Teresa Hayter, writer and activist, spoke last night in Edinburgh to a diverse audience on the topics of migration and borders, as part of a larger UK wide book tour to raise awareness about the issues addressed in the newest edition of her work Open Borders: The Case Against Immigration Controls (2004).

Anne Dummett, the founder of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, called Open Borders a “very impressive achievement”, and The Economist wrote that

"The strongest part of this book is the account of the hypocrisy, faithlessness, demagogy, moral indifference and, at times, outright cruelty shown by different British Governments on this issue since the 1960's. Ms Hayter provides a terrible indictment of modern British immigration policy. Government seem keener to appeal to the ineradicable British vice, xenophobia, than to the ineradicable British virtue, a sense of fair play. The sad story of hostility to immigrants points to the conclusion: democracy is no guarantee of humanity - or good sense."

The start of Hayter’s explication of the need to abolish border controls focused on the human rights abuses that are inherent in a detention centre system which treats migrants as criminals and keeps entire families locked in immigration prisons, while the latter part of the discussion focused on the roots of the perceived ‘need’ for immigration controls. As Hayter points out, giving citations of extensive first-hand research, the argument that migrants hinder the economic prospects of Britain are misconstructed, often intentionally, and that immigrants actually contribute vastly to the economic infrastructure by creating jobs and new markets.

The economic argument is often cited to disguise the real motivation behind strengthened immigration controls: racism. In her talk, Hayter references reports which allude to an increasing anxiety regarding a loss of ‘Britishness’ or ‘British Identity’ as a result of increasing immigration.

Discomfort that is aroused by the transition phases of changing communities should not cause blame to be directed at migrants for unsubstantiated claims, such as a bane to the British economy, and people should attempt to seek the true roots of their maladjustment and dislike of immigrant populations—which is normally found deep in the soil of racism.