Migration, asylum policy, border protection, integration of societies changed by mass migration – all these topics have become key dividing lines in Western democracies in the last decade. They besides share European left-wing parties whose attitude towards migration and integration of migrants and their descendants is not simple and obvious.
The Left has besides been forced to rethink its perfect assumptions in practice, to make hard choices between universalism of human rights and political realities defining the possibilities for their applicable application.
Danish model...
The various left-wing parties in Europe resolve these dilemmas differently. The most late discussed answer is the 1 given by the Danish Social Democracy under the leadership of the ruling country since 2019 by Prime Minister Mette Fredericken. In 2015, the Social Democracy lost the election and lost power. Second place in the election with evidence support of 21.08 percent won anti-immigrant, right- populist Danish People's organization (DPP). It supported the number conservative-liberal government of the Venstre party, which began to introduce a series of provisions aimed at reducing migration and forcing greater integration of migrants with the Danish majority.
Frederiksen, erstwhile she took control of the Social Democracy after 2015, did not set the organization in contra to this policy, and even began to shift it to positions increasingly skeptical of migration. The 2018 organization program promised a "fair and realistic" migration policy and started with the statement: "You are not a bad individual due to the fact that you do not want your country to change fundamentalally. You are not naive due to the fact that you want to aid others to have a better life.”
Since its return to power in 2019, the left has continued the main directions of the migration policy of the Venstre government. In the early 1980s, Denmark, mostly thanks to the left, adopted 1 of the most liberal immigration and asylum regulations in Europe. However, in the last 10 years, no substance who governs, it has consistently introduced any of the most restrictive. It tightened the criteria for applying for citizenship and asylum – in 2024 it granted asylum to only 864 people, with the exception of the pandemic year 2020 at least in the last 40 years, and began to introduce policies to force greater assimilation.
The 3rd pillar of the Danish policy – in addition to reducing the number of migrants and a strong assimilation policy – is aid aimed at areas from which refugees arrive in Europe, which is intended to alleviate the problems resulting from mass migration to our continent. Denmark, like Prime Minister Szydło once, wants to “help refugees on the spot”.
Frederiksen tries to present a restrictive migration policy not in the right-wing categories of safety or national identity, but as a means essential to defend the Danish social model and state of prosperity. As she said late in conversation With the fresh York Times, social democratic politics are not about letting anyone who wants to settle in the country. A state of prosperity requires a advanced level of social cohesion, advanced common trust and a sense of community of destiny among citizens. People are not prepared to pay advanced taxes erstwhile they see that their money goes disproportionately to those who do not have much in common with them, do not accept the same social rules, do not participate in developing economical growth.
In addition, as the Danish Prime Minister convinces the American interviewer, the costs of migration are peculiarly borne by the working class, due to the fact that it competes with migrants for the least paid jobs or cannot decision out of the districts and towns with the lowest cost of living, where the poorest and most problematic migrants settle.
...and his problems.
Frederiksen is frequently praised by commentators from Europe and the States as a politician who, thanks to listening to the public's voice on migration, managed to save Denmark from the populist right. Indeed, in 2019 DPP's support fell from 21.08 to 8.74 percent, in 2023 the right-wing organization recorded support at only 2.63%.
Like in an interview with “New Statesman” said Martin Engell-Rosen – long-time chief of staff and strategist Frederiksen, present working for the European Commission – Danish social democrats consciously decided to devote "voices of liberal elites from the metropolis" to regain the support of the people of the mediocre suburbs of the folk classes, experiencing the effects of migration all day.
At the same time, many policies pursued by governments in Copenhagen may seem profoundly controversial not only from the point of view of the "liberal metropolitan elites". At the beginning of this decade, Denmark She started picking up. exile position for Syrian migrants, arguing that Assad's civilian war triumph restored simple order in most countries, so those who have received exile position due to Syria's ongoing war – not due to the fact that they were politically persecuted by the government – should return to the country.
The biggest discussions are the provisions of the alleged Act on parallel society – introduced in 2018 by the right and later somewhat modified by the Frederiksen Government, whose records are presently being examined by the European Court of Justice. The bill is intended to officially aid integrate “sensitive” districts. Whether an area is to be classified as "sensitive" is determined by 5 factors: the level of employment, crime, education, the number of people receiving social benefits and, lastly, the most debateable percent of people of "non-Western origin". The second category includes people from Africa, Asia and Latin America.
If the territory is doing poorly in 2 of the first 4 indicators and has more than half of the population of "non-Western origin", the government may search peculiar measures. It may, for example, order local authorities and housing cooperatives to reduce the number of social premises in a given area, so that they do not exceed 40% of the housing stock. This is to guarantee that poor, demanding social housing residents do not concentrate excessively in 1 place. Crime is besides punished in more delicate areas, including through collective work mechanisms. For example, an full household may be evicted if 1 of its members committed the crime.
As a consequence of the Act, respective 1000 families were evicted and many social housing was sold to investors or stood empty. This action affects little than 1% of Danish society, but especially in the context of the "non-Western origin" population records may rise doubts as stigmatizing minorities or even racist ones.
The copy-paste method will not help
Looking at Frederiksen's successes, which in 2023 secured herself a second term, and the emotions surrounding migration of the utmost right, many left-wing leaders will feel the temptation to go on the Danish road. At the same time, the Danish model does not necessarily gotta undergo easy universalisation, as shown by the fresh elections to the Bundestag.
The Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) movement, a popular policy previously linked to Die Linke, competed in it with a programme repeating mostly Danish arguments on migration. We could have been in it, among another things. readthat in the last decade German governments have adopted besides many refugees and migrants, losing control of who they are actually allowed into the country, and that has translated into an increase in crime, including this motivated by spiritual fundamentalism and targeted at women. The BSW pointed out that, thanks to migrants, "German children must learn in overcrowded classrooms where many students do not talk German at all", and that erstwhile money for social assistance alternatively of citizens serves refugees, it can fuel xenophobic sentiments in the country.
The BSW demanded that Germany limit the admission of migrants and refugees by providing them with assistance in obtaining asylum in "safe countries outside the European Union". The West should besides tackle the causes of migration – for which, according to the party's programme, the United States policy is mainly responsible, including the 1 carried out towards Ukraine.
However, the adoption of the Danish rhetoric on migration has not worked in Germany. Despite the popularity of the leader, the BSW movement won only 4.98% of the vote and did not exceed the 5% electoral threshold. amazingly good consequence – 8.8% – in the same elections Die Linke won – a organization with definitely pro-migration programmewhich, after leaving Sahra Wagenknecht, many commentators lost.
The Die Linke programme is based on the rule of a "democratic and social migrant society that puts human dignity at the heart". The organization proposes, inter alia, a "significant liberalisation of the visa regime" so that it is little guided by the "origin" or "economic utility" of possible migrants, and to extend the right to asylum to include, for example, a severe environmental or economical situation. It besides calls for simplification of the way to citizenship, and even the granting of voting rights in elections to migrants surviving permanently in Germany for a long time. Public administration would be more active in promoting integration and anti-racism and all forms of discrimination, according to the party's ideas. To better deal with this task, it would warrant the amount of employment of migrant workers.
On the Danish side he clearly tries to decision his organization besides British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. In May, his government announced strengthen visa policy to reduce migration to the UK. Announcing The fresh policy, Starmer clearly followed Frederiksen's rhetoric. He argued that the economical model based on the import of inexpensive labour did not service British workers or the improvement of the British economy. He stressed the function of social cohesion and shared rules, peculiarly in a diverse society: "If we do not share common values, then we are threatened to become an island of strangers, not a nation building the future together."
The words about the “island of strangers” met with a very strong criticism from many people on the British Left, including Labour organization MPs. Starmer was accused of replicating the rhetoric of the far right. Finally, the British Prime Minister admitted that the wording was not successful and that another words most likely needed to be utilized – which put himself at hazard again for deficiency of spine and clear, precise views on any issue.
Electoral puzzles
The consequence to Starmer's words, as well as the Wagenknecht disaster, shows that the Danish model cannot be easy introduced on migration. Labourers in fresh Statesman observed before this late David Littlefair, president of the culturally conservative wing of the group organization Labour Beyond Cities. British society has a different than Danish migration history, requiring another solutions – it has done much better, for example, with the economical and social integration of migrants than Denmark.
In the UK, the descendants of migrants are besides a very crucial part of the Labour organization voters. In the fight to halt reluctant migration and electorate migrants drifting distant from Farage's improvement Party, Labourers must besides not discourage voters from Africa or the Indian Peninsula due to the fact that they are supported by voices in many London constituency and cities specified as Birmingham, Coventry, Bradford or Leicester. In the case of a sharp anti-Migrant return of the party, this electorate could sail to the Greens or to independent candidates, as well as, if it had actually been created, a fresh organization whose construction is announced by Jeremy Corbyn.
A akin situation exists in France. France The incorruptible Jean-Luca Mélenchona is very clearly positioned present as a organization of young, multicultural France's large cities and blocks in their suburbs, opposing it to an old, dying, racist and past-dwelling French state voting for the right. erstwhile the extremist right warns against ‘lamination of France’ or ‘a large replacement” indigenous population by migrants, Mélenchon AnswersIn France today, the process of "creolisation", migrants adapt to the culture of the host country, while changing it – and this is simply a fact that French politics must accept.
However, this attitude is besides criticized on the left. Mélenchon is accused of abandoning the universalist Republican model of politics in pursuit of the voice of post-immigrant blocks around the large metropolis, beginning the door to the fundamentals of the French multicultural strategy of "communitarianism". The question arises as to what to do erstwhile “creoization” conflicts with republican values: e.g. with the principles of the secularity of the state and with the freedom of speech manifested by the right to even the most extremist criticism of religion. Or women's rights?
Should it be more crucial for the left to fight for universal rights, even if they conflict with the values of minorities – or if they presume the usage of state coercion towards them – or to defend minorities against unfair stigmatisation and racism? The left of the Socialist organization seems to be closer to this first position, France the inflexible is increasingly moving towards the other.
Left in defensive
Is it possible to find any golden means of left-wing migration policy between the Danish model on the 1 hand and the "democratic and social migration society" of the Die Linke programme on the other? Unfortunately, there is no universal left-wing prescription for migration problems. In each country, depending on its local circumstances, you gotta find your own.
In Poland, for example, copying the Danish model is completely pointless because, unlike Denmark, we have never been a state of prosperity and a advanced trust society. 1 can hazard thesis that today's Poland, changed over the last decade of migration, is much more socially coherent and safer than it was in the 1990s erstwhile migrants were not there, but leaving the radio in the car was considered unreasonable due to the fact that it could have been stolen, and the incorrect answer to the question “for whom are you?!” asked by the grandpa great-grandfather Polish people could easy end up visiting the hospital.
At the same time, any principles can be identified which should guide left-wing migration and integration policies. First, the left must argue the demonization of refugees and its companion racist language, which, mostly thanks to social media, is increasingly mainstreaming public debate. Secondly, it must defend the right to asylum as an essential part of global law. At the same time, it must not treat mass migration as a tool for addressing global inequality or repairing historical injustices experienced by the rich North by the global South – it must take into account the "migration capacity" of Western societies and the want of a democratic majority.
It is crucial that migration does not make a parallel labour marketplace for migrants – not only with lower salaries but besides with worse working conditions than for locals. Trade unions, which should be ready to organise migrant workers, are crucial here. Finally, migration policy must be accompanied by integration – allowing migrants to become active in local society. 1 who, in an perfect model, without forcing forceful assimilation, will be able to enforce respect for fundamental principles, even those related to freedom of speech or women's rights.
Will the Left be able to give specified answers? Or is she sentenced to defensive action against an anti-immigrant right-wing offensive? The increasingly extremist right appears to win the Polish debate on migration – although the problems associated with it are minimal in Poland and demography indicates that migration is simply a necessity for us.
Examples from another European countries show that this is not necessarily the case. However, in consequence to the hysteria that Bąkiewiczs, Bosaks and Mateckis have developed, the left cannot simply take out the finished set – either Danish or German – must build its own.
