Flyer for distribution at protests around migration.

From our hunter-gatherer ancestors who, long before there was such a thing as nations or states, roamed across the lands in search of food, to the modern working class, which moves where it can find employment to make a living, the history of humanity has always been that of migration.

Today, it's increasingly imperialist wars, economic crises, political and religious persecution, and of course climate catastrophes which force millions of people to flee and look for a better life elsewhere. These waves of involuntary migration are a consequence of a profit system which makes more and more of the globe uninhabitable.

Successive governments, in tandem with their mass media, have for decades told workers that we should blame the "other" for our problems. It's the oldest trick in the book. This way politicians and bosses hope to avoid being held responsible for destroying our standards of living with cuts to welfare and services, and attacks on our wages and conditions.

Far-right demagogues and snake oil salesmen, who feed the flames of anti-migrant sentiment, pretend to speak for the "common man", but in reality they are funded by investment bankers, property moguls and hedge fund tycoons. If they come to power, they will treat us no better than their Labour and Tory peers.

The current migration regime is unsustainable. After making perilous journeys across the sea, asylum seekers are forcibly transferred to random locations, denied work, and detained until the backlog of claims is processed. Meanwhile, sections of the local community, already at breaking point after years of austerity, take their anger out on them.

This is not a situation anyone wants to be in. But burning down hotels will not change the fact that our jobs are shit, that our schools are collapsing, or that we can't get decent housing or a GP appointment. Those turning against migrants are only letting the people actually in power – the capitalists who divide the spoils amongst themselves – off the hook.

As workers, whether "foreign" or "local", we need to recognise our common interests. The only way to truly improve our lot is to end the profit system that's everywhere driving humanity to conflict and poverty. Instead of putting our trust in the trade unions and reformist parties, we need our own political organisation and real solidarity in our communities and our workplaces to oppose any attempts to make us pay for the capitalist crisis. To the politics of divide and conquer, respond with class unity! A different world is still possible, but we have to fight for it!