0:03

Imagine you're looking down on Earth from outer

0:05

space. It's night time

0:08

down where you're looking. Europe, a

0:10

large cloud formation, moves over the Alps,

0:13

while a faint green glow from the northern lights

0:16

crowns the top of the

0:17

planet.

0:19

You sweep your eyes downwards and

0:21

see that in between long stretches of darkness

0:24

are intense webs of artificial light. These

0:27

cities, towns and villages pepper

0:29

the Earth's surface, home to the majority

0:32

of our 8 billion people, linked

0:34

to one another by millions of roads, train

0:37

tracks, rivers, cables,

0:40

Wi-Fi connections and trade routes.

0:44

What intrigues me is just how interconnected

0:46

we all are, and that underscores

0:48

the urgency to come up with solutions to stave

0:50

off climate change, a new banking crisis,

0:53

further inequality, all-out war.

0:56

This is the first episode of season 3 of the podcast

0:59

we call The We Society. I'm

1:02

Will Hutton. I'm a writer, a columnist and

1:04

the former editor-in-chief of the Observer newspaper.

1:08

I'm also an economist. I always fought

1:10

against the notion that human beings are desiccated

1:12

calculating machines, that economists

1:15

want us to be, to make free market

1:17

economics work. Rather,

1:19

we are moral beings. The

1:22

reality is that we have to take a moral view.

1:25

We are connected, which brings

1:27

us to the sort of work we're reflecting on in

1:29

these podcasts.

1:31

Social science is shaping the world we live,

1:34

and we'll be offering up imaginative and forward-thinking

1:37

fixes to the most pressing problems

1:39

of our time, through conversations with

1:41

the UK's top social scientists.

1:44

Whether you realise it or not, the social

1:46

sciences touch all of our lives and

1:49

determine how we interact with one another. There's

1:52

thousands of lessons to be learnt, and it's my

1:55

job to lead you into the belly of the social

1:57

science beast. Welcome to

1:59

the world of social science. the We Society podcast. Glancing

2:05

at recent British newspaper headlines, you'd be forgiven

2:07

for thinking that all the migrants and asylum seekers

2:09

in the world are crossing the English Channel

2:11

to get to Kent. Indeed, the

2:14

Conservative government announcing their stop

2:16

the boats policy suggested that as many

2:18

as 100 million asylum seekers were

2:20

queuing up ready to flood Britain.

2:23

But that's not true. In fact, migration

2:25

between the countries of the global south accounts

2:28

for nearly half of all international

2:30

migration.

2:31

These days it feels like the whole

2:34

world is on the move due to war, earthquakes,

2:36

famine, climate change and you wouldn't be

2:38

completely wrong for believing that. In 1980, 150 million

2:40

people made the move to migrate. In 2020,

2:45

that figure had shut up to just

2:47

over 280 million.

2:51

Professor Heaven Crawley is one of the world's authorities

2:53

on mass migration. She leads

2:55

the Migration for Development and Equality Centre

2:57

at Coventry University, a global

2:59

network of partners in 12 countries in the

3:02

global south, which aims to reduce

3:04

inequalities and further the cause of

3:06

economic and social development. Because

3:09

only by researching and engaging with

3:11

the countries where mass migrations happen

3:13

can we be in with a chance of ensuring

3:15

migrants are protected and inequality lessened.

3:19

Welcome to the We Society, Professor Crawley.

3:22

Thank you.

3:29

When we invited you to join the We Society

3:32

podcast, what

3:34

were your first thoughts? We heard the words We Society.

3:36

Did you make sense of it? Were you inquisitive

3:39

or did you think that's, I know exactly what they're

3:42

all about?

3:42

That's an interesting question

3:44

to start. Did my Googling, had a little

3:46

bit of look at what you, the

3:48

kinds of topics that you talk about. And I

3:51

mean, I gather it's a way of really thinking about how

3:53

we have connections between us all, you know, regardless

3:55

of where we live on the planet, we are in some way connected.

3:58

So that's how I come at this.

3:59

Fair enough, that's a good definition.

4:03

Migration, I mean you are one

4:06

of the world authorities on it. Let's

4:08

just have a sense of where your interest

4:11

began in migration.

4:13

Well, I went

4:16

to Sussex University in

4:18

the late 80s and I

4:20

was doing a degree in geography in

4:22

what was then the African Studies Department,

4:25

the African Studies School and

4:27

I guess I had, I was very young,

4:30

I didn't really have a clue about these

4:32

topics and frankly migration was not

4:35

then very much spoken about, it's hard to believe that now

4:37

but it certainly was the case then. But during

4:39

my undergraduate degree at Sussex I became really

4:42

interested in migration in part because it

4:44

was just starting to be a topic of discussion

4:46

and the reason why was because of

4:49

the breakup of the former Yugoslavia and

4:51

so in the kind of context of

4:53

Europe suddenly there were quite

4:55

pressing migration and refugee issues that

4:58

were starting to make the headlines a bit like I

5:00

guess now but on a much lower scale.

5:02

And so I started doing some research on that, I published a dissertation

5:05

on that, I went off to do a master's actually

5:07

just still at Sussex but at the Institute

5:09

of Development Studies in gender and migration and

5:13

when I was given the opportunity to do a PhD

5:15

I decided to sort of bring these issues together

5:17

to look at the ways in which gender shapes

5:19

the migration experience and particularly focusing

5:21

on the experiences of women, refugee women

5:24

seeking asylum in Britain.

5:26

So yeah it kind

5:28

of was incidental and opportunistic

5:31

as many of these things in life are but

5:33

once I'd kind of got the migration bug

5:36

I really haven't lost

5:38

it frankly and here we are 35 years

5:41

later talking about

5:43

this topic almost on a

5:45

daily basis not just in the UK but

5:47

frankly across the whole of the world migration has become

5:50

increasingly politically contentious and

5:53

kind of symbol of lots of the other changes

5:55

that are happening in the world. Well

5:56

that's because there is a sense in

5:59

the global

7:59

motivations and the drivers for these migration,

8:02

these largely anti-migration narratives,

8:05

are not necessarily rooted in the

8:07

evidence about what the consequences

8:09

of migration are, but a series of other

8:12

kind of objectives which

8:15

I think are motivated by other factors.

8:18

I've been doing research on this topic for 35

8:20

years now. I don't know

8:22

everything, of course I don't, but I mean I have a pretty

8:25

good grasp of what the evidence

8:27

tells us. And yes, there are

8:29

of course issues associated with migration

8:31

that are not unproblematic, particularly

8:34

in terms of various kinds of social

8:36

integration. But many

8:38

of the things that are positive about migration simply

8:40

don't get spoken about, and the things that

8:43

are spoken about in a negative way are

8:45

often a very small part of what's

8:48

actually going on. And so yes,

8:50

there are issues around migration, but it's a very skewed

8:53

representation of what the

8:55

evidence tells us. And I think really kind

8:58

of trying to engage national

9:01

governments, but also the UN system and

9:03

different audiences in these

9:06

alternative, more nuanced

9:08

approaches to migration is what's needed,

9:10

because what we have at the moment isn't really getting

9:12

us anywhere terribly effectively

9:15

in terms of the policies. There's

9:15

a spectrum, isn't there? There's

9:18

asylum seekers, and then

9:20

there's kind of illegal migration,

9:22

and then there's legal migration. And

9:24

I would like to think that a government

9:28

of a different political hue might

9:30

have taken a

9:31

less emotional

9:34

kind of stance to what's called

9:36

the small boats crisis. But

9:38

nonetheless, I mean, you do see the political

9:41

salience of it, the numbers crossing on small

9:43

boats across the English Channel into the UK

9:45

has risen every year since 1918,

9:48

and since 2018, to 45,000.

9:51

And so, I mean, yeah, it's

9:54

quite tricky for a government to say, we're not going

9:56

to do anything about this. So they're just going

9:59

to think they can't.

9:59

for one moment suggesting that that should be the approach.

10:02

But I mean, I think, you know, I've been working

10:04

on the issue of migration to the UK for a

10:06

long time. And I specifically undertook

10:09

a very large piece of work called the MedMig project

10:11

in 2015-16 around the

10:13

very significant increase in arrivals of migrants

10:16

across the Mediterranean, particularly to

10:19

Italy and to Greece. So,

10:21

you know, we know why people move

10:23

and we know the drivers of migration and all

10:26

that goes with it. Now, what's happened

10:28

since 2018, it's not an accident. It's

10:30

not an accident that suddenly the numbers have

10:32

started to increase, crossing the

10:34

channel to get to the UK. It's a consequence

10:37

of all sorts of policies that are not necessarily

10:39

even migration related or

10:41

ironically were intended to stop migration. I'm talking

10:44

here about Brexit, because one of the things

10:46

that Brexit did and of course was not

10:48

spoken about and still not spoken about is

10:50

it removed the UK from

10:52

the European, the Dublin Convention,

10:55

essentially, which is about the arrival

10:57

of third country nationals. Now, that means

11:00

you can't as a government return people

11:02

to the country from which they came, in this case,

11:04

France. Now, one of the

11:06

things that we know that happens when people are making decisions

11:09

about why they might go, and we're talking specifically here about

11:11

asylum seekers who are, of course, the smallest proportion

11:13

of migrants altogether. But one of the things that we

11:15

know is that they are given

11:17

information by smugglers, by people

11:20

traffickers, by others, about where

11:22

they should spend their money in order to get the best

11:24

opportunity to rebuild their lives. Remember

11:26

that more than 80% of

11:29

all those who arrive across the channel get refugee

11:31

status rights. So these are not people who have no reason

11:33

to seek protection. They're very much looking

11:35

for an opportunity to rebuild their lives. And

11:37

the smugglers know the deal. You go to the UK,

11:40

you can't be returned because the

11:42

UK has withdrawn from the Dublin Convention. So at

11:45

what point are we going to have an honest conversation

11:47

about the broader political processes that have

11:49

led to this current situation, which

11:51

has been dealt with in the way that it is? And in short, we're

11:54

not

11:54

going to have that conversation because it's much

11:56

easier, isn't it, to blame other

11:58

people rather than looking for protection.

11:59

at government policy itself. So I

12:02

am under no illusions. The new policies, the

12:04

new Illegal Migration Act, won't make

12:07

any difference any more than any of

12:09

the other multiple waves of legislation

12:11

over the last 20 years have done, because nobody's

12:14

looking at the root causes, nobody's looking

12:16

at establishing safe and legal roots. The only

12:18

people who can get to the UK legally are

12:21

the Ukrainians, and even that has become much lower

12:23

in numbers. So if we're serious

12:26

about wanting to address this issue, then we have to address

12:28

the reasons why people

12:29

move in the first place. In this case, refugees

12:32

or asylum seekers who are needing protection, most of

12:35

whom get it when they arrive.

12:37

I'd like an honest conversation about that, rather

12:39

than this kind of spurious

12:42

narrative headlines that don't really engage

12:44

with any of those broader factors.

12:46

What about Hong Kong? I mean, I thought there was

12:49

a provision to permit some

12:52

hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong nationals to

12:54

come to the UK over the next 10 years.

12:56

And what does that tell you? How big an

12:58

issue has that been in the media? How much

13:00

of a public narrative about stopping that has there been?

13:03

None, why? Because the government has

13:05

shown political leadership and

13:07

taken the action that was necessary to allow those

13:10

safe and legal roots to happen. It's not difficult,

13:12

it's entirely possible to do

13:14

this in a much more orderly, managed

13:17

way, if you choose to take

13:19

on board the fact that people need protection,

13:22

which is, it can be done. It was done with Hong Kong,

13:24

done with Ukraine, was partially

13:26

attempted in the case of Afghanistan,

13:28

although it has proven to be completely a disaster

13:30

because nobody in reality has been able to

13:32

make use of that route. So, you know, we have, you've

13:35

just given a very good example of what can be done

13:37

if there's a political will to do it. And unfortunately,

13:39

that's the bit that's lacking for all sorts of reasons,

13:41

not least the fact that this has become a very good

13:44

distraction from other political problems

13:46

that the UK is currently facing.

13:47

You distinguish an asylum seekers and

13:50

other forms of migrants.

13:53

I mean, just spell it out for the average

13:55

listener. Sure.

13:56

I mean, migrants in a way is a catch-all category

13:59

that includes anybody.

17:59

in the world, income inequalities,

18:02

wealth inequalities,

18:04

inequalities in opportunity, inequalities

18:07

in the right to be protected from your government,

18:09

that motivate people in different ways. And

18:12

that migration also can either

18:14

contribute to inequality or it can

18:16

reduce it. So it can create resources

18:18

that are then sent back to countries

18:21

of origin that, you know, provide remittances

18:24

to enable children to go to school, that give

18:26

women the opportunity to, you know, do something

18:28

with their lives because they have resources. Or

18:31

it can increase inequality because, you know, people

18:33

can't

18:34

safely and legally migrate and

18:36

they often end up being exploited, don't

18:38

have access to rights and opportunities. So

18:40

to me, I don't see how we can talk about migration

18:43

without talking about inequality because

18:45

it's not, you know, in some ways migration

18:47

is a consequence of these things, not just, you know,

18:50

it's not the driver, it's the outcome.

18:53

So that's what the centre does. And we do that in a

18:55

very particular way, which is by

18:57

harnessing the existing expertise

18:59

and knowledge of academic

19:02

scholars and organisations in the global south.

19:04

Because let's face it, most of these

19:06

narratives that we've been talking about are dominated

19:08

by the global north, particularly Europe and North

19:10

America. And they are, you know, embedded

19:13

in a whole set of historical and geographical

19:15

factors,

19:16

which we've just been discussing. And

19:18

actually, understanding migration,

19:20

which mostly, as we've said, takes place in the global south,

19:23

means you have to engage with what we know about migration

19:26

in the global south with the people who speak the language, know

19:28

the context and can engage much

19:30

more proactively in local

19:33

and national context. So that's what the centre does. And

19:35

that's why, I mean, you know, it's one of those things

19:38

that once you've seen it, you can't unsee it, you know. Once

19:40

you've seen how migration is affected

19:43

by inequality and vice versa, you can't go

19:45

back and just look at migration in the abstract.

19:48

Is that why the number has jumped from 150 million in 1980 to over 280

19:50

million today in just 40 years? No,

19:54

no, you know why? You would say that in... You

19:56

know why? It's because the population of the world

19:58

has increased and proportionately...

21:59

play that we used to have of actually

22:02

under the Dublin Agreement being able to send them back

22:04

to within the European Union where they first landed. How

22:08

does one manage this politically? What

22:10

would you say? Could you constrain

22:13

the numbers coming across the channel in that way?

22:15

Well, we're actually in that situation. I would have to probably

22:17

gloat for a few moments because 20 years

22:19

ago when I worked at the Home Office and

22:22

was advising the government on exactly these issues

22:24

in relation to the Songak crisis, for example, we

22:26

were saying exactly the same thing. Listen to the

22:29

evidence, look at the motivations, look

22:31

at setting up safer legal routes. My

22:33

advice would be very similar to what it was then,

22:36

which is if you want

22:38

to tackle these issues. First of all, let's

22:41

be honest, we have a sort of coming together

22:43

of different events here that are not easily

22:45

undone. I don't underestimate

22:47

the impact of the

22:50

withdrawal from the Dublin Agreement. I think it's

22:52

made a huge impact, not just directly

22:54

in terms of the ability to remove because in

22:56

fact not that many people were necessarily

22:59

removed, but in terms of what is done to the narratives

23:01

and the kind of business model, if

23:04

you like, of the smugglers

23:06

and the people traffickers. I think we also have

23:08

to remember that people are dying in this process.

23:10

This is not necessarily being taught

23:14

up. People are drowning,

23:15

as they did in the Mediterranean in 2015, 2016. People are

23:19

drowning in the channel regularly. This

23:22

is not...

23:22

When Richard

23:25

Sounir, Consuelo Bravim, stand up and say, it

23:28

can't be right that

23:31

gangs of people traffickers are

23:33

calibrating and determining the numbers, crossing

23:36

the channel and coming to Britain.

23:40

We have to be, the elected government of the

23:42

day, have to be the people who

23:44

decide on that. It's

23:47

a very, very potent thing to say in any

23:49

democracy. If

23:51

you would amend their position

23:53

or criticise their position, constructively get them to check,

23:55

what would it be? What could you say to them? Or how

23:57

could you... People listening to it think...

23:59

They're right. How would you change the line? First

24:02

of all, I would tell them what the evidence says, which

24:05

whatever happens in terms of the

24:07

policy of sort of deterrence and

24:10

removing the right to return to the UK and

24:12

whatever else is, that information is never going to get

24:14

to the migrants themselves, right? They are being

24:16

sold an idea

24:19

about what's possible in the UK, how

24:22

they might get there. They're not going to be told

24:24

the nuances of what the consequences

24:26

might be in reality. And often the things

24:28

that motivate people, including, as I say, more than 70%

24:30

of people coming

24:33

from contexts of violence and conflict,

24:36

they're not going to care, frankly. They will take their risk

24:39

with everybody else, even if that involves them and their children

24:41

being potentially drowning in the channel.

24:44

So I would just, first

24:46

of all, just abandon this idea

24:48

that deterrence works any

24:51

more than it worked with SONGA, any more than

24:53

it worked with any of the other things that have been tried

24:55

for the last 20 years. There's only

24:57

two things that will work. One is meaningful

24:59

conversations. So you said SONGA,

25:02

what was that you said? I didn't quite catch it. The SONGAT

25:04

crisis. You know, there's been multiple events.

25:07

You mean the camps in Kelly?

25:09

Yeah. But going back to SONGAT

25:11

in the early 2000s,

25:14

when there were conversations happening between Blair

25:16

and President Sarkozy, if I remember then. So

25:19

this rhetoric of deterrence has been

25:21

going back a long way. There are only two

25:23

things that will work, neither of which

25:26

it seems to me are on the table. Number one,

25:28

and I have to say on the first one, we've lost a little bit

25:31

of the power of negotiation here, but

25:33

conversations with the French. I mean, this

25:35

is a bilateral negotiation around

25:37

what's happening, surely. You know,

25:39

just simply putting up a barrier

25:41

or changing the policy in the UK isn't going to stop

25:44

people getting in a boat in France. There's no logic

25:46

to that whatsoever. It's got to be about

25:48

why are those people not feeling as if they

25:51

have a possibility of safety and protection in France?

25:53

And if they have a kind of right to

25:55

be in the UK in terms of, for example, family

25:57

reunion, they are children of

25:59

adults.

25:59

in the UK or they have relatives,

26:02

then there should be a way of processing those people

26:04

in France so they have speedy access

26:07

to the right to be in the UK with those

26:10

family members. You would take out

26:12

a very significant proportion of numbers straight

26:14

away. And secondly, you need safer

26:16

legal routes. I mean, I know it's become a

26:18

kind of catchall for all

26:20

sorts of different things, but there is no

26:23

point in saying you can only

26:25

apply for asylum if you get to the UK legally.

26:27

There is no way to get to the UK legally

26:30

if you need protection. So how

26:32

are these people supposed to navigate

26:35

this system when there is no legal

26:37

entry route?

26:38

It's not, you know, I'm not speaking

26:41

out of turn here, there is no legal entry route. So

26:44

you can't say... If Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper were to say

26:46

that... Well, they should be saying that. The balloon

26:48

would go up, you know, they would say, oh, you're just...so you

26:50

just want to create safer

26:52

legal routes at, you know,

26:55

open door policy. That's

26:56

what you're saying. So you have safer legal routes with the Ukrainians

26:58

or the Hong Kong citizens that we've just been

27:00

talking about, you know. It is possible,

27:03

it is doable, and you can

27:05

do it in a...you know, part of public

27:07

anxiety, and you said so yourself, public

27:09

anxiety around this issue is

27:11

partly because of the lack of control, right? The

27:14

perceived lack, not just of control over this particular

27:16

issue, but in general, it undermines

27:18

the credibility of a governor not being able to do something

27:21

about this, right? Governments can

27:23

do something about this and they choose to do something about

27:25

this when they want to.

27:26

So that's my point, really. It's not that necessarily

27:29

the problem is going to go away. I'm not saying that

27:31

instantly there would be a solution with the French

27:33

or that the drivers of migration from Eritrea

27:36

or Afghanistan or Sudan are going to disappear

27:38

overnight. No, of course not. But we can

27:40

manage this much better than we are. And

27:43

I think the political narrative around it has become so toxic

27:45

that it's kind of closed down the political space to do

27:47

anything differently. And I'm talking about all parties

27:50

in this particular regard, you know. There's

27:52

no political bravery because this has become

27:55

such a toxic issue. And it has

27:56

become such a toxic issue because it's been so

27:58

badly managed.

27:59

politically as well as practically. I'm

28:02

inferring from this that you're not going to be

28:04

a cheerleader for the scheme

28:07

on Rwanda.

28:08

Well no, I have

28:10

written about the scheme in Rwanda and I'm not a cheerleader.

28:13

And I'm not a cheerleader because I've spent time in Rwanda.

28:15

I've worked with the Congolese communities in two

28:18

camps in the north and on the border with

28:20

Burundi in the south. And I know that refugees

28:22

in Rwanda are living in pretty abject

28:24

poverty and they have very few opportunities

28:26

to improve their lives and they've been there for several

28:29

decades. So the idea that you would send

28:31

people, I mean we're back to this idea of deterrence

28:34

effect right? This is not a sustainable

28:36

policy option, it's about deterrence. But

28:38

the idea that you would send people to

28:40

a country where they have no associations,

28:43

one of the smallest countries in Africa

28:45

where they have no linguistic relationship

28:48

or capability where they have no family, why would

28:50

they do that? It's one of the whales, isn't it? It's

28:52

off that side. I think it's even smaller

28:55

to be honest. My point is this, it's

28:57

not a sustainable policy solution, right?

28:59

But it is intended to again, send

29:02

a message to would-be asylum seekers. Don't

29:04

bother coming to the UK because this is the risk, right? And

29:07

it clearly, you know, I work with refugees

29:09

and asylum seekers, I know that people are anxious about

29:11

this. But it's not, again

29:13

it's not how does that solve the problem of boat crossings?

29:16

It simply doesn't get to the fundamental

29:18

drivers, you know, the big inequalities

29:21

in the world or the inequalities in access to protection

29:23

elsewhere. It doesn't get to the heart of how

29:26

do you have, you know, a system that

29:28

works. It's simply a way of

29:30

getting rid of what might in the end be a few hundred

29:32

people with the aim of showing that we're not

29:34

prepared to tolerate this. But I don't think that's a,

29:36

you know, it's not a serious way of doing policy and

29:39

it's not going to be a long-term solution.

29:41

Now, Heather, let's, it's just a couple

29:43

of last questions because we're getting near armor

29:46

or we have to kind of draw a line out of this. But

29:49

social science, this is the Academy of Social

29:51

Sciences podcast. I'm the president of the Academy.

29:53

You're a social scientist. I mean, what

29:56

can social science bring to bear in this? Would

29:58

you say that you have been speaking for the last kind of time? 30, 40 minutes

30:01

as a social scientist?

30:03

A social scientist but

30:05

also, you know, a kind

30:07

of an

30:09

academic who wants to be politically engaged.

30:12

I want to produce knowledge that is, first

30:14

of all, rooted in the reality of what's going on

30:16

and that means engaging and working

30:18

with Global South scholars who typically haven't had

30:21

the opportunity to bring that knowledge to bear on some of

30:23

these discussions. But it also means

30:25

really engaging with and understanding

30:28

where you can how

30:30

the political

30:31

debate and also the policy environment

30:35

is or isn't shaped by evidence and how

30:38

it could be improved in some way by

30:40

the addition of evidence to the discussions that are happening.

30:43

I think many policy makers, certainly

30:46

within the UN where I work, are

30:49

really interested to find

30:51

better ways of doing things. We're not, frankly,

30:54

doing a great job as a human

30:56

race at the moment. I mean, things are not looking

30:58

good on many fronts. And I think

31:01

there is a sort of, you know, sense that

31:03

potentially we could do things differently

31:05

and

31:05

we should do things differently for lots of different reasons.

31:08

If you want to do things differently, then we have to engage with

31:10

social science because social science tells us things.

31:12

I mean, hard science does too, but social science ultimately

31:15

tells us about human beings, how they relate to one another,

31:18

how the kind of different

31:20

systems interact. So

31:22

I think, you know, I

31:24

have to after 35 years of sometimes

31:27

feeling like I'm banging a head against a wall. I

31:29

have to feel optimistic that social

31:32

science has the potential to give us

31:34

new insights and

31:37

ways of doing things because I think

31:39

at the moment we need them. Many

31:41

people who will have listened to this, they'll be thinking,

31:43

well, I'm with Professor

31:46

Crawley. How are we

31:48

going to make a better argument about not

31:50

being fearful about migration?

31:54

Is the argument to everyone

31:56

have ID cards so we know who's here and who's

31:58

leaving and who stayed?

31:59

about having some kind of arbitrary

32:03

figure, but nonetheless a comforting one, that

32:06

say only a hundred thousand people a year are going to come

32:08

to the UK and we can absorb that

32:10

and we should absorb that and that's our moral obligation to do

32:12

it. As we finish this podcast I mean

32:15

how would you reassure listeners

32:17

to this and actually the wider public that

32:19

you know

32:20

to go with the flow to actually be more

32:25

positive about migration?

32:26

I mean the two things you've just mentioned have been tried

32:28

you know when a couple of years ago I

32:30

mean there's been regular attempts to put a number

32:33

on the number of people coming I don't think it's about that

32:35

I think it's it's about two things

32:37

one is it's about political leadership and honesty

32:40

about what's going on and I don't just mean in relation to

32:42

migration I mean more generally but we know that migration

32:45

has become a very particular vehicle

32:48

let's say for all sorts of political

32:50

discussions you know ironically the

32:53

problems we're seeing in the channel now are largely

32:56

a result of the withdrawal from Brexit which of course was premised

32:58

on the idea of getting hold of our borders

33:00

and somehow being in more in control of things so you

33:03

know these narratives are ultimately not serving

33:05

any good political end so I think

33:07

political leadership is really important but

33:10

I also think that what we're seeing

33:12

in terms of community mobilization around

33:14

some of these issues is really important you know

33:16

political change doesn't happen by virtue

33:18

of you know somebody just suddenly waking

33:20

up and wanting to do something differently what happens is that

33:23

as people have contact with and engagement

33:26

with migrants as human beings

33:28

in their communities in their societies often in a very positive

33:30

way that they start

33:32

to understand and connect to these issues

33:35

in a different way it's not an easy thing

33:37

to do and it takes time and I have to say at the moment

33:39

doesn't feel like time is on our side but

33:41

I also remind myself that we've

33:43

been having these conversations for 30 years and

33:46

there still is time to do things differently both

33:49

in terms of mobilizing on the ground

33:51

but also in terms of trying to shift the political narratives

33:54

from above I kind of I often

33:57

feel and it sometimes feels very naive that somebody

33:59

at some point will realize

33:59

that these things aren't working. And

34:03

just try something else. It can't

34:05

be any worse than what we've already got. And

34:09

that requires political ambition and bravery,

34:12

I guess. And it requires

34:14

people to see things in a different way. So

34:16

I don't have a simple answer to

34:18

this. I think it's a complicated problem. I think it's a long-term

34:21

problem. And it therefore can't be solved

34:23

easily. But I do have some solutions,

34:25

practically. And I think if we could

34:28

mobilize ourselves around those ideas

34:31

and present something as an alternative.

34:32

The heart of your solution is to have safe

34:35

and legal roots, isn't it? I mean, that's the heart of it.

34:37

Well, the heart of it is, firstly, acknowledging

34:40

that migration has happened, is happening for

34:42

all sorts of reasons that are very legitimate and

34:45

beneficial in many cases. And

34:47

secondly, how do we then harness that? For

34:49

development, for the benefit of

34:52

communities, you know, it's about harnessing

34:54

the potential of migration. And

34:56

safe and legal roots is certainly one way

34:58

to do that. It's not the only way. But in the

35:00

context of the UK, it's certainly clearly

35:04

something that needs to happen urgently. But it's about harnessing

35:06

the potential. It's about harnessing human potential.

35:08

Because ultimately, the people who move are the

35:10

people who have that potential in

35:12

buckets. That's why they're moving in the first place, right? So

35:15

it's about harnessing potential, seeing the potential

35:17

and harnessing it. And I think that's not just about

35:19

economics. It's about other factors

35:22

too. Our culture, our language, our

35:24

societies currently are a product

35:26

of that. And we can see it around us all

35:28

the time. So yeah, it's about harnessing

35:30

potential of migration

35:32

for the greater good in some way.

35:34

Well, you've said it, Professor Heaven Crawley.

35:37

Thank you so much for your time, speaking

35:39

to us from New York. I mean, we've

35:42

covered a bit of ground here. We've discussed how

35:44

effective sending people to Rwanda

35:46

might be. We've talked about

35:49

the drivers of migration. We've come up with

35:51

a distinction between asylum seekers and migration.

35:54

You've made a number of really telling

35:56

points, in particular,

35:58

that Britain leaving the European Union.

35:59

and the Dublin Agreement has

36:02

been the proximate cause of the

36:05

small boats crisis because that meant

36:07

that as a non-member of the

36:10

European Union, we no longer had the right to

36:12

send migrants back to the country

36:14

where they first landed in, through

36:18

whom they transitioned. And

36:20

you've made a powerful case above all for

36:23

the fact that migration handled

36:25

the right way can be a powerful

36:27

force for good,

36:29

both in the countries to whom the migrants

36:32

go to, and actually in

36:34

terms of remittances and all the other ways

36:37

for the countries from which they've come. And

36:39

actually thinking of migration as a force for good

36:42

would be a hell of a paradigm shift. But thank

36:44

you so much for your time. You've

36:46

made me think very hard about these issues, and

36:49

I'm sure all our listeners. Thank you, Professor Corley.

36:51

Thank you for the opportunity.

36:57

Thank you so much for joining in the conversation.

36:59

The We Society is brought to you by the Academy

37:02

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37:06

I'm Will Hutton. The producer is Emily

37:08

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