By George Banks
Fearing the electoral threat posed by Reform, Labour has launched a fresh assault on migrants. Part of this campaign is a disturbing ad blitz, boasting of the highest deportation levels seen in five years. These advertisements are styled in Reform UK’s distinctive turquoise, with Labour’s branding conspicuously absent.
They have also launched a Facebook ad campaign targeting Labour defectors and those considering a switch to Reform. This campaign, which omits any mention of Labour, seeks to ‘raise awareness’ of the government’s stringent measures against migrants.
This is not just hateful rhetoric. Since taking office six months ago, Labour has increased the frequency of deportation raids by 38% compared with the previous 12 months. These ‘successes’ have been widely publicised, with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper joining raids targeted at people with no ‘right to work’. Dehumanising photos and footage depict handcuffed asylum seekers being herded onto planes.
New Act
Labour is also attacking migrants with the new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which has already cleared its first reading in parliament. The Bill ‘creates a framework of new, enhanced powers and offences to improve UK border security and to strengthen the asylum and immigration system’. It will establish the vaunted ‘Border Security Command’, allow police to treat people smugglers as terrorists, and give immigration enforcement teams the power to seize mobile phones.
By targeting so-called ‘illegal working’ and linking this to attacks on ‘small boats’, the government is propagating the myth that those arriving on small boats are economic migrants. However, the statistics don’t bear this out. From 2018 to March 2024, 93% of those arriving in small boats claimed asylum, and over three quarters were successful.
Labour’s attacks are couched in the language of protecting vulnerable people from exploitation and the risks of the dangerous Channel crossing. However, they are no longer providing any alternative, with the old references to establishing ‘safe routes’ missing from both their rhetoric and their policy announcements.
Labour’s cruel immigration policy not only escalates Tory attacks, it is also doomed to fail. It won’t improve the economy, which relies on migrant labour, nor will it give Labour an electoral edge over Reform. Its only effect will be to legitimise the far right’s hateful rhetoric. Indeed, Reform MP Richard Tice took the government’s policy as evidence that ‘immigration is the number one issue because it’s out of control.’
Labour has failed to present a credible plan to save the NHS or the economy. Further austerity will very likely be announced in June. This will fuels the fires of hate because the whole mainstream political spectrum, from Labour to Reform, is blaming migrants for our falling standards of living.
Our trade unions hand over vast sums of money to the Labour Party and demand nothing in return, watching from the sidelines as Labour whips up damaging divisions within the working class. Our unions asked us to vote Labour, so now we need them to step up and place demands on the government to tax the rich to fund the NHS, schools and council houses, rather than scapegoat migrants for their failure to do so.
Labour is governing on behalf the bosses, not the workers who elected them. We need a real party of struggle rooted in the communities and committed to reversing the rising tide of reaction – a revolutionary party with a programme for overthrowing capitalism and establishing working class power.
