Select a language
Lea Ypi was born in Albania, studied philosophy in Italy, and now lives in the United Kingdom where she teaches political theory at the London School of Economics.
Ypi’s research focuses on political theory, migration, Marxism and political thought. She is the author of several books and articles. Her latest book is Confini di classe. Diseguaglianze, migrazione e cittadinanza nello stato capitalista (”Borders of Class: Migration and Citizenship in the Capitalist State”, Feltrinelli, 2025).
Il Manifesto: What do you think of the migrant detention centres built by Italy’s Giorgia Meloni government in Albania?
Lea Ypi: I think it is one of the most embarrassing chapters in Albanian history since the end of communism. It is especially painful to see the government of my country, a country with a long history of emigration and a great tradition of hospitality, lending itself to this kind of policy. These are genuine prisons for people who have committed no crime other than fleeing crises in which liberal states are often complicit: war and economic crises. We Albanians are now doing to others exactly what we never wanted to happen to us.
And what do you think of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer applauding the Meloni government’s initiatives?
It’s a purely propagandistic move, dictated by electoral pressure from the right by parties like Reform UK, and part of a now sadly well-established dynamic in European centre-left parties: competing with the right on its own ground, rather than changing the terms of the public discourse.
The idea is that by getting tough on migration, [the left] can win back support. But this is a dangerous illusion, because when it comes to detention, deportation and the criminalisation of mobility, the right is increasingly credible and effective. It cannot be defeated by using its own language, its own logic, its own tools. At that point, people will always prefer the original to the copy.
Starmer has also cut unemployment benefits and international cooperation funds to increase military spending.
This decision also fits perfectly into a trend that now affects most centre-left parties in Europe: the adoption of policies that, far from representing an alternative to neoliberalism or aggressive nationalism, simply become a “moderate” and equally harmful variant of them.
This is a choice that breaks sharply with the pacifist, internationalist and cosmopolitan tradition that, at least in theory, inspired the post-war ideal of Europe, which saw cooperation, social justice and international solidarity as the foundations of an order different from the one that had led to the catastrophes of the past.
In Confini di classe you describe the transformation of citizenship into a commodity to be acquired on the market. Trump is doing this in the United States, for example. What effect will deportations have on this transformation?
Deportation is the disciplinary tool of a state that, having abdicated the inclusive and democratic function of citizenship, makes it a mark of proprietary and identity-based belonging.
The practice contributes to normalising institutional violence, making it acceptable, legal, even necessary in the eyes of public opinion. Thus, what should be seen as a failure of democratic politics (being unable to include) is reinterpreted as proof of efficiency (being able to exclude).
The conflict of identities, between “natives” and “immigrants”, “us” and “them”, seems to prevail over class conflict. How do you explain this?
It’s because we have lost the ability to articulate a structural critique of capitalism. We have stopped talking about the material roots of injustice, about the inequalities that are produced not by “cultural difference” but by position in social relations of production.
And so, instead of reading the conflict as a struggle between those who hold economic power and those who are excluded from it, we read it as a clash between identities, between “incompatible” communities, between “threatened” cultures.
In “Class Borders”, you talk about a “progressive dilemma” linked to immigration. Can you explain what this is?
This dilemma is often presented as a tragic choice between openness towards others and the protection of internal social cohesion. The argument is that immigration can undermine the material and cultural foundations of democratic solidarity: on the one hand, by putting pressure on social services; on the other, by undermining the cultural foundations of mutual trust necessary to sustain a universal welfare system.
‘We need a renewed focus on class, not as a simple economic identity, but as a political horizon capable of connecting both migrants and native workers in a common struggle against real oppression’
The responses to this dilemma have so far focused on two models: multicultural solidarity, which focuses on inclusion through the recognition of differences, and supranational solidarity, which seeks to extend redistributive mechanisms beyond the borders of the nation state, for example at the European level.
But in both cases, a third possibility, which I consider central, has been overlooked: class solidarity.
How do you define the concept of class?
It is not simply an empirical category, it is a way of relating fragmented experiences, which allows us to identify the real power relations and to recognise ourselves not as isolated individuals or cultural victims, but as members of the same material condition.
How is class consciousness created today?
It depends on how you interpret your own experience, what concepts you associate with it, what collective tools you have to organise it. And this is where the importance of the role of parties and movements in building a hegemonic discourse becomes clear.
It’s a question of recovering a model of the party as a “Modern Prince”, as Gramsci said. If no one works alongside you, joins your battles and explains that your precarity is linked to the financialisation of the economy, the dismantling of welfare, the offshoring of jobs, then it’s easy to believe that you’re threatened by the migrant who works for less, or by the refugee who “receives aid”. And it will continue to serve not those who are excluded, but those who want them to remain so.
How do you explain the idea of “cultural diversity”?
This is not the cause of the loss of solidarity. It is the abandonment of class as a common political subject that produces alienation, suspicion and fragmentation. The perversion of the relationship between the state and the market has led political parties to treat citizens as consumers and citizenship as a commodity.
We need a renewed focus on class, not as a simple economic identity, but as a political horizon capable of connecting both migrants and native workers in a common struggle against real oppression.
Only by returning to a structural reading of the conflict can we truly untangle the knot of the so-called progressive dilemma. Inequalities and problems of access to housing, education and healthcare do not stem from the presence of the other, but from an economic system that has privatised public goods, reduced labour to a commodity and emptied citizenship of its function of inclusion.
Yours is a story of immigration. To what extent did social class play a role?
My story is complex, but it began before my experience of migration. I grew up in communist Albania in a family of so-called “class enemies”, which in this case meant the upper middle class and the aristocracy of the pre-communist period. The experience of migrating to Italy in the 1990s, during the period of intense racism towards Albanians, made me discover my identity as an Albanian from a Muslim family, and made me reflect on the relationship between class and ethnicity on the one hand, and between class identity and class consciousness on the other.
What do you think of your situation today?
I am a “privileged” immigrant, I have passed the various language and citizenship tests and am no longer considered a burden on society. But I don’t know how long this will last. If the right-wing assault continues, I doubt it will stop with illegal immigration.
When it comes to identitarian hunting, all you need is a different surname to be targeted. It happened in the past to those with the surnames Goldstein or Levi, and it could happen now to those called Mohammed or Abdallah.
This is another reason why it is so important to thoroughly expose identity-based narratives, so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
👉 Original version on Il Manifesto
A conversation with investigative reporters Stefano Valentino and Giorgio Michalopoulos, who have dissected the dark underbelly of green finance for Voxeurop and won several awards for their work.
Go to the event >
Join the discussion
Become a member to translate comments and participate