A Lost People
By Eugene Byrne

The sad and tragic events on Morecambe Bay is yet another reminder of how a certain section of people in society treat migrant workers and asylum seekers and illustrates what is expected of them in terms of work. This is exploitation at its worse where the safety and well being of these people are overlooked in pursuit of profit and greed.

This was the classic case of an accident waiting to happen. Only weeks before this incident cocklers were rescued from the same bay by locals and you can only assume that this rescue was carried out with the full knowledge of the powers that be. One week later the gangmasters running this scam could easily ferry these poor unfortunate people back to this area and ultimately to their death. It’s easy and convenient for the law-makers to create the impression that this tragedy has opened up a sudden and surprising window into this black economy where lives are put at risk.

All over the world, working people are being uprooted from their communities by the unchecked movement of capital in order to provide cheap labour. They are promised a better life and are so convinced of this they often pay large sums of money to their gangmasters to be smuggled to the Promised Land. From the time they are recruited back in their homeland to their arrival in Britain, Ireland or wherever. They are seen as a means of making money. If, as the British Government suggests this was a criminal conspiracy, is it sufficient to just point in the direction of the gangmasters, people traffickers, and international organised crime? Global capitalism has created a market for cheap labour and is as equally culpable as the underworld for reducing poor workers to slaves where they are earning as little as £5 a day doing dangerous work like that on Morecambe Bay. These are a people lost with no control over their lives as they are termed illegal immigrants, forced to keep their heads down and put up with all types of abuse. They are housed like chicken, forty to a house, and only come out while being ferried to work by minibus load. The more xenophobic we have become the easier it is for exploitation of this nature to continue and if the cap fits you must wear it. This is something that is being carried out under the noses of us all with very little response.

The right wing response will undoubtedly focus on why and how these people were in the country, not why they were working, almost certainly for very little, in such dangerous circumstances. The reality is that there are certain jobs, which migrant workers can fill, and whilst the British Government’s immigration policy remains, the door for unscrupulous gangmasters to operate remains. This tragedy could be the opportunity to seriously tackle the problem of illegal immigrants by providing an amnesty and all relevant documentation, which creates a level playing field, with choices other than marginal industries. Morecambe Bay’s ferocious tide may be a force of nature, but human beings bear the responsibility for the deaths of these cockle pickers. Drowning will be the verdict on their death certificates but it is cowboy capitalism that has caused this dreadful human tragedy.

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