Barroso, Cameron e a imigração. On immigration, David Cameron has joined Ukip’s paranoia bandwagon José Manuel Barroso has exposed the PM’s slapdash policy, which only replicates the anxiety of the electorate / GUARDIAN.

EDITORIAL / PÚBLICO

Barroso, Cameron e a imigração

DIRECÇÃO EDITORIAL 20/10/2014 - 20:06

O presidente da Comissão Europeia surpreendeu com um discurso forte contra as políticas anti-imigração do Governo britânico.

Durão Barroso fez ontem um dos seus discursos mais marcantes desde que é presidente da Comissão Europeia (CE). Muitas vezes atacado por excesso de colagem às posições das potências mais poderosas, sobretudo desde que a crise do subprime bateu às portas da União, em 2011, desta vez Durão não usou de meias palavras para criticar as recém-anunciadas medidas que David Cameron tenciona apresentar para impor barreiras à entrada de cidadãos europeus no país. Curiosamente, esta intervenção não só foi feita em solo britânico (Londres) como já foi considerada "o mais forte ataque de Bruxelas aos conservadores", segundo o Guardian. Para assinalar ainda mais a surpreendente atitude de Barroso, recorde-se que o partido de Cameron faz parte da família política europeia em que se situa o PSD, partido que Barroso liderava antes de assumir o seu mandato europeu.

Mas, afinal, o que quer Cameron? Impedir a livre circulação de cidadãos comunitários através das suas fronteiras, o que, como bem recordou Durão, não só contraria as leis europeias, como "é um princípio muito importante para o mercado único" tão caro ao Reino Unido. Ficou assim claro que esta matéria não só não é negociável como se tornará incómoda para o Reino Unido, que corre o risco de isolamento face aos seus aliados "naturais" do centro e Leste do continente, os mais visados por estas políticas. "Um erro histórico", advertiu ainda Durão, que Londres pagará caro na medida em que põe em causa a sua tão reivindicada reforma da EU.

Já não é de agora a inflexão britânica em termos de políticas de imigração com muita polémica à mistura. No final de 2013, um pacote de restrições à livre circulação de romenos e búlgaros (com início a partir de 1 de Janeiro deste ano) incendiou os ânimos. Na altura, Barroso não foi tão assertivo, mas outro português, António Guterres, foi o alvo dos tories. O alto-comissário das Nações Unidas para os Refugiados, preocupado com as leis em preparação, entregou no Parlamento britânico um documento de alerta, no qual advertia contra os perigos de tal legislação "propiciar racismo étnico", "estigmatizar estrangeiros" e negar asilo a quem precise.  Douglas Carswell, deputado torie, não hesitou em qualificar e dar destino ao texto de Guterres: "É lixo e devia ir para o lixo."

Já toda a gente percebeu que a deriva radical do Governo britânico (e, já agora, de outros países europeus) em matéria de imigração tem que ver com o crescimento da extrema-direita, que tem tirado vantagem da crise económica e da falta de soluções para desgastar os partidos tradicionais e se tornar cada vez mais ameaçadora para o statu quo. Ora justamente, Barroso tem sido alvo de críticas violentas pela sua alegada incapacidade de conduzir a Comissão no sentido de maior equilíbrio entre países ricos e  pobres, entre o Norte/centro e a periferia, enfim, um líder respeitado e capaz de mostrar firmeza em momentos cruciais. Agora, quase de saída, já não pode dar a volta a dez anos de mandato, mas sempre é melhor partir com um discurso que fique na memória... pelas melhores razões.

On immigration, David Cameron has joined Ukip’s paranoia bandwagon

José Manuel Barroso has exposed the PM’s slapdash policy, which only replicates the anxiety of the electorate

Suzanne Moore

theguardian.com, Monday 20 October 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/20/immigration-david-cameron-ukip-paranoia-barroso

First I was bored, now I am just bemused. We have had months of talking nonstop about how we don’t talk about immigration. Now we have entered the realm of fantasy politics with politicians vying with each other to “crack down” on immigration. These promises are detached from any reality.

Much of this is to do with Ukip, but it also is about a central dishonesty about whose interests the Tory party actually represents: a part-time shop worker in Margate or big business which needs to be tempted to invest in that area.

So today we have the outgoing European commission president José Manuel Barroso basically telling David Cameron that he is talking tosh on emergency brakes and caps on immigration. The free movement of labour as well as capital, goods and services is intrinsic to the concept of the EU.

Capitalism in motion makes a lot of people feel very anxious, but EU withdrawal would mean a lot of big firms would pull out of the UK. Nigel Farage’s Ukip would indeed be radical if it totally revoked the logic of the market, but most of them know they will not have to enact their only real policy.

But Cameron will, and while figures like Ken Clarke are telling him to focus on the economy, he is still trying to placate the “public concern” over immigration. You know that concern that the politically correct have banned us from talking about but which is actually on the front pages all the time?

Let’s be dead clear here: since 2004, when lots of workers from the new EU member states came in because at that point our economy was doing well, a new anti-immigrant conversation became “permissible”. As many newcomers were white, anti-immigrant views were no longer simply racist.

This does not mean they were, or are particularly rational. If they were, places with the highest immigration would be more likely to fall for Ukip, and this isn’t what is happening. Clacton, for instance, has 4.3% of its population born abroad (the UK average is one in eight) and most of key Ukip seats have lower foreign-born populations than the national average. To spell it out, those most worried about immigration live in areas of low immigration.

So what we have is a lack of reason at the bottom, replicated stupidly at the top. When immigration becomes the repository for all kinds of anxiety, the delusions multiply. Entire towns are not racist, indeed Clacton actually voted for a good constituency MP. But Clacton is depressed economically, as is Thanet, where Farage will stand. The coastal towns have long been dumping grounds for London to use up their cheap housing. I come from 80 miles away from London and it still feels far away in time and place.

What Ukip has done is turn multiple anxieties into nostalgia. It is a party that contests modernity in all its present forms: that’s why it can’t do cities, only market towns. It cannot deliver the past for it is not even truthful. The past it seeks to reinstall is imaginary, but the imagination is powerful for those who feel powerless.

For David Cameron to try to appease these people by suggesting he can do 12 impossible things before lunchtime is desperate. To see Labour join in is deeply dispiriting. There have always been those queasy about immigration, wanting to blame their circumstances on these new “others” they both envy and fear. It is worth remembering, though, without denying the difficulties, that the more people have contact with each other the less hostile they become.

Anxiety is allayed not by reciting facts and figures but by human connection – because anxiety is irrational. This is not to deny the unfairness that is experienced, for the modern world does not feel a kind place to many, especially the young and the poor.

Surely, though, the least we can expect from politicians is not to indulge in even more paranoid, delusional thinking. Barroso merely pointed out that the idea of pulling up the drawbridge not only contravenes EU law but asked about the Brits living in EU countries – up to 2 million of them – because this stuff works both ways. He is merely joining up the dots of slapdash policy.

Policy fused out of electoral fear is neither desirable nor achievable. It is dishonest. It is the government essentially trolling Ukip. All of this anxiety is a kind of motion sickness because the economy is making people move faster than they feel they can. But no party will actually address this. That’s why now we enter a world of fantasy politics which in the end just produces a different kind of nausea.