Opening the national border to all who wish to come is an unfashionable idea. The  last person  I can recall advocating such a policy was Angela Merkel.  “Wir schaffen das” she said with the confidence of a true leader. We can do this.  

It was a courageous policy to open German borders and take in large numbers of beleaguered Syrian migrants. The consequence however, in the short term at least, would appear to be the rise of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The AfD is resolutely hostile to immigration. 

And yet, in this post, I will make the case for opening our borders, for offering a passport and British citizenship to all-comers.

There are many reasons why we should keep our cool in the face of high numbers of people arriving from abroad into the UK. Clearly there are challenges, most obviously in relation to the provision of housing, health care and education. But then there are also good things which can follow from such an open doors policy, and which can be to the very immediate benefit of our economy. And so I join Angela Merkel in saying: “Wir schaffen das.”  We can do it.

I recently attended an event  featuring a documentary film on a Citizens Assembly tasked with responding to Climate Change. The post-film discussion turned to the practical difficulties of, for example, upgrading our national electricity grid. The current Government was castigated for its alleged failure to make progress on any front.  

I pointed out that, even if the money were made available, it is doubtful that the resources, and in particular the necessary workforce, would be available in short order to do all the jobs that need to be done. It’s not just the re-construction of our national electricity grid that competes for our workforce. We have an ageing population that requires a high level of personal care. There is a need to build more houses. We have a health care crisis which is “keeping millions out of work”. [1]

The immediate response to my litany was one with which I could not disagree.  “That’s why we need migrants!”

This is quite a familiar argument, though one which is brushed aside by those who are hostile to migration. The need for greater strength and resilience in our workforce is easy to understate.  Indeed a problem of misperception runs right through the whole issue of migration.  As Bobby Duffy, Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Policy Institute argues:

The public have a very poor understanding of the scale and nature of immigration. Surveys regularly show we think between a quarter and third of the population are immigrants – when the actual figures are closer to 13%. And these misperceptions extend to our view of the make-up of immigrants. The most mentioned are refugees or asylum-seekers, despite these being the least common immigrant type. The least mentioned group are people who come here to study, when in fact students were the largest category of migrant to the UK in 2011. [2]

The number of students as a proportion of migrants continues to run at a high level.[3]

However, as Bobby Duffy sagely goes on to remark: “it’s very wrong to conclude … that if only we could re-educate the public through “myth-busting” they won’t worry about immigration. Our misperceptions are as much a result of our concern as our concern is a result of misperceptions.”

I am inclined to agree that re-education is not a realistic way of turning round the public’s attitude to the presence of migrants, and yet I think education may have a part to play, in particular where migrant children in our school are concerned.  I am reminded of a story I came across recently on social media. It was told by Smajo Bešo, a Lecturer & Researcher at Newcastle University. Smajo arrived in Newcastle in the 1990s, a refugee in flight, with his parents, from the war in Bosnia. As Smajo tells the story: 

I missed my grandparents and friends. I was having awful nightmares, and I would wake up screaming every single night. I hated going to school. I would sit in my chair, look out of the window, and spend my day daydreaming about ways to run back to Bosnia. I didn’t want to be here.

Well, that’s probably just what is to be expected in the event of such a traumatic upheaval in the life of a child. However, Smajo goes on to talk about his primary school teacher, Miss Webster, and an experience that was to play an important part in turning things around for him. 

After a couple of weeks at school, my teacher, Miss Webster, and my classmates did something special to help me settle, something that made me feel less of a stranger. That was the first day I went home with a smile on my face.

Miss Webster was amazing, but I couldn’t understand a word she was saying. She had this ritual where, at the end of each day, we would all sit on the floor around her, she would play the guitar, and we would all sing a song together.   

My classmates loved this, but I hated it. It annoyed me because I couldn’t understand what they were singing, but if I am honest, I hated it mainly because of how happy they all were. I definitely wasn’t happy. I cried myself to sleep nearly every night.

I eventually started having separate English lessons, which I enjoyed more because it took me out of the classroom. It was always daunting coming to school because I felt everyone was looking at me or speaking about me. For months, my dad would stand with me outside the school gates in the morning until it was time to go in.

One day I came back into the classroom from my English lesson. We sat down, and everyone was extra-excited, looking at me more than usual for some reason. Of course, I thought it was because I was a refugee, because I couldn’t speak English, or because they couldn’t pronounce my name. I was bracing myself for another afternoon of my classmates encouraging me to sing. This was probably the closest I came to running out.

So we were all sitting on the floor around Miss Webster. She was holding her guitar, ready to sing. I remember the sun shining through the tall, narrow windows as I slowly drifted into a daydream of being back in Bosnia. She began playing the guitar, my classmates joined in, but this time, everything was different. I froze. I understood what they were singing. Not because I had miraculously learned English in one afternoon, but because they were singing in Bosnian for me. I looked around in shock, and they were all smiling at me, and for a moment I thought I was daydreaming.

While I was having separate English lessons, Miss Webster had taught our entire class to sing this song for me in Bosnian. They sang it terribly, but it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. I skipped home that day with a huge smile on my face. For the first time, I looked forward to going back to school the next day.

I have often imagined Miss Webster and my classmates rehearsing, struggling with the strange Bosnian words and laughing at themselves. For me, that effort was the ultimate recognition, an act of peace that felt like the opposite of everything I had known during the war. It was special.

I do not know if they realised it then, but that moment helped to give me back my dignity, my belonging, and, for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like I was just a refugee or an outsider. I was home.”

I cannot imagine anyone being unmoved by this story.  However, opening a small door into the language and culture of Bosnia did something important not just for Smajo, but for his entire class. Yes, Smajo went home on that special day with a smile on his face, but perhaps, more importantly, his entire  class “were all smiling at me.”

Who knows, perhaps one or two of those children did develop a deeper interest in Bosnian language and culture, but such interest or knowledge was never going to be a threat to their own culture – and Smajo, it is quite clear, went on to do something remarkable in his adopted country. 

The potential for migrants to enrich the education of their English speaking peers is generally overlooked, even feared. Learning even to say a few words in the language of a stranger, for a small child, can be a magical and even, on occasion, a transformative aspect of their education. 

Not every teacher can be a Miss Webster, but the idea of moving some small way towards the culture of migrants is a powerful one. The current popular enthusiasm is to double down on a one way street of migrant integration into some officially approved, flag waving, vainglorious, distillation of British language and culture “more honored in the breach than the observance.”  

This suggests to me a sad, and I believe, completely unnecessary,  lack of cultural self confidence and belief. The reality is that British culture encompasses very strange bedfellows – and that is as it should be.  Everything from Shakespeare to the Sex Pistols, from J M W Turner to Tracey Emin. You don’t have  to like it all to recognise it as part of what has made the extraordinary patchwork of modern Britain. 

It is of relatively little consequence if some adult migrants struggle with English and perhaps always remain locked within their own language and culture.  As all evidence shows, the experience of  the children of migrants and of subsequent generations is entirely different. They  learn English.  They  understand British culture and augment it.  Inevitably, however, the way in which this happens will be qualified and even compromised by the reception they receive from their teachers and class mates as they pass through the education system. The antidote to this is to think like Miss Webster. 

The way we engage with   adult migrants also  deserves greater attention. Colleges of further education are already on the front line of this interface, no doubt doing good work. FE Colleges are learning communities which can offer a gateway into every aspect of the life and work of the United Kingdom. 

Naturally it can be a source of friction if resources are diverted away from the training of young people who have grown up in the catchment area of a College, to meet this new challenge. Just as should be the case with schools with significant numbers of migrant pupils on their roll,  additional resources must be applied to meet the challenge. There could be a role, I imagine, for volunteers or for retired College lecturers – such as myself – to play a part in this process. Whatever is done, whatever is spent, will be an investment in our future which will benefit not just these new citizens, but also those who have grown up in the locality. 

The payoff will be greater societal resilience in the face of the many challenges which lie ahead. Put simply, we will have more young people in our demographic. That means more people to work in our health service, to care for the old and infirm, to start small businesses, to build the infrastructure we need for a sustainable and prosperous future. 

The AfD in Germany and the far right in general raise up additional phantoms in the form of the “Great Replacement Theory” which suggests that an indigenous European  white—population is being replaced by non-European immigrants.  In 50 or 100 years time,  many aspects of our society  will indeed be very different than they are  today. So long as the transition takes place in a harmonious way the outcome should be a matter of curiosity only, not of  concern.

In making the case for open borders I am not suggesting that a sudden growth in our population can be accommodated without difficulties. There is bound to be friction, at some stages. There is clearly a rising tide of British citizens who have set themselves against such an idea. Yet I continue to believe that, with the right leadership  we can adopt an approach to migration which is thoughtful, welcoming,  ingenious, inspirational and to the mutual benefit of both migrants and the population of the UK in general. 

Wir schaffen das.  

Endnotes

[1]The UK faces health crisis as long-term conditions keep millions out of work

[2] Perceptions and reality: Ten things we should know about attitudes to immigration in the UK

[3] Student Migration to the UK  

[4] Smajo Bešo  https://www.facebook.com/smajo.beso/about_overview

Title image cropped from an original open source picture which can be viewed here.