The arrival of North African refugees on the Italian and Maltese shores coincides with heated political debates about immigration in several EU countries, including France, Italy and the UK. In the process, asylum and irregular migration are presented by politicians and journalists as a threat to ‘our societies’ in order to obtain consensus and sell copies. At the same time, the rights of refugees are neglected and the free circulation of EU citizens sanctioned by the Schengen treaty risks being suspended.
At a recent EU ministers meeting, Home Secretary Theresa May ruled out UK’s involvement in a common EU asylum policy. She argued that such involvement would make ‘Britain’s borders’ more vulnerable to immigration. The implicit assumption of all of these interventions is that immigration is a problem, rather than a vital economic necessity and a key resource for the cohesion of our societies.
A flagship report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation by a research team based at the Institute for the Study of European Transformations (ISET) London Metropolitan University contradicts this view. The majority of people in the UK enjoy living in multicultural societies and appreciate the positive contribution immigrants make to the places they live.
Dr Nick Mai, Reader in Migration and MA Course Convenor commented “Understanding the relationship between migration, social cohesion and society is a key issue and concern for societies and policy-makers across the globe” The arrival of new migrant groups impacts on local communities by highlighting existing inequalities and divisions, not by causing them. Therefore, addressing deprivation, unemployment, lack of affordable housing and poor social support is important for social cohesion, not migration. However political parties and leaders often blame immigration for existing issues and problems in order to obtain or maintain political consensus. For more see:
http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/pgprospectus/courses/migration-social-cohesion.cfm
http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/research-units/iset/staff/mai.cfm