Rebecca McQuillan

THE picture of eight-year-old Felipe Gomez Alonzo shows a young boy, neatly dressed in blue T-shirt and white trousers, looking frankly at the camera, his chin resting on his hand. It is the sort of image that would spark a smile of pride in any parent, which only sharpens the tragedy of Felipe’s story.

Felipe’s father brought him from Guatemala to the US border, apparently believing migrants with children would be allowed through. The pair were taken into the custody of US immigration authorities, and there, on Christmas Eve, Felipe became ill. Taken to a medical centre, he was given ibuprofen and antibiotics, and sent away, only to be brought back later after vomiting. A few hours later, the eight-year-old died. An autopsy revealed he had had flu.

This is the second time in a month that a child has died in the custody of US authorities, after seven-year-old Jakelin Caal, also from Guatemala, died on December 7, though it is unclear whether the children’s time in detention contributed in any way to their deaths. Nevertheless, the tragedies have reignited outrage about the inhumane policy of detaining children.

To cynical right wing populists in developed nations, migrants are the foreign hordes coming to take our benefits. To the morally bereft American president, they are “animals” who have to be kept at bay with a spiked fence.

In reality, migrants are young children like Felipe and Jakelin. They are pregnant women and babies. They are fathers and mothers trying to provide a better life for their families; they are young men, whose parents have saved what cash they have to fund their passage. They are persecuted men and women, and grieving families fleeing war.

At the dawn of 2019, the vulnerability of this unfairly maligned minority is symbolised by little Felipe Gomez Alonzo.

What drove Felipe’s father to the US border was what drove millions there before him: grinding poverty and a sense that fortunes could be made in the wealthier nation nearby. And who can blame them? Per capita GDP in the United States is $59,500 while in Guatemala it’s $8,200. Nearly 60% of the Guatemalan population live below the poverty line and 23% in extreme poverty.

Wealth disparities aren’t the only driver of international migration – human rights violations and war play their part, as we can see from the number of Iranians and Syrians trying to cross the English Channel – but inequality is widely recognised as one of the prime causes.

Inequality, both between and within nations, surely ranks alongside climate change as the biggest issue facing the world in 2019. Depressingly little headway has been made against it over the years. It fuels social and political polarisation, and poses a challenge to democratic institutions.

Overall poverty levels may have declined in recent decades, but there has been an ever-more unequal distribution of wealth. Oxfam in 2016 found that the richest 1% had as much wealth as the rest of the world combined.

Inequality has risen dramatically in the UK too since the 1970s, with the bottom 50% owning less than 10% of wealth. Austerity – councils starved of cash, the NHS unable to meet demand, the ceiling on benefits, the two-child cap and delays in providing Universal Credit – have deepened the plight of the poor. In November, the UN’s rapporteur on extreme poverty launched an excoriating attack on Theresa May’s Government, describing UK poverty as a “political choice”. Four million children live in poverty, a rise of 500,000 since 2010/11, the overwhelming majority in working families. Women have suffered disproportionately. The growing use of food banks, visible increase in rough sleeping and persistent reports from schools of children who are hungry or lack suitable clothing, epitomise this growing distress.

And instead of addressing this crisis, the political establishment is engulfed by Brexit. No, that’s not entirely fair: many parliamentarians in Westminster, Holyrood and Cardiff fear Brexit above all because the ensuing economic damage will ravage the poorest. If the public finances are tight now, just wait until the economy starts shrinking. But precious time that could have been spent discussing radical solutions has been spent instead on Brexit. That’s without even considering the scandalously vast sum – £4bn and rising – spent on preparations for a no-deal Brexit which commands no majority in parliament.

Some measures to dismantle the towering wealth of the few will take international action, such as chasing the tax dodgers, but much can also be done at a national level to boost equality, such as more progressive taxation; much more generous funding of health, education and social support; an enforced living wage; a fairer spread of corporate profits between shareholders and workers; a fairer form of local taxation; and support for new models of business ownership that put employees before overcompensated shareholders or private equity billionaires.

And migration, seen in the developed north as such a problem, is actually part of the solution too. Migrants help sustain healthy public finances by boosting the host country economy: they stimulate demand and help businesses grow, while swelling the tax base – crucial in countries with ageing populations. At the same time, migration is recognised by the UN as a means of helping tackle global inequality because migrants send money back home as well as repatriating skills and investment. Migration has to be managed and support provided to existing workers on low wages, but the overall benefits are manifold.

Here in Scotland, unlike at Westminster, ministers have been prepared to say so. To her credit, Nicola Sturgeon chose to use her New Year message to proclaim a warm welcome to overseas visitors, and EU migrants in particular. The Scottish Government has tried to mitigate the worst of pernicious Westminster policies, helping households with the bedroom tax, introducing Best Start grants for new parents and implementing a more progressive tax regime. But here, too, 24% of children live in relative poverty.

Should the Scottish Government be introducing child benefit top-ups, as Labour wish? Perhaps a land value tax locally? Should Westminster be ending zero hours contracts and increasing corporation tax?

These are the debates that should fill the airwaves. At the beginning of 2019, the self-inflicted Brexit crisis may dominate, but generations to come will judge us by our response to the real issues of inequality and climate change.