The U.K. proposed immigration legislation is dangerous. Be afraid and push back.
Don’t be deluded, what you see reflects a centuries old history of stirring up fear of difference. It never ends well.
British Home Secretary Stella Braverman’s Parliamentary presentation of the government’s. proposed approach to illegal immigration is a shade short of the rhetoric that preceded and built up to what became the Nazi Final Solution. If you are offended by that assessment then click away. If you’re curious then read on.
The key to understanding Braverman’s approach comes from understanding the language used in the context of the public mood.
In Braverman’s House of Commons presentation and as echoed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in his PMQ duel with Labour leader Kier Starmer, the one word that sticks out is ‘invasion’ as it relates to the small boats coming from France.
At an annual level, the some 40,000 crossings in 2022 sure sounds like an invasion. Couple that with a prediction (not backed by any other research) to suggest that this would double in 2023 and you can easily see why this might be alarming. But even if Braverman is proven correct then we are talking about 0.12% of the total British population. By anyone’s estimation, that’s a rounding error.
I have no issue with the general idea of curbing illegal immigration. In that sense, I’m sure I’m in a majority. Where I diverge is in the notion that the rights of those arriving by small boats are automatically designated as illegal and with few, if any rights to provide an asylum seeking argument. As UNHCR has said, this is flat out illegal under international law. Braverman herself believed this approach might fail. So why push this policy forward?
The only conclusion I can come up is that the strategy is designed to ignite a climate of fear that will eventually persuade the electorate that ANY policy, however inhumane, must be needed.
This is not new. Check your history books and you’ll find this approach has been successful in driving popular support over centuries. The most notable recent example is that of Nazi Germany, something to which Gary Lineker alluded in a Tweet that got him carpeted in the halls of the BBC. Think to 24/2022 and you see the same rhetoric coming from Putin in his justification for invading Ukraine. Go back a few years and you can look at the rhetoric employed by Radavan Karadzic to justify the terrible genocide of Bosniaks. Keep going back and you see this language as a way of justifying all manner of marginalising peoples. For those who are religious, check you Bible.
Am I too alarmist? I don’t think so. I’m old enough to remember U.K. race riots following the incendiary speeches of Enoch Powell and his rivers of blood speech.
As the member of a multicultural family with roots in the U.K., Caribbean, India and Pakistan, we have many conversations on this topic. My children and grandchildren often quiz me about race, as they should. They often express confusion about the political rhetoric and don’t understand why the political class seems hell bent on sowing fear. I get it and as a white middle class older person, it’s not easy to come up with good answers.
Looking back, I recall when Jews were the subject of racism, even in a post WWII world. What I see today reflects that same shitty way of assessing difference. What all of those who poke crap at others fail to recognise is the value that diversity adds to society. So while Braverman & Crew choose to vilify those who arrive to the U.K. by irregular means, I’d love to taste an authentic Syrian, Afghani, Iranian meal.
The danger of sloughing this problem off is a degraded society. Who wants that?