Nearly a hundred years ago English philosopher A.J. Ayer proposed that moral judgements have no rational content, and are simply exclamations of emotional approval or disapproval, a theory that critics rather unkindly called the “boo/hurrah theory of ethics”. Whilst Ayer’s logical positivism was an absurd simplification of traditional ethical philosophy, it might just be the perfect fit for modern British debates over migration. Yes, readers, let me introduce you to my brilliant new invention: the boo/hurrah theory of migration policy. 

In recent days you may have read wildly contrasting stories in the papers about the character and situation of channel migrants in the UK. First we had days of media briefing against the returning Home Secretary Suella Braverman, and emotive stories about overcrowding in the Manston Refugee Centre in Kent.

Little ink was spilt enquiring into why we were meeting leaky dinghies pushed out into the English channel by people smugglers, helping them back to shore, and processing their claims here (at a whomping success rate of over 70%, not a bad deal). Nobody very much was interested in the fact that 90% of these refugees were men, most of them young adults (by contrast, 90% of Ukrainian refugees are women and children). Instead this was a “HURRAH!” day for the refugees, and we were all shouting a pantomime “BOO!” at Braverman.

The press tearfully reported that “Some people were said to have been sleeping on the floor”. The British Red Cross stated that “the serious problems at Manston are indicative of the wider issues facing the asylum system”. 

Alex Fraser, speaking for the charity, demanded that the UK government make “quicker decisions for nationalities who typically have their asylum claims approved”, and solemnly intoned that, “Our country has a proud history of helping people fleeing war and persecution. It doesn’t matter how you got here, everyone deserves to be treated with compassion and humanity once you are on our shores.”

The garment rending didn’t end there, with a Home Office source claiming that the Home Secretary had “clearly broken the law” by not booking more hotel spaces for migrants. Meanwhile the Public and Commercial Services union is contemplating legal action against the Home Office and their spokesman was likewise speaking darkly of potential criminal proceedings. 

Apparently if the Red Cross, public sector unions, members of the opposition and especially tearful representatives of the British journalistic trade are to be believed, failing to have unlimited accommodation for thousands of “asylum seekers” on hand is some kind of war crime, and it is our moral duty to provide as many hotel rooms as young men who cross the channel require, whilst they spend months having their claims processed, before most of them being allowed to remain indefinitely.

The greatest flaw in this system, based on this heartrending emotional logic (or so we’re told by the Red Cross), is that we aren’t fast enough to give them all leave to live here forever, and that we don’t simply rubber stamp refugee claims made from countries we have (no racism here we promise) deemed too uncivilised to send anybody back to. 

So much for the hurrah day. But you may have woken up on Thursday to news that 1 in 6 people living in Britain were born overseas. Oh dear. Also in the news was the fact that 1 in 50 of the male Albanian population was currently wandering Britain, that Albanians were successfully claiming asylum in large numbers (“from WHAT?” Suddenly became a question we’re allowed to ask again), and that Albanian gangs had been quietly cornering the UK illegal drugs trade. 

Progressive newspapers, along with, God bless him, the Crown Prince of Albania, took to the airwaves (well Twitter anyway) to push back against this stigma against the noble Albanian people. I wouldn’t myself ever speak ill of the nation that once, like the last village of the Gauls in Asterix, stood alone against the Ottoman Empire. But the pushback, like those other heroic rearguard actions, wasn’t able to halt the tide. Inconvenient facts were back in vogue this Thursday, and 1 in 10 of Britain’s overseas born prison population being Albanian was one hell of a fact to spin. 

Shields were being rattled, Britain had said “BOO!” to the migratory goose and the plane to Rwanda is being refuelled on the runway and is ready for takeoff. But we’ve been here before. Papers will explode in horror at Rotherham, then explode with horror at Rwanda deportations. One day we’re demonising Ghanians with Farage, the next we’re hugging Gurkhas with Joanna Lumley. 

What has Friday brung? As I write this piece, two news stories are making the rounds. A plaintive piece from the BBC laments the fate of the 11 migrants left to spend an uncomfortable night in Victoria Station. Due to overcrowding, 50 or so migrants were being bussed to London to stay with family, only some of them somehow made it on the wrong bus and were left wandering the capital at night looking confused and a little chilly. 

This could be good material for a “HURRAH!” day –– eleven Paddington bears (well Victoria bears) but without even the benefit of a good duffle coat or a marmalade sandwich. A tale to tug the heartstrings of even the hardest cardiovascular systems. Awkward questions about why these 11 gentlemen decided to stick their hands up for a bus ride to London to stay with nonexistent family members won’t be asked of course. 

These fine young men should have been put up in suitable lodgings (maybe the St Pancras hotel? A good layover before sending them on to Hogwarts). But wait a moment. Is that a “BOO!” I hear echoing on the horizon? Because another rather awkward story broke Thursday afternoon. According to recent reports, some poor refugee souls, finally finding some room at the (Holiday) inn, hadn’t received their copies of today’s “HURRAH!” script. 

Apparently a Walthamstow hotel housing 400 refugees had seen two rapes within weeks of one another, one against a teenage boy, another against a child. Pedophilic rape is hard to spin but the Guardian (and, inevitably, Diane Abbott) was doing its best, blaming the lack of dedicated facilities and overcrowding. Will “HURRAH!” win the day, or will we wake up to another “BOO”?  

The problem with what passes for “debate” over the question of migration policy is that it is so purely emotive. Left and Right are at odds over nearly everything in this area, but are in furious agreement over one thing: how we police our borders should reflect our emotive judgement as to the general character of migrants. This theory of migrant sentiments (apologies to Adam Smith) led us to the pointless distraction of the Rwanda deportations and to a migration system that is widely regarded as both woefully and cruelly inefficient, whilst also being comically permissive. 

Being governed by emotional whim is a familiar feeling to those who grow up in an abusive family, and Brits of every background are tired of living under the tyranny of sentiment, but also don’t know any alternative way of doing things. 

We can do a lot better, and we can start by neither romanticising nor demonising migrants. For the most part Channel migrants are not rapists or violent criminals, but nor are most of them genuine refugees. They are economic migrants. Many of them may have left deeply dysfunctional or war-torn countries, but they were not for the most part displaced by natural disasters, persecuted by the authorities, or targeted for genocide.

Two very basic moral questions haven’t been asked 

Two very basic moral questions haven’t been asked, because we have been lost focusing on the emotive question of individual characters, whether virtuous or villainous, rather than thinking at the level of populations. The first is whether it is actually in the interests of migrants’ origin countries (and the third world in general) to have many of their people leave for the West. The second is whether it is in the interests of the British people as a whole to see extremely large numbers of foreign people suddenly transposed into their nation.

There’s much to debate about the first question, and arguments have been made for economic transfers from overseas populations. But the difficult dilemma that this poses for open borders advocates is that either they are correct, and refugees are generally intelligent, highly skilled, law abiding people who would thus represent a considerable loss to their home countries, or their critics are right, and they are likely to represent an economic and social burden rather than a net benefit for their new home. 

Moreover, if the argument is that we are morally compelled to assist people in need, are we in a sense not being global enough in our thinking? We’re often being told every pound we spend on lattes and avocados in the rich West could be buying miles of mosquito nets and gallons of water for impoverished countries. So why is investing billions in public spending towards refugees and migrants a better form of wealth redistribution than international aid, economic investment, training or international development? Is the best way to help the global poor to allow a tiny fortunate fraction of their number into the promised land of the West? 

But the second question –– whether it benefits us –– has to take priority. That we don’t any more seem to know that the question of our own people’s interests ought to be the primary moral concern for our government is a sign of just how dangerous emotive thinking can be. This is not a question of nationalism, or even patriotism, but democracy and basic natural justice. 

A child’s parents have a special responsibility towards their offspring, and can’t plead that they neglected their own child for the sake of a stranger. At the level of politics rather than analogy, a democratic society is a moral covenant between a government and the people that the state will be a servant of the populace, and act in their interests, and not the interest of some particular class of person, whether a minority of the population, or an outside group. 

When considering whether to accept migrants from overseas into our society, we should first consider whether the costs to our own citizens in terms of social change, crime, lowered trust and economic burdens is outweighed by whatever other considerations may move us to admit them. Still more basically we have to consider whether the majority of our citizens want to admit large numbers of new members from overseas, groups that may have radically different cultural, religious and political sensibilities and beliefs to the native population. 

It is simply not good enough to dismiss the concerns people have let alone their concerted and consistent opposition to mass migration. Those who override democracy on this issue do so in the name of what they claim to be more lofty and enlightened moral sentiments. But when they do so they destroy our democratic unity, and cheapen the concept of British citizenship. 

Confusing this issue, and making the business of bringing new citizens in a casual matter of cash, convenience or guilty conscience, rather than a sacred covenant, and a baptism into British history and culture, strikes at the very root of British democracy. We must learn to think with our heads as well as our hearts, and rebuild British sovereignty and citizenship.