When Politics Points Fingers
I read the headline — that an MP in the UK said "millions of Indians, Pakistanis taking our jobs" — and felt the familiar, tired churn of scapegoating. I have watched and written about migration, labour, and the politics that surround them for years. What struck me again was how easy it is for public discourse to reduce complex economic and social changes to a single, angry sentence.
Why this matters to me
Migration is not an abstraction for me. I've seen talented people leave homes, invest in themselves, and build lives abroad. I've also seen how stories about immigrants are weaponised in politics — to mobilise fear, to distract from structural failures, and to distract from automation, education gaps, and policy choices.
I wrote about some of these tensions before in pieces such as Migrants locked out of the West and in my own reflections on economic migrants versus persecuted migrants Migrants : Economic vs Persecuted. Those essays argued that migration debates often confuse moral, legal and economic questions — and that misclassification costs real lives and real opportunities.
The real drivers of job change
Let's be blunt: blaming a nationality or a set of people is a distraction. The real forces changing labour markets are:
- Automation and AI replacing routine tasks.
- Global supply chains and offshoring driven by corporate decisions and trade rules.
- Educational mismatches where local skill development hasn't kept pace with new job requirements.
- Policy choices about immigration, training, and social safety nets.
Immigrants — whether from India, Pakistan or elsewhere — often fill niches: caring roles, tech jobs, small-business entrepreneurship. They also create demand, start businesses, and add to tax bases. The narrative that they simply "take our jobs" ignores how economies expand and reconfigure.
Fear, identity, and politics
When economies slow or inequality rises, identity becomes a political lever. Politicians know this. Saying "they are taking our jobs" is a simple sentence that creates an enemy and rallies a base. The danger is that such rhetoric normalises xenophobia, erodes social cohesion, and distracts from policy solutions.
I worry about how such statements ripple beyond parliament — into workplaces, classrooms, and neighbourhoods. They normalise suspicion of neighbours and colleagues, and they can harden into policies that punish the vulnerable rather than address the root causes of economic dislocation.
What I would like to see instead
Constructive politics is hard. It requires admitting trade-offs and investing in the future. Practical steps I believe matter:
- Invest in re-skilling and lifelong learning. If automation is changing tasks, we need education systems that teach adaptability.
- Reform immigration policy to match labour market needs while protecting rights. Smart, targeted visas and pathways to work stop irregular migration and help employers.
- Tackle corporate decisions that hollow out local employment through tax and regulatory incentives for domestic value creation.
- Encourage public conversation about the contributions migrants make: entrepreneurship, taxes, caring work, and cultural enrichment.
A personal plea
I don't want to erase concerns about job security. Those are real, and politicians should answer them directly. But naming a group as a scapegoat — especially along national, ethnic or religious lines — is morally wrong and practically useless.
If we are serious about protecting livelihoods, our conversation must move from slogans to strategy. That means honest accounting of who benefits from globalisation, who pays the costs, and what we will collectively do to share the gains.
Where I stand
I remain convinced that migration can be a net positive when governed well. My past reflections have argued for policies that convert migration flows and diaspora networks into mutual economic opportunity rather than simply sources of political friction. For anyone working on this problem — policymakers, union leaders, business owners, or citizens — the task is to replace fear with facts and invest in shared solutions.
Regards,
Hemen Parekh
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