I’m So Bored With the USA: “Send ‘Em Back!” 

 

 

“And to discriminate only generates hate
And when you hate then you’re bound to get irate” 

 

This week, the really is only one story, immigration.

 

There is a simple message to take from this; immigration is used by far-right politicians to stir-up hate and grievances. These are politicians who don’t have answers to a country’s problems, and use hate as a means to fire-up the masses. It’s can be summed up thus; the answers immigration, what’s the problem? 

I refuse to believe that the majority of people are racists, there will always be an under class that are, but that is a minority. As I have often warned, the problem with racism isn’t where you start, its where you finish. 

Are PM Stamer and Labour racists? No, they are scared people making a kneejerk reaction. They see the spectre of Reform coming-up fast behind them, but this is 5-lap race and we haven’t yet finished lap 1. 

 

‘the problem with racism isn’t where you start, its where you finish’

 

Some of the more insightful observations have come from members of the Labour party. For example, Sarah Owen, the Labour chair of the women and equalities committee, who is of Malaysian-Chinese heritage, said: “Chasing the tail of the right risks taking our country down a very dark path. 

“The best way to avoid becoming an ‘island of strangers’ is investing in communities to thrive – not pitting people against each other.” 

The timing and language, particularly the PM’s references to an “island of strangers” and forces “pulling our country apart”, were poor, and serve only to reinforce existing divisions and xenophobia. 

Farage shouts about immigration because empty vessels make the most noise, and he has nothing else to shout about. What worries me is that Labour don’t, wont, or can’t see this. Worse still they can’t see, or accept that poverty, inequality, and the cost-of-living are the real danger.    

A No.10 source summed-up their position saying: “The truth is that people are really concerned with high levels of immigration and we want to make the system fairer,”. What he should have said is that the party is losing support to Reform and failing to understand why. 

The PM was right to target the Conservatives poor record that was both cynical and unsuccessful, with legal migration rose from 224,000 in 2019 to 906,000 in 2023. A situation very much contra to what Brexiters expected as they supposedly were “taking back control”. This was followed by the wholly absurd and inhumane Rwanda. 

 

‘they can’t see, or accept that poverty, inequality, and the cost-of-living are the real danger’

 

Current data shows net migration of 728,000 in the 12-months to June 2024. Estimates by the Home Office show that under the new immigration approach, there could be 100,000 fewer people entering the UK every year, with projections suggesting that net migration could fall as low as 300,000 by 2029. 

Starmer is right not to set targets, they cause two problems; they are often missed, and become a target on your back to be aimed at!  

What he does have to do is justify this initiative to voters on the left, or he will push them into the arms of the LibDems and Greens 

In addition, there is the need convince employers who are arguing that immigration policy is preventing businesses from accessing critical skills to deliver investment, putting jobs and growth at risk. The PM’s position is that higher levels of immigration,  particularly of low-skilled workers, are not contributing to economic growth.   

No 10 is are expected to ask the Office for Budget Responsibility, which now regards migration as a net positive to the economy over a five-year period, to look again at how it reaches its conclusions. 

“Their calculations don’t take the longer term costs to communities into account, when people start ageing and relying on the state more. We’re all taking immigration and its impact on the economy seriously.” 

 

‘The decision to stop issuing visas for low-skilled workers will impact the care sector badly’

 

Essentially, the proposals are based on the old theory  that immigration provides cheap labour that squeezes out British people by taking available jobs. 

The decision to stop issuing visas for low-skilled workers will impact the care sector badly. This begs the question,; will the country’s 1.5 million out-of-work people, or its 9 million economically inactive people, take on the estimated 150,000 vacancies that exist in the care sector?  

Nearly 20% of care workers come from overseas, and Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, has said the plans deal “a crushing blow to an already fragile sector”. He clearly understands that with Aldi paying better, why would anyone take on these jobs? This is made worse by the government delaying its promised fair pay agreement for care workers to 2028. 

Britain, in-common with many developed countries, has aging demographics are in play, and, has the Spanish PM, Pedro Sánchez, said; “Spain needs to choose between being an open and prosperous country or a closed-off, poor country. It’s as simple as that.” 

There are also sections in the proposal that appear to be included to appease the right, such as the requirement for a higher standard of English to get a visa. 

Current immigration data is a mixed bag; total migration has fallen fast since last summer, whilst the rising number of people arriving by boat and the 38,000 asylum seekers currently housed in hotels is being seized upon by the right. Example such as Runcorn’s 425-bed hotel full of asylum seekers waiting without work has caused deep local resentment.  

My thoughts that poverty and the cost-of-living are the key issues for people is borne out by polls that suggest just over half of voters want fewer migrants, but only 27% see it as a priority, in-line with Reform polling at 29%. 

The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has long believed there’s nothing social democratic about loose borders letting in cheap labour to undercut stagnating British pay. If cheap labour was so good for growth, how come the economy has been flatlining while immigration rose? And exactly whose growth was is it good for in this most unequal country?  

The situation is no different in the US, with Trump seeking to close borders and deport whoever he can. This, whilst red meat to the rabid MAGA dog, does nothing to help their inequality problems. 

 

‘whilst red meat to the rabid MAGA dog, does nothing to help their inequality problems’

 

In the last 40-yrs, the richest 1% percent have enjoyed the fastest income growth. There is no coincidence that this started in Regans era, as between 1979 and 2021, the average income of the richest 0.01 percent, C.12.000 households, grew nearly 27 times as fast as the income of the bottom 20 percent of earners. 

America’s richest 1 percent of households averaged 139x as much income as the bottom 20 percent in 2021 

 Source: Congressional Budget Office.  

This is a return to the past, the inequality of the Gilded Age in the early 1900s led to social movements and progressive policymakers levelling down through fair taxation and levelling up through increased unionization and other reforms. According to data analysed by UC Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, the ratio between the average income of the top 0.1 percent and the bottom 90 percent reached Gilded Age levels in the years preceding the GFC. 

The nation’s highest 0.01 percent and 0.1 percent of income-earners have seen their incomes rise faster than the rest of the top 1 percent in recent decades. Both of these ultra-rich groups saw their incomes drop immediately after the financial crashes of 1929 and 2008, but they had a much swifter recovery after the more recent crisis. Income concentration today is as extreme as it was during the “Roaring Twenties.” 

 

‘Income concentration today is as extreme as it was during the “Roaring Twenties.”’

 

However, in Trump’s America things are rarely what they seem. Having campaigned attacking the “radical left”, he is now borrowing some of their economic policies. The price controls he denounced as “communist” are now under consideration, and, after continually defending tax breaks for the wealthy, he is now proposing tax increases on those earning more than $2.5m a year if it benefits poorer Americans. Trump now sounds more Bernie Sanders than Bernie! 

This confusion follows the U-turn on tariffs for Chinese imports, which has been slashed down to 30% from 145%, after realising the domestic problems that would be caused by empty shelves and collapsing supply chains. Trade wars are not, as he mistakenly thought, easy to win. 

The administrations seemingly thrives of disruption, hopping from idea to idea as they fail for lack of follow-through or because they are just bad ideas. This approach has its advantages allowing him to appear as the champion of working people and big business. Whilst the message is mixed and often conflicting, he still controls the narrative. 

As a result, he is seemingly able to keep his billionaire backers happy while providing enough headlines to suggest the impression of fairness. Is it real or just an illusion?  

 

‘seemingly able to keep his billionaire backers happy while providing enough headlines to suggest the impression of fairness’

 

To date, all we have seen is watchdogs being gutted, workers’ wages are cut, and tax policies that prop up the top-1%. For all the progressive ideas suggested, few, if any, amounts to anything tangible. 

He seems devoid of actual ideology, while he constantly needs to be popular, which explains why tariffs were cut when markets crashed and the polls turned negative . Progressive ideas such as redistribution and price controls create hope amongst his MAGA supporters, but whether there is substance behind them remains to be seen. This is really a very clear example of populism in action, and one that Farage needs to be wary of; you can’t fool all of the people all of time, just ask Boris Johnson. 

It’s interesting to compare Johnson and Trump, both have the overwhelming need to be popular, and thought the rules were for everyone else. In Johnson’s defence he never displayed the naked self-dealing of Trump, who sees nothing wrong in accepting a $400m jet from a Gulf royal or a Middle Eastern state spending $2bn on cryptocurrencies through a first-family-owned company. 

Previous occupants of the Oval Office sold investments or placed them into blind trusts. Trump’s business empire, managed by his sons, operates as before with the added commercial privileges that accrue with association to the most powerful man on Earth. Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, runs a private equity company that mostly deals with the state-backed investment funds of Gulf states that Mr Trump is visiting this week. 

The conflicts of interest are such that it is difficult to separate the presidency from the commercial ambitions of his entourage. This is like a Sount American dictatorship, where one person controls the state, and there is little in the way of democratic safeguards and where law enforcement is incapable of policing corruption. The principle that public office should be sought with a view to advancing public interest, rather than exploited for personal enrichment seems to have vanished. 

 

I will leave the last word to “the boss”, Bruce Springsteen: “ In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death. This is happening now.” 

 

 

“Our freedom of speech is freedom or death
We got to fight the powers that be” 

 

 

‘This piece takes a closer look at the PM’s proposed crackdown on immigration, which seems to be targeting the wrong issues.

I had thought it was illegal immigrants arriving in small boats that were the problem, and I don’t see anything in the proposals that deal with that.

What I do see is the acceptance of elite immigration, at the expense of less-qualified applicants. The issue here is that it is the latter that keeps the social care system running, without them it collapses. They take the jobs that Brits don’t want, the work is too hard, too unpleasant and not sufficiently remunerative.

These lesser qualified immigrants show up malingering Brits who see such works as beneath them, whereas the immigrants know they have no choice.

Perhaps working class white man needs a kick–up his lazy butt rather than spending his time with the Wetherspoons Wedge supping cheat beer and bemoaning his lot.

I have turned to the US to highlight my usual point that inequality is the case of the red walls, Wetherspoons wedge, and Maga’s discontent. Whereas immigrants are just convenient victims of 40-yrs of redistributing gains to the lucky few.

There are sounds coming from the Trump camp that this is being dealt with, and “high” earners will see tax increases as he levels down and up. But, as we have seen time and again, what Trump actually does could be very different.

Globally, it’s a mess. Israel is just doing what it pleases, and with Putin refusing to attend peace talks with Ukraine any resolution is unlikely. But, why would Israel and Russia stop, they are winning.

Lyrically, we start with “Where is the Love”,  by Black Eyed Peas, and end with the ever-powerful “Fight the Power”, by Public Enemy.

It’s all so unsure! Philip.’

 

@coldwarsteve

 

 

Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s

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