Assessing the EU and Britains Response to The

Immigration Challenge: Time for a Foresight Approach?

Edward Wanyonyi
The recent pronouncements by British Home Secretary Theresa May and
France minister for interior Bernard Cazeneuve in Calais distancing the
EU from the unfolding immigration crisis and placing it on external
factors- fragile and stateless societies in Africa and Asia has sparked
fresh debate on whether the neglected approach of foresight can be more
suitable.
The meeting comes at a time when Calais is the scene of unprecedented
numbers of immigrants seemingly overwhelming border police and
assorted deterrence barriers while the UN Secretary General Ban Ki
Moon called for an extraordinary summit in September for global heads
of states to deliberate on appropriate responses to the 50 fold increase of
deaths of migrants attempting to get to EU.
While the British society is quick to celebrate the achievements of Mo
Farah, a citizen of migrant heritage, the current Tory leadership has not
been shy to assert and defend its disdain of immigrants irrespective of
the reasons- poverty or conflict. To them, Britains way of life is
threatened by the swarm of immigrants as David Cameron recently
remarked while in a tour of Vietnam in response to the Calais crisis.
More recent pronouncements have presented the position that migrants
think Britain is lined with gold and therefore Her Majestys welfare
system is a strong incentive. Such a position has often served to
legitimise the current militarised response to the crisis that is flawed on
two conceptual errors. First, the EU and Britain have nothing to do with
the ongoing conflicts and state of deprivation, poverty in source countries
and second, throwing money- in this case, the use of aid to establish
micro enterprises will provide a stronger incentive for potential migrants
to stay in their countries. Nothing could be further from the truth and
here is why.
On the first response, the EU and Britain specifically, occupy an
important place in the global architecture of power- hard, soft and smart
as renowned political scientist Joseph Nye has reminded us.
The
combined gravitas in the UN Security Council by Britain and France for
example means that both countries have sweeping powers over decisions
of early intervention in countries at the cusp of conflict before borders of
neighbouring states start swelling and transnational smuggling rings set
shop. A vote for early intervention in countries that are clearly on the

verge has a greater multiplier effect than increasing border police in

Calais and definitely, reduced presence of humanitarian agencies
operating in the Italian coast of Lampedusa and Sicily. However, the
Britain and France have showed an uncharacteristic aversion for early
intervention akin to the cold war period when the UN Security Council
was the stage for super power interests assertion and defence. It is not a
surprise that most countries that are descending in war or mired in post
conflict insurgency lack UN led stabilisation operations. While the excuse
has been the need to respect local ownership of post conflict
reconstruction, the obvious lack of a centralised authority and growing
public security gap in countries like Libya, Egypt, Mali, Niger, Tunisia
and Syria clearly shows a security council that is selectively aiding and
abetting the immigration crisis. Moreover, countries that have
authoritarian regimes further in the South such as Eritrea, Sudan,
Morocco have security and defence pacts with EU countries especially
Britain and France and therefore, this doctrine of authoritarianism and
the tools thereof are not just home grown. It is therefore crucial to
appreciate that the EU and Britain are part and parcel of the crisis and
not just victims.
Second, the announced set of proposals by Theresa May in Calais that
present a raft of monetary allocations to support micro enterprises in
source countries fails to acknowledge that in most of these countries,
autocratic regimes have a far and wide reaching means to divert the
allocated funds in order to maintain the status quo. Also, which criteria
will be used to identify a potential migrant? Will all young people be
subject to the allocations of soft loans in order to launch their
entrepreneurial ideas? What about the other mitigating factors such as
security, climate change, reliability of power which affect the scalability
and sustainability of entrepreneurship? It therefore seems that this
proposal partly inspired by the Department of International
Development, takes the neoliberal approach of reforming economic
development in countries at risk or emerging from conflict. However, the
neoliberal approach has been the subject of criticism as it fails to
acknowledge the everyday realities of these societies that although
unstructured from a Western perspective are actually highly structured
with social networks that straddle across ethnic and religious lines
producing unique economic, political and social systems and processes.
Perhaps, it is high time that the EU and Britain considers a scenario
planning approach. The former approaches borders as defences,
citizenship as pristine and multi culturalism as a threat to our way of
life. The latter frames the crisis as a set of challenges that can be turned
into opportunities when the response is brought to a shared

understanding of the transitions in source countries and the drivers of

transnational organised crime. Scenario planning uses foresight
techniques to remind decision makers that intractable problems are not
solved by distance but by a careful analysis of possible scenarios.
Therefore, any solution to the ongoing immigration crisis must not only
be bold in terms of the financing muscle but it must It undertake a major
scoping exercise of the current jobs as a conflict deterrence
intervention with a view of identifying possible black swans. Only then
can the EU and Britain develop possible scenarios based on extensive
conversations and not just representatives of DFID funded NGOs and
opinion shapers in academia or political spaces.
The writer is a Security, Leadership and Society Fellow at University of
London-Kings
College.
He
can
be
reached
on
edward.walekhwa@kcl.ac.uk