Kelly McParland: After botching migration, the world makes it worse

(FILES) Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) Severn class lifeboat, the City of London II, makes its way towards migrants travelling in an inflatable boat across the English Channel, bound for Dover on the south coast of England, on April 5, 2023. (Photo by Ben Stansall / AFP via Getty Images)

Article content

It’s not often that Switzerland gets to boast a key moment in a matter of international interest.

Article content

It’s a quiet place, Switzerland. Nine million people, no wars, lots of banks, great skiing. Not drawing attention to itself is a national habit.

Article content

Article content

Every once in a while news leaks out, though, as it did this month when Swiss voters rejected a proposal to place a cap on population. The plan would have set a maximum limit of 10 million people between now and 2050. If somehow a few extra births took place, or an immigrant-too-many was admitted, the country would end its freedom of movement arrangement with the European Union.

Article content

Article content

If that sounds self-defeating — cutting off 450 million people because you somehow acquire a few too many of your own — you would be among the 55 per cent who voted to reject the scheme.

Article content

Article content

So good on you. Nonetheless, the fact it came to a vote is unhappily reflective of the degree to which immigration has become a global dilemma, and the extent to which wealthier, more democratic powers have overwhelmingly buggered up their handling of it.

Article content

Switzerland has always valued its privacy. Officially neutral for more than 200 years, it’s careful about who it accepts and how. It’s held numerous referenda related in one way or another to immigration, usually rejecting the more extreme among them. What’s notable about this latest is that it wasn’t targeted at illegal migrants, the usual headache of western powers, but any sort of migrant at all. The fact that Swiss migrants overwhelmingly come from its closest neighbours — EU countries dominate the mix — rather than people fleeing broken, impoverished, war-torn nations, indicates that in Swiss eyes one migrant is like another, and none of them is automatically welcome.

Article content

Article content

Switzerland’s mulling of a population cap is mild by global standards. In Northern Ireland a knife attack involving a Sudanese refugee resulted in three nights of rioting, anti-immigrant demonstrations and extensive property damage. Masked gangs roamed the streets and kicked in doors amid burning homes and vehicles. Police called it “racist thuggery,” reportedly organized quickly and efficiently on social media.

Article content

Article content

Public anger at immigration policies has been a leading factor in the United Kingdom’s decade of collapsing governments and adjacent rise of nativist animosity. Six prime ministers over 10 years -and soon the be a seventh after Keir Starmer’s resignation announcement Monday — amid failing public services and internecine party warfare has boosted the fortunes of the once-fringe Reform party, which both feeds on and fuels anti-immigrant sentiment, riding public discontent to a healthy lead in the polls.

Article content

The Conservative and Labour parties, faced with the collapse of their shared century-long dominion over power, now vie to show they too can take a harsh hand to newcomers. Before their 2024 demise, the Conservatives’ signature remedy was a plan to ship illegals to Rwanda by air, paying heavily for the privilege, in the hopes that or some other country would then grant them a new refuge.