By George Banks and Millie Collins
The ruling class and their media outlets relentlessly scapegoat migrants and refugees for crises in housing, public services and wages.
This is a deliberate strategy to divide the working class and divert anger from the real culprits: the bosses, bankers and politicians who enforce austerity.
Migrants are blamed for the housing crisis, yet they are among its primary victims. The crisis is a result of decades of government failure to build social housing, selling off council homes, and treating property as a speculative asset.
Just 10,000 council homes were built in 2023-24, compared to 200,000 annually throughout the 1950s. Meanwhile over 200,000 long-term empty homes are held as investments. Migrants are forced into expensive, overcrowded, and precarious private rentals, exploited by landlords.
In 2019 the government outsourced asylum seeker accommodation to private security firms Clearsprings, Serco, and Mears Group. These companies subcontracted to hotels at high rates, leading to enormous public expenditure and profiteering.
The cost of housing asylum seekers has skyrocketed from £4bn over ten years in 2019, to an estimated £15.3 billion over the same period, driven by exorbitant hotel costs. Three-quarters of the budget is spent on hotels, which house only a third of all asylum seekers.
These private providers profit enormously, making over £383m since their contracts began. Clearsprings generated over £180m in three years, and its owner Graham King (known as the ‘Asylum billionaire’) paid himself a £70m dividend.
The justified anger over these costs is misdirected – it should be aimed at King and his fellow cronies, not migrants trapped in their shitty hostels.
Right to work
Until 2002, asylum seekers could apply to work if they had waited six months or more for a decision on their claim. Tony Blair’s government removed this provision, claiming it was necessary to distinguish asylum from economic migration. The right was reinstated in 2005, but only after a 12-month wait, and only to comply with EU law.
Even if permission to remain is granted, asylum seekers are restricted to one of 23 professions, which include bespoke jobs, like ‘skilled orchestral musician’ and ‘archaeologist’, as well as general labourers. Visa sponsorship for healthcare workers ended earlier this year, leaving asylum seekers without viable job opportunities despite 110,000 vacancies in the sector. Those lucky enough to find work are entitled to just 80% of the going rate.
So the idea that migrants ‘steal our jobs’ and ‘undercut wages’ is an outright lie. Wages are driven down not by migrants, but by employers who exploit division to push down conditions for everyone.
The answer is not to attack migrant workers but to organise them into trade unions and fight for equal pay for equal work. If there isn’t enough work to go round, share the available work with no loss of pay—cut the hours, not the jobs!
That migrants come to the UK to ‘scrounge’ benefits is also untrue. The UK’s immigration system is deliberately punitive and complex, designed to exclude people from support. Asylum seekers receive £9.95 per week if in hotel accommodation, or £49.18 if ‘self-catering’. This is insufficient to live on. The government dehumanises them by banning the purchase of so-called ‘luxury items,’ which include books and toys.
20% of the UK’s aid budget is spent on the entire asylum system, including the £2.1 billion for hotel accommodation. This is a fraction of the £59 billion defence budget. For migrants on visas, the infamous No Recourse to Public Funds policy prevents them from claiming any benefits, creating a super-exploitable class of workers.
Freedom of movement
The ruling class attacks migrants because it fears a united, international working class. We defend the right to migrate because:
- It is a fundamental workers’ right to move for work and safety, a liberty denied to our class, while capital moves freely.
- Migrants are a vital part of our class; they work in our industries and strengthen us with their skills and diverse struggles.
- Our enemy is the same. The wars, poverty, and climate disasters forcing people to flee are caused by the same capitalist class that exploits us here.
Our demands are simple. Open the borders. Grant full rights for all. Abolish the hostile environment. Stop all deportations. Fight for the unity of all workers in a common fight against our common enemies.
