Oppose the Deeply Chauvinist Ethos of the Rich! Defend the Rights of All!

Workers' Daily Internet Edition: Article Index :

Oppose the Deeply Chauvinist Ethos of the Rich! Defend the Rights of All!

As part of the unrelenting offensive on the minorities of Britain, Gordon Brown has taken up a theme which was adumbrated during his premiership by Tony Blair in developing the “Third Way” line of the “duty to integrate” on the basis of “shared British values”. This theme is an attack on immigrants and national minorities going by the name of “earned citizenship”. Its outlook is the deeply chauvinist one that being a British citizen offers huge rewards, and that those reaping its benefits should not be given a “free ride”. An offensively repugnant paper written by an “expert in the field”, an ideologue, all with the most “progressive” intentions of promoting “social cohesion” and “good character” on the theme of “earned citizenship”, was promoted by Tony Blair in his “Our Nation’s Future” lectures. Gordon Brown has taken up this criminal proposal in a speech given in February that is designed to impose the “British way of life” and instil “British values” into a multicultural Britain; seeking to wipe out identity with a uniform “Britishness” that embodies all that is reactionary in the name of advanced civilisation. This uniformity demands that Britain’s colonial past and interventionist and exploitative present is defined as “Britain’s global economy” which “has enriched us as a nation”, as Gordon Brown claimed in his speech.

            Under the proposed new racist and Eurocentric system set out by the Home Office in its Green Paper, to which the Prime Minister was speaking, immigrants from outside the European Union will have to be tested to prove they can be this model “British citizen”. At present, they are first eligible for a passport five years after they arrive in this country. Under the proposals, they will have to serve a further probationary period of one to three years. They will also face more tests to show they are making efforts to “integrate” into British life, proving themselves to be part of Brown’s Britain that waves the union jack in the name of great empire, war and globalisation, by doing voluntary work, for instance by undertaking community work, running a sports team or play group, or serving as a school governor. While they are on "probation", immigrants will be denied basic necessities which are considered “non-contributory” benefits such as council housing and subsidised higher education. Immigrants who want to marry a British national will be required to pass an English test before they are allowed to settle in this country. Serious offenders will automatically lose any right to citizenship and be deported, while those convicted of minor crimes that do not carry a prison sentence will face extra delays before getting a passport.

            Immigrants will also have to undergo a test to demonstrate fluency in English and knowledge of the so-called British way of life, the content of which has been found so risible, but which the government treats in deadly earnest. After five years in the country, they will have to choose to apply to become a citizen or a permanent resident (for example if they are from a country which prohibits dual nationality). Those refusing to take either option will be harshly ordered to leave Britain, and even if they chose permanent residency they will not be granted a passport or the right to vote.

            Also in the plans is a measure to charge more for visas, which will make it harder for many immigrants to afford one, and is openly discriminatory.

            There is also being implemented from the end of February a new “points based” immigration system that will expose immigrants to a process by which their application for citizenship will be scrutinised and granted on the basis of having the “skills the country needs”. A new civil penalties scheme was also brought into force. However, the High Court has ruled illegal the government’s attempt to apply the same criteria to immigrants already here under the “Highly Skilled Migrants Programme”, which would have resulted in around 45,000 immigrants and their families facing deportation, despite having made their home here. The judge clearly called it an “abuse of power” on behalf of the government.

            This whole government scenario regarding what it means to be a citizen is quite definitely and disgracefully bound up with the issue of the “war on terror”, so that the conception is smuggled in to the debate that non-European immigrants are a potential threat not only to the values of the “British way of life”, but a physical threat to this spurious and prescribed “way of life”. Thus Gordon Brown elaborated in the context of “earned citizenship”, the necessity to have three “lines of defence” in order to “safeguard our borders”. In the establishment’s eyes, not only are non-EU immigrants potential terrorists but potentially dangerous criminals, who have to face automatic deportation if committing a “non-trivial” crime. It is, however, the state which is seeking to act with impunity and illegally, as the legal judgments against it are continually demonstrating.

            The attitude behind this offensive on immigrants and in particular the Muslim community, is an attack aimed at dividing and dismantling the unity of the British working class and people on the grounds that you will be out cast if you do not go along with the dictate and the structure that the ruling elite impose on the society. It is a fundamental assault on the right to conscience, being an extremely dangerous “value-based” system of citizenship, designed explicitly, in Gordon Brown’s words, “to strengthen the idea of what it means to be British”.

            This doctrine of the “white mans burden” where the elite take on the role of bringing “civilisation” to foreign countries and peoples is the same ideology that imbues the “war on terror” and all the reactionary policies towards people of other nationalities who do not subscribe to the Anglo-American set up, whether it be the political institutions, way of life or economic model. It is furthermore an attack on all citizens and residents in Britain, not only because an injury to one is an injury to all, but because it offends against everyone’s right to conscience and is a prelude to imposing further state control, such as ID cards, on all who live here.

            It is this bullying that the British people must oppose, defending the multicultural character of Britain, while insisting that everyone here be granted rights as part of the polity. The British working class and people must uphold the principles of treating everyone as equals, and uphold culture as not to be violated by any indoctrination by the state. The way forward is to unite under the banner of democratic renewal and defending the rights of all, in opposition to the values and the dictate of those who have usurped power by force and class privilege.