What’s Missing from the Debate About the Refugees in Calais Who Are Eager to Go to Britain

Although it may seem an irrelevance in almost wholly secularized Britain, the Church of England still manages to maintain a semblance of moral authority. This was on display last week after Prime Minister David Cameron spoke of a “swarm” of migrants seeking entry to Britain from refugee camps in the French port of Calais. The Right Rev. Trevor Wilmott, the Bishop of Dover, responded sternly: Cameron’s words reflected a “toxicity” in public discourse that leads us to “forget our humanity.”

While it was likely that the refugee crisis troubling Europe would wash up on British shores, the attitude of the government has proved more surprising. Historically, policy has followed public disquiet over immigration. By crafting a narrative for the public to follow, Cameron, who once worked in public relations, has presented another approach.

There have been three significant waves of immigration to Britain since the late 19th century. The first arose from a humanitarian crisis, the pogroms of Tsarist Russia. As Anthony Julius states in Trials of the Diaspora (2010), around 150,000 Jews sought sanctuary in Britain between 1880 and 1905. The second occurred after 1948, when the Labour government granted British citizenship to all living in the Commonwealth. Ministers hoped to relieve labor shortfalls caused by a declining population and the need for post-WWII rebuilding. Initially, only a few thousand males from the West Indies, India, and Pakistan immigrated each year, but numbers increased rapidly in the mid 1950s. David Kynaston writes in Modernity Britain (2014) that two factors pushed this process: the desire to reunify families and the growing affluence of 1950s Britain. Between 1956 and 1961, the number of people arriving each year rose from 46,000 to 135,000. The third wave occurred after 2004, when several former communist nations joined the European Union. Britain offered new EU citizens free movement of labor. Between 2005 and 2009, almost 700,000 workers arrived from Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic States.

Each migratory pattern was met with virulent opposition. Julius notes the waves of anti-Semitism that accompanied Jewish refugees. Popular newspapers, music hall acts, political pamphlets, and public meetings proclaimed Jews to be a threat to the racial and public health of the nation and argued that cheap Jewish labor would lower standards of living. Kynaston shows that Commonwealth citizens faced similar discrimination; white Britons led race riots against West Indians in 1958, for example. Racist sentiment surged after the Conservative MP Enoch Powell, in a 1968 speech, claimed that immigration would lead to “rivers of blood” in British streets. Post-colonial writers like Hanif Kureshi, Zadie Smith, Monica Ali, and Andrea Levy depict the development of an institutionalized racism in regards to policing, the justice system, workplace inequality, housing, educational opportunities, popular culture, and sports. Finally, popular tabloid newspapers such as the Daily Mail, the Express and the Sun formed a popular perception that EU migrants were parasites leaching from Britain’s welfare system. This is despite the fact that EU migrants proportionally contribute more to the exchequer than native-born Britons and receive fewer benefits.

Immigration has been the lifeblood of modern Britain. At the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, Britons rightly celebrated their multi-cultural nation. Historical memory remembers the nation’s status as a safe haven for refugees. Arriving at this juncture has proved difficult and incomplete, however.

When it comes to immigration, British governments have followed rather than led. Popular anti-Semitism led to the passing of the Aliens Act by a Liberal government in 1905. By refusing entry to the indigent, this act targeted penniless Russian Jews fleeing their homes in the face of persecution. Growing unease with migration led a Conservative government to pass the Commonwealth Immigration Act (1962). This act restricted the right of entry for unskilled workers, a category that many Commonwealth immigrants fell into. Labour governments have been no less averse to playing the race card. The Commonwealth Immigration Act (1968), limited the right to immigrate to those who had a parent or grandparent born in Britain. This was a pre-emptive strike against a potential exodus of Indians facing discrimination in Uganda and Kenya. This legislation did not affect another Kenyan minority, the descendants of British colonial settlers. Most recently, the anti-immigrant UK Independence Party has stoked popular discontent. This led in the 2015 general election to both the Conservatives and Labour promising to limit immigration. So committed were the latter to this pledge that it was emblazoned on a commemorative mug.

In reality, the “swarm” of migrants does not exist. As its EU partners regularly point out, Britain fails to take in its fair share of asylum-seekers. Just a few thousand refugees reside in the camps at Calais. By contrast, over 200,000 people applied for asylum in Germany last year. Greece and Italy remain the first port of call for the refugee ships launched daily from North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. By creating the perception of crisis, Cameron avoids a politically unpopular decision and asserts his authority over the EU in anticipation of the 2016 referendum on British membership.

But another issue lurks in the background. Many refugees are fleeing political violence, whether in North Africa or by the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan and ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Given that British participation in the 2001 war against the Taliban, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the 2010 bombing of Libya contributed greatly to this instability should Britain – and the US for that matter – take greater responsibility for its actions?

Put simply: for reasons of history, fairness, and responsibility, Britain should do more.