Universal basic income and open immigration? Labour and the Greens are selling a pipe dream

Both parties are fooling themselves and their voters. It would be impossible to uphold the principle of free movement after Brexit and implement a universal basic income at the same time

By proposing both a universal basic income and open immigration after Brexit, Labour and the Green Party are selling their voters a pipe dream. The painful truth is that the two are incompatible. A basic income at the national level could only work by drastically limiting access to citizenship.

If it’s up to Green Party co-leader Jonathan Bartley, the Home Office needs to create a “Ministry for Sanctuary” to oversee a “fairer” immigration system. Sailing on the storm caused by the Windrush scandal, the party is advocating for a softer immigration policy and the closure of detention centres.

At the same time, the party has promised it would introduce a universal basic income (UBI) by 2025, which would see every adult receiving at least £89 per week, with additional support going to people with disabilities and single-parent households.

Labour has also jumped on the basic income bandwagon, continuing a long-standing tradition of dismissing Green policies before stealthily adopting them as their own. Labour MP John McDonnell has said that, if elected, his party would hold UBI pilot schemes in Liverpool, Sheffield and the Midlands.

On the topic of free movement and immigration, however, Labour is as divided as its electorate. While Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to close UK borders after Brexit is done, a solid majority of Labour delegates pledged not only to uphold the right to free movement at the party’s annual conference earlier in September, but to extend it to non-EU countries too.

Thomas More first floated the idea of a basic income in the 16th century in his novel “Utopia”. The idea was shelved for several centuries, until free-market economist Milton Friedman endorsed his version of it — the negative income tax — in the 1970s. Today, universal basic income is alive and kicking. In recent elections in India, France, and the US, politicians are riding on its coattails.

In an election campaign that is marked by big, bigger and the biggest promises, it is easy to see why Labour, and the left more generally, have made UBI their own castle in the sky. It is seductively simple, addresses widespread disenchantment with current welfare systems and promises to simultaneously reduce inequality and bureaucracy.

But both parties are fooling themselves and their voters. It would be impossible to uphold the principle of free movement after Brexit and implement a universal basic income at the same time. What is on offer is in fact not universal at all, but rather a national basic income that would be tied to citizenship, meaning only British passport holders would be eligible.

It is not difficult to see how that would clash with free movement. Any country implementing a national basic income would need to violate the EU’s non-discrimination principle, which states that migrants from other member countries cannot be treated differently.

Of course, depending on what type of agreement will be negotiated, the UK may no longer be subject to the non-discrimination principle after Brexit. But even so, a British basic income would incentivise mass welfare migration from poorer countries. In all likelihood, if citizenship ever became synonymous with free cash, European and international citizens would flock to UK immigration offices.

This is the last thing Labour or the Green Party should want, as it would play precisely into the hands of those wanting to “take back control”. Even the UBI’s leading proponent Philippe Van Parijs concedes that implementing a national basic income requires a highly restrictive border regime that “imposes firm limits on hospitality”.

By wanting to have its cake and eat it too, universal basic income could become the left’s Achilles heel. If ever implemented on a large scale, the anti-immigration backlash it will unleash will be seized by the (far) right.

Until that time, universal basic income is nothing more than an appealing idea at best, and a hollow campaign promise at worst.

Kyrill Hartog is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Are We Europe.