Inside Out | Fear of migrants needlessly inflaming tensions around global elections

This year’s global convergence of democratic elections – with more than 80 countries worldwide testing their respective democratic systems – is likely to be dominated by one issue above all others: migration.

That is not to say that inflation, economic turmoil, food and energy prices, climate change and stern audits of governmental incompetence will not also play a massive part. However, it seems that wherever you look, the issue of migration is up there among the primary drivers of controversy and discontent, inflaming and empowering right-wing politicians across the globe.

This perturbs me not just because of the abhorrent racist prejudices being trumpeted and the counterproductive xenophobic and protectionist policies that are poisoning international economic cooperation and globalisation. International migration is – and has been for centuries – an overall force for good almost everywhere and could play an indispensable part in helping us manage the global demographic shocks that are rapidly unfolding around us today.

I am among those who believe the coming sharp decline in populations worldwide – driven in part by a collapse in women’s willingness to have large numbers of children and revealed in stark detail in the UN’s recently released World Population Prospects report – is something to be welcomed rather than feared.

Our world is overpopulated. We overconsume and overproduce in pursuit of infinite economic growth on an all-too-finite planet in which resources are being rapidly depleted and essential biodiversity is under threat. The sooner our human population begins to contract and we manage to constrain our urge to consume “stuff”, the better.