Migrants, multiculturalism, and the masking of capitalist crisis

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak* 

Migrants play a vital role in sustaining essential services across Europe. They work as doctors and nurses, keeping healthcare systems running. They teach in schools, colleges, and universities, helping to develop and share knowledge.

Migrants also work as chefs and cooks in restaurants and hotels, contributing to leisure and hospitality. They operate trains, buses, and taxis, maintaining transport networks. Others serve as scientists, engineers, construction workers, cleaners, and agricultural labourers, producing the food we eat.

Many serve as soldiers or shine on football fields and cricket pitches. From basketball to badminton courts, they entertain and inspire sports lovers around the world. Migrants bring national and international recognition while contributing a wide range of skills that sustain the European economy.

Their diverse cultural backgrounds enrich democratic diversity and deepen multicultural society in Britain and Europe. Yet, they are often unfairly blamed for persistent social and economic issues.

Anti-migrant propaganda has become widespread across much of Western Europe. It undermines migrants' contributions and fuels dangerous stereotypes. Political narratives target multiculturalism and migrants to construct a false national identity in Britain and a fabricated European identity across the continent.

In reality, the historical foundations that link Britain with other Western European countries include feudalism, colonialism, racism, capitalism, and imperialism—often romanticised as a collective legacy of a so-called golden past.

Recently, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer warned that the UK risks becoming an "island of strangers" due to migration, calling for stricter visa rules. Many were surprised by the conservative tone of his speech during a Downing Street press conference ahead of the immigration white paper.

His remarks echoed Enoch Powell’s infamous 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech, which portrayed multiculturalism as a threat. Similarly, former Prime Minister David Cameron used the 47th Munich Security Conference to claim that "state multiculturalism" had failed, linking migrants and Muslims to radicalisation and terrorism.

Such anti-migrant sentiment is deeply embedded across the political spectrum in both Britain and Europe.

Sir Keir Starmer’s speech is not an anomaly. It panders to white supremacist sentiments, both domestically and in a racialised European context. Political leaders frequently scapegoat migrants and secular multiculturalism to distract from their own failures.

This strategy deflects attention from leadership shortcomings, shields capitalism from criticism, and obscures its inherent crises. These conditions enable far-right and reactionary politics to thrive.

Contrary to popular narratives, it is not migration or multiculturalism that destroys livelihoods or incomes. Capitalism—despite state support—has failed to create sufficient jobs and secure income for most people across Europe.

The relentless targeting of migrants serves only to distract from this truth: capitalism has failed to deliver prosperity. Instead, it has created an illiberal social, political, economic, and cultural order that promotes authoritarianism while claiming to defend liberal European values.

Migration is not simply a matter of individual choice. It is shaped by the legacies of colonialism, war, conflict, and neocolonial resource extraction. These systemic forces push people to seek safety, stability, and the means to survive.

Yet, in a capitalist society marked by alienation and individualism, many migrants are denied meaningful paths to assimilation. As a result, they turn to their cultural identities as coping mechanisms.

This cultural reliance is then misrepresented to construct stereotypes that further marginalise migrants and devalue their contributions to modern Britain and Europe. This creates fertile ground for blaming multiculturalism and obscuring capitalism's failures.

European capitalism reduces migrants to mere economic units—data points in spreadsheets and surveillance systems. This dehumanising approach erodes the dignity that binds people together.

The disdain for migrants is not accidental. It is a product of capitalism’s utilitarian culture of exclusion. The fight against anti-migrant politics is, fundamentally, a fight against capitalism itself.

As reactionary forces fuel global anti-migrant sentiment, it is more urgent than ever to build solidarity among workers. Workers have no national refuge—only one another.

This solidarity is key to building unity and advancing the ideals of workers’ internationalism.