National borders in the moral maze
Is it immoral to encourage mass migration or to seek to limit it?
On the latest edition of BBC Moral Maze, my co-panellists and I discussed the morality of maintaining and enforcing national borders.
The government has persistently failed to stop the small boats bringing thousands of “asylum-seekers” to British shores from France in illegal people-smuggling routes across the English Channel. The Illegal Migration Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament, proposes that people who come to the UK “illegally” will be detained and permanently removed. The Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights concludes that the bill “breaches a number of the UK’s international human rights obligations”.
Migration brings into focus the competing world-views of universalism and national identity. Universalists argue national borders are either irrelevant, unhelpful or actively malign, that the nation is an impediment to the brotherhood of mankind and that those who oppose mass immigration are racist xenophobes. The opposite view holds that mass immigration threatens to overwhelm a nation, that national cohesion is vital and is threatened by mass immigration, and that without effective borders a nation ceases to exist.
How much should a country be willing to compromise the integrity of its borders out of compassion for non-citizens? Is it unjust to see people differently, based on where lines are drawn on a map? Would a world without borders be a better place?
My co-panellists were Tim Stanley, Mona Siddiqui and Ash Sarkar. Our witnesses were Dr David Walker, Bishop of Manchester; Dr Adrian Hilton, Anglican theologian and educationist; Dr Javier Hidalgo, associate Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond, Virginia; and Paul Morland, demographer and associate research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London.
You can listen to the programme on BBC Sounds here.
Recent posts
My most recent exclusive post for my premium subscribers suggests that the battle in Israel is an inflection point for the west. This is how the piece begins:
An inflection point for civilisation
·
14 JUN
And you can read my most recent post that’s available to everyone, about the beginnings of a push-back against the BBC’s lethal distortions on Israel, by clicking here.
One more thing…
This is how my email posts work.
There are two subscription levels: my free service and my premium service.
Anyone can sign up to the free service on this website. You can of course unsubscribe at any time by clicking “unsubscribe” at the foot of each email.
Everyone on the free list will receive the full text of pieces I write for outlets such as the Jewish News Syndicate and the Jewish Chronicle, as well as other posts and links to my broadcasting and video work.
But why not subscribe to my premium service? For that you’ll also receive pieces that I write specially for my premium subscribers. Those articles will not be published elsewhere. They’ll arrive in your inbox as soon as I have written them.
There is a monthly fee of $6.99 for the premium service, or $70 for an annual subscription. Although the fee is charged in US dollars, you can sign up with any credit card. Just click on the “subscribe now” button below to see the available options for subscribing either to the premium or the free service.
And you can always access the links to all my work by visiting my website at melaniephillips.substack.com .
A note on subscriptions
If you purchase a subscription to my site, you will be authorising a payment to my company Dirah Associates. In the past, that is the name that may have appeared on your credit card statement. In future, though, the charge should appear instead as Melanie Phillips.
And thank you for following my work.