Migrant workers and xenophobia in the UK labour movement

There has been a growing climate of xenophobia towards migrant workers in the UK in recent years. Unfortunately, parts of the labour movement have been complicit in it.

The UK Labour Party leadership has been receiving a lot of criticism for its handling of Brexit. In its defence, a significant number of people in constituencies in its traditional heartlands of Wales, the midlands and the north voted to leave the European Union in 2016. Less defensible is Labour’s failure to support EU migrants in the UK. The prime minister, Theresa May, has introduced an incredibly bureaucratic and arbitrary ‘settlement scheme’, which, in practice, creates different categories of guest workers, yet opposition criticism has been muted and circumspect.

Labour’s apparent abandonment of EU freedom of movement has not been driven by the party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, however disappointing his response. Arguably, it represents a trend which has enveloped all aspects of the UK labour movement in the last 20 years.

Labour’s apparent abandonment of EU freedom of movement has not been driven by the party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, however disappointing his response. Arguably, it represents a trend which has enveloped all aspects of the UK labour movement in the last 20 years.




https://www.socialeurope.eu/migrant-workers-and-xenophobia