwing open the borders”.

This sort of language is typical of the xenophobic right, not of a Labour prime minister. While Starmer has not explicitly racialised his commentary, the likes of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK (successor to the Brexit Party) are not so shy. The far right stoked riots after the Southport stabbings, with false claims about the origin and religion of the perpetrator.

Amnesty International condemned characterising racist, xenophobic riots as anti-immigrant. What was Starmer’s reaction? He condemned the rioters as thugs and criminals and attacked social media operators, particularly Elon Musk, for airing inflammatory content without any control. But he was silent on the underlying causes.

Now this. Adopting the rhetoric of the incendiary xenophobic right.

Aside from the racist aspect of this, and the underlying threat of promoting xenophobic violence, this sort of rhetoric makes it even more difficult to promote real solutions that are complex and need careful explanation.

There are two reasonable approaches to the overall migration issue. The first requires understanding the requirements of any society for immigration and its capacity to absorb migrants, including refugees. The second is to address push factors — issues that encourage outward migration from source countries.

Developed countries are  increasingly running into two issues that can be solved by immigration: an aging population and a decreasing willingness to do menial jobs. 

As a population ages through a period of declining birth rates, scarcity of younger people to take up jobs becomes a problem. If the population stabilises at a lower level, that scarcity is resolved. 

Menial jobs such as working in farms are not attractive to those who have other options. Particularly in the US, migrants fill that niche. In the long run, more mechanised agriculture can replace that need. But, in the meantime, migration is needed. And part of that migration can include refugees. Even if refugees do not fill an economic niche, a wealthy country can afford to absorb more than a poor country — yet the overwhelming majority of refugees are stuck in poor countries.

Push factors include conflicts that generate refugees and regional poverty. Resolving conflicts is the best way to address the former. The failure of institutions such as the UN and African Union is part of the problem but the base issue is that the wealthiest countries don’t care enough about resolving the problems. 

When it comes to reducing poverty-driven migration, the best solution is economic development of poorer regions. Once such initiative, the Partnership for Central America, promoted by the Biden administration, aims to increase economic opportunity in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, with a target of 1 million new jobs. 

With over $5 billion in private sector commitments, it was off to a promising start. This initiative, announced by Vice President Kamala Harris in March 2024, was virtually invisible during her presidential election campaign. Why? It is not quite as easy to explain in a sound bite as “open borders” or “build the wall”.

Labour, relatively new in government, has the luxury of being able to take time to explain complex proposals. Yet Starmer used this opportunity to use the rhetoric of the xenophobic right to attack the Tories.

So, is Labour still a party of the left — even the centre left? Is it still largely progressive?

It seems not. This is one of a slew of issues where the party has moved sharply right. 

Another of those issues is Israel, where Labour hews closely to the US position on Israel, wrong or wrong. Jeremy Corbyn was pushed out because he was allegedly soft on anti-Semitism when the real issue was that he was sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. That Jewish Labour members were disproportionately labelled as anti-Semites shows how ridiculous the whole thing was.

I am not the only one to point out that Labour‘s apparently crushing win covered up the fact that the Labour left actually generally did well — including Corbyn running as an independent. And as I pointed out, Labour’s thumping win is an artefact of the UK’s unfair voting system.

So is there any strategic value in Labour going after the Tories for throwing the borders open? Clearly there was a tactical win to be had because the Tories are left defenceless against the hard right xenophobic opposition that split the far-right vote, driving them out of office.

But is this where Labour really wants to be? They might win more votes in the short term but they have sold their soul.

Philip Machanick is an emeritus associate professor of computer science at Rhodes University.