Immigration - The Lynchpin of Western Neo-nationalism
POPULIST NATIONALISM
Over the last few decades, populist nationalist movements and political parties have steadily gained ground in the West. Witness the rise of Trump and his MAGA-movement in the US, Orban in Hungary, Le Pen in France, Farage in the UK, AfD and PEDIGA in Germany, Vox in Spain, Meloni in Italy, the Law & Justice Party in Poland, Wilders in the Netherlands, the FPÖ in Austria, the Sweden Democrats in Sweden, etc, etc. Some have made it into government and some exercise heavy influence on government policy from outside the government.
Ostensibly, some of the reasons for the rise of these Populist Nationalist (herein: PN) movements are reactions against the following:
1. Immigration
2. Perceived disenfranchisement
3. COVID-related policies
4. Political correctness & wokeness
5. Environmental policies
6. EU bureaucracy
While I have a lot of sympathy for the reaction to most of these issues, I have very little sympathy for the first and possibly most significant issue, namely the opposition to immigration. I should like to go into some detail as to why that is the case.
Firstly, it is important to note here that there is no consistent anti- or pro-state ideology behind the PN views on these issues, merely a wish for the state to do things differently. Not necessarily for the state to do less or more. Populist Nationalists (herein: PNs) may want less government spending on foreign aid but more on defence. And less on environmental policies but more on policing, public health services, pensions, and education.
Thus, there is no particular reason why an anti-state libertarian (a.k.a. a classical liberal) such as myself should support all of these PN positions. The only thing that really unites the PN movements is nationalism. Yet, many libertarians have ended up as supporters. Why is that? Simply because the PN positions on the above issues could be construed as a desire for less state power. However, libertarians in the PN movements and parties are invariably crowded out by other, much more numerous, supporters who want more government spending on things like defence, public health, and pensions, etc.
OVERT AND COVERT RACISM
So, having established that there is no ideological consistency in the political positions of the PNs as seen from a libertarian point of view, let us focus on the first issue of immigration. This issue appeals directly to the nationalist mind-set of the PNs. The PNs want to preserve or recreate mono-cultures even though this is neither possible nor desirable in the interconnected, globalised world of today, and may also want a smaller welfare state albeit not necessarily a smaller state overall. So, to put it bluntly, what the PNs want are fewer brown people in general, and fewer brown people on benefits in particular.
While I very much disagree with the PNs who declare that they want to see fewer brown people and Muslims, at least they are open about their racist bigotry. The group of PNs that I cannot stand are the people who cloak their collectivist racism in what appears to be reasonable terms: “I’m all for immigration, but only the legal kind”, “I don’t have anything against foreigners, but they should not be put up in hotels at my expense”, “The government should rather spend its money on hospitals than on illegal immigrants”. Etc, etc.
Let us pick some of these statements apart:
“I’m all for immigration, but only the legal kind”. This is an easy way for the closet racist to appear indifferent to the race and religion of the would-be immigrant while at the same time supporting a position that will let in only very few dark people and/or Muslims. This is for the simple reason that legal immigration to the West from poor countries – many of which have dark and/or Muslim populations - is all but impossible. Only a tiny fraction of the people who wish to emigrate from these countries are able to do so legally. Expensive visa applications with draconian requirements for supporting documentation can take many years to process even though they have little chance of approval, and it is thus virtually impossible for most would-be immigrants to go down the legal route.
“I don’t have anything against foreigners, but they should not be put up in hotels at my expense”. So, the fact that the government has decided to fund hotel accommodation for illegal immigrants is somehow the fault of the foreigners? I think not. The fault clearly lies with the government. A government that many of the PNs would have voted for in the past and whose policies those PNs would therefore have to share the blame for. Clearly, it is grossly unfair to blame the immigrants for the existence of a welfare state that they have had no part in creating or voting for. Yet, the would-be immigrants are made to suffer the consequences of the misguided creation of the welfare state by being denied access to the country in question and the possibility of a better and safer life for themselves and their families.
“The government should rather spend its money on hospitals than on illegal immigrants”. On the face of it, this seems like a reasonable statement. However, the underlying assumption is that it is the fault of the immigrants that not enough money is spent on health care. Again, the existence of a welfare state (including socialised health care) is not the fault of the immigrants. It is the fault of the native inhabitants. Therefore, the immigrants should not be blamed for it, let alone punished for it.
Surprisingly, when I suggest a solution that would go a long way to reducing both public spending on immigrants and also the number of immigrants who arrive in the country for the wrong reason (i.e, to receive welfare), PNs are not interested. The solution in question is, of course, banning foreign citizens from receiving anything that is funded by the taxpayer such as unemployment benefits, health care, education, accommodation, etc, etc. This would reduce the costs to the government of immigration to almost zero and would discourage most of the “wrong” type of immigration. In fact, the government would probably make a bumper profit as a result since the foreign citizens would still have to pay taxes in spite of not being entitled to any benefits until they obtain citizenship in their adopted country. Yet, the PNs are not interested. Why? The only answer I can think of is that the PNs putting forward the seemingly reasonable statements mentioned further above are, in fact, not particularly interested in reducing government spending on welfare but are, instead, consumed by a desire to stop the immigration of brown people and Muslims for no reasons other than they are brown and/or Muslim. So, in fact, these PNs are no better than the PNs who openly state that they are against immigration on principle. They are just much more cunning in the way they phrase their opposition.
NATIVIST NATALISM
That the PNs who get into power are, in fact, racist (or, at best, nativist) can be seen from the way in which they seek to encourage the birth of native babies rather than let in more immigrants to compensate for falling birth rates. As of February this year, a Hungarian woman with just two Hungarian children will be exempt from income tax for life. Hungarian government spending on increasing Hungarian birth rates has now reached 5.5% of GDP. On the other side of the Atlantic, Trump wants to increase the taxpayer-funded allowance to new US mothers from $1,000 to $5,000 per American baby. And as The Economist writes 'Other countries, including Japan, Norway and Poland, have tried tax breaks, handouts, maternity leave, subsidised childcare and even state-sponsored dating, to little effect.' In the UK, Nigel Farage wants to scrap a cap on benefits, which stops families claiming benefits for more than two children.[1]
In terms of economics, encouraging child births rather than allowing in more immigrants makes no sense at all. Unlike most immigrants, babies require health care and education for a couple of decades before they start contributing to the economy. Thus, what really bothers the PNs is clearly the different cultures and skin colour of the immigrants rather than the cost associated with letting them in.
IDEAL SCAPEGOATS
Part of the appeal of the anti-immigrant rhetoric is, of course, that the immigrants cannot and do not defend themselves. The would-be immigrants who have their lives shattered by being refused escape from the danger and poverty of their place of birth have no say in the public debate of their destination country. Furthermore, many of the immigrants that are already in the destination country are unlikely to have the right to vote and are probably not inclined to invite racist ire by actually defending themselves in public against various spurious allegations. Finally, they look different, speak different, and may have different gods. Thus, they are absolutely ideal scapegoats for the PNs.
WELFARE STATE VS. IMMIGRATION
Socialists in the EU are waking up to the fact that the preservation of their treasured welfare state is incompatible with access to welfare benefits for non-citizens. But rather than restrict the access of non-citizens to benefits, the socialists of Denmark under PM Mette Frederiksen have opted to emulate the views of the PNs on immigration by effectively banning certain foreign citizens from entering the country. She has done so both to deflate support for the PNs (and thus remain in power herself) and to preserve the welfare state. This combination of a right-wing stance of immigration with left-wing support of the welfare state is being noticed elsewhere in Europe. Notably by the German socialist Sarah Wagenknecht, founder of the German party BSW that combines populist left-wing support for an even more bloated welfare state with populist right-wing opposition to immigration. In the 2025 German general election, BSW narrowly missed getting represented in the national parliament by a margin of just 0.03% of the popular vote. However, they already have many elected members of the regional German parliaments.
Unfortunately, this trend is unlikely to change any time soon, in which case Europe is heading for a deplorable situation in which there is complete consensus between left and right about the undesirability of immigration. For a long time, the welfare state has conveniently been considered by the right as a somewhat undesirable but unchangeable monolith that makes it “necessary” to restrict immigration. The left, too, sees the welfare state as an unchangeable monolith. Just not an undesirable one. The fact is, of course, that the welfare state is a relatively new political invention which can be done away with if the political will to do so can be mustered. So rather than focus on increasing grossly unfair immigration restrictions, the traditional European right ought to focus on eliminating or scaling back the grossly unfair welfare state that they themselves have helped bring into existence over the past century or so.
COLLECTIVE GUILT
Some PNs defend their anti-immigrant views by referring to the crime statistics where immigrants in some cases account for a higher percentage of criminals than the natives. The PNs also highlight anecdotal evidence and cherry-picked cases of crimes committed by immigrants or descendants of immigrants. This is then used to justify a call for the government to effectively ban immigration from certain countries. What the PNs deliberately fail to mention at the same time is that the vast majority of immigrants from those countries are law-abiding citizens who just want to go about their lives in peace.
Using crime statistics to bar the entry of would-be immigrants who are exceedingly likely to be peaceful and productive citizens merely wanting safety and opportunity is obviously a gross and harmful injustice. But such is the result when one chooses – whether by design or ignorance – to judge people collectively rather than individually. Each immigrant is an individual who should be judged on his or her own merits. Many will do well. A few will not. But letting a morally bankrupt organisation such as the government be the judge of which prospective immigrant that is likely to succeed and which is not is like asking a mafia organisation to judge the moral virtues of members of the public.
Allowing poor immigrants to settle in rich countries benefits not only the immigrants themselves but also the destination country and the world in general. Several studies have shown that allowing people from poor countries to work in rich countries would increase their productivity up to ten-fold. For that reason, open borders would translate into an increase in global GDP of 50 – 150 per cent.[2] Such a huge increase in global wealth would bring with it vastly improved health care and higher average life spans, among other benefits. But that is, of course, an economic consideration rather than a moral one.
As for moral considerations, it has long been established that discrimination of people based on their sex, skin colour, or religion is morally reprehensible. How is it, then, that discrimination on the basis of people’s nationality and place of birth is perfectly acceptable? I think history will judge us harshly once we wake up to the fact that immigrants are just as human and diverse as ourselves.
