This can usefully go here, I think.
A CRISIS THAT HAS LITTLE TO DO WITH MIGRATION
"Another migration crisis, another EU summit, another banal resolution.
Last week’s gathering of EU leaders was dominated by the migration issue, and shaped by the different needs of two nations: the desire of
Italy’s new hardline coalition government to assert its authority on the European stage and the
political crisis facing Germany’s Angela Merkel at home.
The final resolution was full of pious hope and little detail. It talked of a ‘shared effort’ by EU countries to alleviate the burden on Italy and Greece, without defining what would be shared. It proposed the building of detention centres in Europe, and of offshore facilities in Africa, euphemistically dubbed ‘regional disembarkation centres’. The irony of European countries demanding the right to maintain sovereignty over their borders while also trying to strong-arm African nations into accepting responsibility for a European issue seems to have passed everyone by."
"What shapes hostility is not the presence of migrants, but perceptions of trust and cohesion. ‘People in countries… with a high level of general and institutional trust, low level of corruption, a stable, well-performing economy and high level of social cohesion and inclusion (including migrants) fear migration the least,’ the authors note. On the other hand: ‘People are fearful in countries where people don’t trust each other or the state’s institutions, and where social cohesion and solidarity are weak.’ They conclude: ‘Anti-migrant attitudes have little to do with migrants.’"
"All this begins to explain why the migration crisis seems so irresolvable. The dominant political consensus is that the crisis can only be solved by even tighter controls on immigration. A handful of voices argue for liberalising controls. There are good political and moral arguments for liberalisation, bad ones for still more brutal restrictions. Neither approach, however, will resolve the migrant crisis, because the crisis is rooted in factors unrelated to migration – questions of trust, social disengagement and political disaffection. To solve any crisis, a good place to start is by defining the real questions for which we need answers."
I agree. And it's a useful pointer to what "the left" should usefully be doing. And it's certainly not the virtue signalling/vacuous polarising tribalism/vilification dead end of the liberal remain camp.
