European leaders may rethink approach to migration

With the shock waves of Donald Trump’s comprehensive US election victory still reverberating around the world’s capitals, hard-headed parties in power in democratic states are absorbing some of the lessons behind the headlines. While media commentators are focusing on President-elect Trump’s latest nominees for high office, I suspect European politicians are concentrating elsewhere, with their deliberations having a likely impact on relations with the Middle East in the not-too-distant future.

Away from the particulars of the US context, the presidential election confirmed two of this year’s global voting trends: that incumbency is the best predictor of electoral defeat and that the public have had enough of promises on curbing migration to their countries and they want something done.

The evidence is that it is harder to govern and win reelection than it used to be. Voter dissatisfaction since the COVID-19 pandemic has affected countless states, from South Africa to India, while in Europe the UK, Germany, France and Italy have all felt the impact. This includes the heaviest electoral defeat ever inflicted on the world’s most historically successful political machine, the British Conservative Party.

If there is one thing that concentrates the minds of elected politicians, it is the prospect of defeat, so intense analysis is being devoted to this phenomenon and its causes. A series of factors are recurring: economic dissatisfaction, the impact of social media magnifying discontent, a loss of confidence in authority and the ability of politicians to make the lives of everyday citizens better, and the migration of more people from elsewhere into their countries.

They are coming to the conclusion that the US voted for Trump not despite what he said about migrants but because of it

Alistair Burt

It is this last issue that is causing intense pain in Europe. And the crushing victory of Trump, with his rhetoric directed against those who have recently moved to the US, legally or especially illegally, echoes what middle-ground politicians in Europe have long feared. They are coming to the conclusion, which is distasteful to many of them, that the US public voted for Trump not despite what he said about migrants but because of it.

This may have profound consequences. Firstly, it has undoubtedly given a boost to all those who, as Trump’s Republicans have pitched their appeal, portray themselves as being “outsiders” up against a mainstream media and establishment “elite.” This has been gathering force in Europe for years and the respectability of disruptive parties to the right of the spectrum will not have been harmed by the US election result.

Secondly, it may prompt a profound redrawing of the relationships between Europe and the Middle East. For some decades, each has benefited from the migration westward and northward. Europe needed an expanded and willing workforce. Those migrating were willing to work for a better life than they were being offered in states enmeshed in conflict or with questionable economies, politics and opportunities.

Sooner or later, however, numbers matter. The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex, states that, in the last decade alone, some 29 million people have made their way, legally or illegally, from the Middle East to Europe. Frontex claims that 385,000 people entered Europe in 2023, with horrific loss of life in the Mediterranean. The Conservative UK government lost office this year partly because it could not “Stop the Boats” crossing the English Channel as they carried those without legal authorization onto Britain’s shores. In 2018, there were 299 such documented arrivals. Since then, more than 147,000 more have made the crossing.

Leaders know that the rules must inevitably tighten, which will impact the states from which people are leaving

Alistair Burt

Politicians and people have noticed the scale of such arrivals, which are now impacting their domestic politics. The electoral success of Trump may only be the beginning. If his pledge of forced deportations of those without legal claim to be in the US becomes policy and is successful, it will fuel similar movements in Europe.

Europe will have noticed it is not alone in its concerns. Both Turkiye and Lebanon are, for different reasons, pressurizing Syrian refugees who fled the civil war in their country to return. Unrest in the region, with the prospect of widening conflict and the steadily increasing impact of climate change, experienced in heat, drought and lost livelihoods, may well drive more northward to seek safety. They will find it more difficult.

Moderate European leaders have tiptoed around this for years, with generous asylum and work visa rules combating accusations that restrictive immigration policies were racist, while also claiming that they were sufficiently flexible to ensure effective border controls. They may not be able to continue to have it both ways and their domestic voters are watching. Leaders know that the rules must inevitably tighten, which will impact the states from which people are leaving. As a result of the US election, they also now have more evidence that, if they do not satisfy public concern, their electors will turn to those who will.

• Alistair Burt is a former UK member of Parliament who has twice held ministerial positions in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; as parliamentary undersecretary of state from 2010 to 2013 and as minister of state for the Middle East from 2017 to 2019. X: @AlistairBurtUK