A society which loses the ability to make judgements can neither defend itself nor its borders
“Back in the real world, ordinary citizens want their governments to act in their interests – a basic function which governments seem to find increasingly difficult to honour.”
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Try as I might, I can’t seem to find a commitment to open borders in the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto. This is puzzling because the ‘border’ in Kent is certainly open to anyone with a rubber dinghy wishing to permanently settle in the UK. I say permanent because, as the adage goes, ‘there is nothing more permanent than temporary migrants.’
Not for the first time, the Tories talk “conservatively” around elections but act liberally thereafter.
Ordinarily it might be bewildering that a supposedly powerful nation is reduced to mere spectator status as thousands of fighting-age men arrive by boat on its shores unchecked and uninvited. And despite our Prime Minister being elected on a pledge that ‘our new system gives us real control over who is coming in’, the government’s reaction has been a feeble shrug of the shoulders. Ironically, the UK has just spent eight billion pounds on two large aircraft carriers, and yet the task of intercepting small boats carrying illegal migrants from a safe, civilised neighbouring country is beyond our capacity. This problem is not a matter of resources, it’s a question of political will.
So why have societies in the West lost the will to defend their borders? The answer is to be found much deeper in our inability to defend our values. We are witnessing the effects of the long march of non-judgementalism.
The ability to make a judgement between two things is a basic moral function. To possess values is to have the capacity to assess such things such as right and wrong, good and bad, virtue and vice and truth and falsehood. We might go further and construct hierarchies which order things in terms of merit - this is better than that which, in turn, is better than the other.
In his new book Why Borders Matter, Professor Dr. Frank Furedi makes a powerful case that the West’s present inability to respect national boundaries is the product of the decades-long corrosive effects of a culture of non-judgementalism. Furedi argues that borders are ultimately the product of an act of moral judgement and those who wish to dismantle or delegitimise them are, ultimately, attacking the ability of democratic nation-states to decide for themselves who enters their domain (which entails judgement).
Opponents of national borders do so on the basis that boundaries are artificial, exclusionary, immoral, unjust and even racist. Instead, they advocate an open border universalist utopia in which anyone can go anywhere.
Furedi makes an interesting side observation that those who wish to dismantle national boundaries are busy constructing micro boundaries and ‘safe spaces’ at a more personal level. Paradoxically, they’re also keen to police and judge other people’s language and to close down free speech.
Back in the real world, ordinary citizens want their governments to act in their interests – a basic function which governments seem to find increasingly difficult to honour.
People, entirely reasonably, want their country to be protected from unauthorised incursion and to defend what Harold Wilson used to call the ‘social wage’. Generations of British people have paid into the welfare system, built our country up and expect it to look after them. We’ve constructed a national system of welfare not an international one. To be in favour of open borders is to be against citizenship and, therefore, I’d argue, to be against the social wage, social obligation, solidarity and sharing - basic social democratic principles.
Progressives have always preferred transnationalism to democracy. In doing so they ignore the fact many people need and value the security which comes from being a citizen.
As G. K. Chesterton noted, ‘The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht.’ This remains as true today as in the late 1800s.
It’s time to re-orientate public policy away from mass migration, and our reliance on it, towards a more domestic focus which prioritises reconciliation, integration and social harmony. A mass immigration pause for a generation would facilitate this and is currently being considered as part of the Social Democratic Party’s policy review.
To believe that social harmony is more important than the rate of GDP growth is merely to assert the common good and it’s difficult to see how continuing indifference to integration combined with huge rates of immigration could usefully serve this purpose. The stakes are very high. There is a stark warning from sociologist Robert Putman who wisely noted over twenty years ago, that if we fail to take these issues seriously, a society that possesses insufficient social capital starts to look like Beirut or Bosnia.
The cultural response from our political parties to the current crisis has been all too predictable. The Tory reaction, typically, has been indifference. Labour offers a toxic combination of divisive identity politics and national self-hatred, the Lib Dems something similar. None of these responses are adequate.
If non-judgementalism and thoughtless openness remain the fundamental values of the West, there simply won’t be a West for very much longer. We can and must do better.
