Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has surprised many people by saying that people’s fear of mass immigration is ‘genuine and justified’ and that it is ‘absolutely outrageous’ to brand those who express such fears as racists.
The surprise is twofold. Most people associate the church hierarchy with liberal views, even with political correctness. But the timing is interesting too, coming in the heat of the EU referendum campaign as it does. His remarks are bound to be seized on by those who think they will help their cause. Is he right? And how central is the immigration issue to whether Britain should leave the European Union or remain in it?
In an interview for Parliament’s House magazine, the archbishop said: ‘Fear is a valid emotion at a time of such colossal crisis. This is one of the greatest movements of people in human history. Just enormous. And to be anxious about that is very reasonable. There is a tendency to say “those people are racist”, which is just outrageous, absolutely outrageous. In fragile communities particularly – and I’ve worked in many areas with fragile communities as a clergyman – there is a genuine fear: what happens about housing? What happens about jobs? What happens about access to health services?’
To those who have been warning for years about the problems of immigration, the archbishop’s remarks are particularly welcome. Lord Green of Deddington, the founder of MigrationWatch, said: ‘What a marvellous breath of fresh air. This is clearly an outstanding leader who listens carefully to his flock and understands their genuine concerns.’
Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary and former leader of the Conservative Party, congratulated the archbishop for what he had said but added that it was long overdue for such a senior figure in the Church of England and the wider establishment to be so forthright. He complained that for years, and especially while Tony Blair was prime minister, anyone who made such comments was immediately labelled a racist. The consequence was that the issue, which mattered to a lot of people, got brushed under the carpet and made it possible for extremist and dangerously racist figures on the political fringe to make a running. That, he said, is what is happening elsewhere in Europe where the far right is making gains in elections.
Mr Duncan Smith is one of the leading campaigners for Britain to leave the European Union and immigration is one of the central issues in the campaign. Membership of the EU brings with it the principle of the free movement of people from EU member states throughout the union. Hundreds of thousands of EU citizens, many from countries in Eastern Europe that have joined only recently, have come here in search of work. David Cameron discovered during his recent negotiations to change Britain’s terms of membership of the EU that this principle is non-negotiable. He had to make do instead with changes to entitlements to welfare benefits for new EU migrants. His critics say they will have little effect on the numbers of those coming to live in Britain. For that to happen, they say, we would have to leave the EU.
And immigration affects the referendum campaign in another way too. That’s because of the refugee crisis which is seeing millions of both asylum seekers and economic migrants from the Middle East and Africa trying to get into Europe in search of a better life. A million of them settled in Germany alone last year. It has caused enormous political damage to Chancellor Angela Merkel who said last year that all Syrian refugees were welcome.
Most people agree that the scale of the problem is such that it can be dealt with only at an EU-wide level. But member states are finding it immensely difficult to agree a policy. Indeed the failure to do so has led many individual states to take the law into their own hands and start building border fences to keep out immigrants and stop the flow from Greece and Italy. This has caused huge acrimony within the EU and, in the view of many commentators, threatens the very existence of the Union. Under the latest provisional deal, struck this week with the Turkish government, all new migrants arriving in Greece would be returned to Turkey in exchange for Syrian refugees already camped in Turkey. It has caused huge controversy in other European countries, not least because the deal will give seventy-five million Turkish citizens visa-free access to the EU. The United Nations has suggested it might be illegal and many doubt the deal will survive.
Britain has an opt-out from these arrangements and has made its own offer. We would take 20,000 Syrians over the next five years. The archbishop thinks that is not enough and said: ‘The lack of a European solution is deepening the crisis very, very significantly … We have to play our part. I was in Germany last weekend doing some work with some churches there. The Germans took 1.1m last year. And it does make 20,000 over several years sound very thin.’
Campaigners on both sides of the EU referendum campaign are aware of how important the immigration and refugee issues could be to the outcome. Commentators say that it is in the interests of the Remain side to talk less about immigration and focus the argument instead on the economic issues with regard to EU membership and what they claim will be the damaging uncertainty caused by a vote to leave. The fear that Remain campaigners want to tap in voters’ minds is what this uncertainty might do to jobs and living standards. On the other side, a focus on immigration is thought to be helpful to Leave campaigners: they say continued membership of the EU could lead to uncontrolled immigration.
Dr Welby is clear that the Church of England wants to take no sides in the campaign. He said: ‘You can’t say “God says you must vote this way or that way”.’ But his comments will certainly be used by those who do want to tell us how we should vote. Those advocating Leave will be heartened by his robust defence of those who express fear of mass immigration and by his outrage that such people should be branded racists. But the Remain side will note his conviction that the refugee crisis can be solved only at an EU level and that Britain should be doing more to take the refugees in.
Is he right to say that fear of mass immigration is ‘genuine and justified’ and that those who express such fear should not be dubbed ‘racists’? And is he right to say that the refugee crisis needs to be dealt with through an EU-wide policy and that Britain should be doing more for it? How important do you think immigration and the refugee crisis will prove to be in influencing how people vote in the EU referendum? And will it determine your vote?
