The BBC was talking about the need to ‘stop the boats' this morning as if this was the biggest issued in UK politics right now. It is not. It is just a three world slogan created by the Tories to describe a political crisis of their own deliberate making.
There need be no small boat crisis in the English Channel. We could let people wishing to apply for asylum in the UK do so outside the country. Or we could provide them with safe passage here so that their application could be considered in this country. But the Tories refuse to do either when both would, overnight, solve both the small boats problem and end the people trafficker's trade. But they want neither such thing. They want this crisis that they have manufactured.
Nor does there need to be a backlog in the processing of asylum application claims in the UK. Recruitment of people to process those claims should not be hard to do. But the government does not want to do that. It would rather there were riots outside hotels where asylum seekers are being housed. That is another crisis that they have chosen to manufacture.
A fast-tracking process for those from countries where people are known to be at risk would also solve most of this issue, allowing attention to be given to the more difficult claims. But again the Tories do n0t want that. They are refusing to manage so that people suffer instead.
Why are they doing that? There are three reasons.
One is so that they can create a three word slogan that dominates the news agenda even though the NHS, the cost of living crisis, the scandal of high interest rates, pay disputes, the fallout of Brexit, collapsing public services and so much else are all so much more important. And the media, and most especially the BBC, fall for it.
Second, they are doing this to promote fascism. When everything else they are doing is failing - as it is - fascism is their only route to re-election, and so they are going to use it. From now until whenever the election is (presuming that they do not try to cancel it) we will be battered by messages that promote division and hate of ‘the other'. Migrants are one of ‘the others'. Expect others to be added to the list, with those claiming benefits the most obvious next target.
Third, they know Labour will play to their tune. Today Yvette Cooper was asked what she was going to do to ‘stop the boats' on Radio 4 and she did nothing to challenge the interviewer. Instead she accepted this was the issue without saying it was not and that she wished to discuss other issues. Whilst Labour is so supine the Tories will keep doing this.
Let me be clear then. There need be no small boat crisis. It could be solved by rapid, easy to work out and simple policy changes. So let usstop pretending that Tory manufactured crises are real. They are not. They are its news agenda. But people suffer as a result. That is how callous they are. And this is only the start.
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Agreed, in Germany in the 1930’s the Nazis used the phrase “Die Juden sind unser Ungluck” = the Jews are our misfortune. Blaming others is what they did and so do the Tories
“Stop the boats”, literally on the PM’s lectern tells you all you need to know about the policy. Red meat thrown into the cage. Sunak turned PMQs into a hysterical “Stop the Boats” attack on Labour. The low grade crudity to which Sunak is prepared to sink, purely to find some way to deflect public attention from the wreck the Conservatives have made of the British economy, with no way out of the mess – is breathtaking. He is demonstrating that he simply has no standards at all.
The Conservative policy on immigration has been a spectacular catastrophe over the last thirteen years. Failure. Failure. Failure. Failure. The Conservative Party can’t defend their record. The Home Secretary can’t defend it. Even the PM can’t defend it. The new policy now, like every one in the past marches down the same failed policy road; each one ratcheted up to a greater extreme of failed brute solutions; waste money, provide inadequate resources, expect the rest of the world to act as a shield for Britain against a world on the move. Be very clear, the assertion that refugees are obliged to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach is both untrue, and unsustainable. ‘Frontline’ countries cannot absorb the burden. In the end, we are all Europeans. Why do the Conservatives insist on the ‘first safe country’ idea’? Because they think if that rule applied universally, nobody would ever reach Britain. It is British exceptionalism, gone mad.
The Conservatives think the British people are stupid enough to believe them again, and their ‘stop the boats’ proposition; or that they can bribe poor African countries to take any immigrants who inconveniently arrive here; but Europe is not going to take the burden and allow Britain simply to avoid this historic world movement of people; that in part is an inevitable side-effect of economic Globalisation that Conservatives have so greedily pursued, and that Conservatives bought wholesale; when they thought Globalisation came cheap, with someone else, somewhere else carrying the can.
The fact is that most people seeking asylum or refuge do seek to stay near their original home.
The UNHCR reckons that there are 103 million people who are forcibly displaced around the world (likely higher now – that estimate comes from mid-2022).
That includes 53 million people who are internally displaced, 32 million who are refugees, and nearly 5 million seeking asylum.
Turkey hosts 3.7 million refugees. And there over 2 million in Germany. Millions more in Colombia, Pakistan, and Uganda.
https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/
The UK’s contribution – and our focus on a few tens of thousands of people seeking asylum here – is almost trivial by comparison.
Sunbak lied, of course
He sadi this data suggested 100 million people wanted to come to the UK
That was completely untrue
And your comment is right
I am in Australia and ashamed that this is a policy we exported. I saw Rishi Sunak parroting exactly the same rhetoric. One of the problems here is misrepresentation, calling them ‘illegal immigrants’ when in fact these people are mostly asylum seekers lawful under international law and treaties regardless of how they arrive. The core principle is non-refoulement, sending them back to a country where they face torture, death etc. The problem in Australia is that these people were sent into offshore detention, which in itself is inhumane. I sincerely hope that England drops this awful policy quickly, it will lead to enormous suffering.
Thanks
Exactly.
This morning’s r4 BBC headline take on boats is its own desperate desire to be ‘impartial’ – and therefore whether Lineker should be sacked.
Its present definition of impartial is to accept more or less without question what the governments signals as its own ‘comms’ agenda – which at present is boats.
Emily Maitlis – showed how the governemtn agents inside the BBC work:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/aug/24/emily-maitlis-says-active-tory-party-agent-shaping-bbc-news-output
Tom Mills book argues that the BBC has always been the mouthpiece of the establishment – has never been ‘independent’:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32933752-the-bbc
Perhaps the BBC could redefine ‘impartial’ as being equally querying and sceptical of all sides – and especially the government. But the one thing it has stopped doing more or less entirely is investigative journalism – at least in relation to mainstream politics. It shows no sense of curiosity. Simply giving a platform to both sides – (in the ratio of 3 to 1 or worse) is not being impartial. But its not going to change.
I suppose we should still file written complaints – so they have to write down their contortious reasoning to justify what they do.
In a decent world and political system an issue like this would be de-politicized to the extent that as a humanitarian issue it would be nice to have politicians who could agree on a consensus like the simple policy changes that you suggest here. They should recognize the human suffering rather than playing politics with it. I find it disgusting and unfortunate that Labour want to play the political game as well and seem afraid to stand up to the Tories on what is a humanitarian issue.
The Tories are now showing their true colours. They have always relied on the politics of hate, spite, blame culture, finger pointing. They have always had a hit list of right wing easy targets, immigrants, asylum seekers, single mothers, the unemployed, trade unions, etc. The Tories, dead in the polls, are falling back on this game plan. It has always been part of their game plan, but now with the economy and public services going down the pan, Brexit a disaster, a cost of living crisis, sleaze and lies, what else do they have? They have failed at everything meaningful. They are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
It’s fascism when you have a Prime Minister standing up in Parliament and being cheered for saying that he opposes freedom of movement as if it’s a badge of honor. Sunak says that he is doing this for the British people. Loads of Tories cheering with smiles on their faces at the thought of defying international law and human rights. Well, don’t include me in that.
Me neither
How about some counter-slogans…?
Tories Divide Us
Tories Fail Again
Sunak Leading Nowhere
Austerity For Tories
A competition?
Other suggestions are welcome
If I edited a Red Top?
Sunak Sunk?
Has to be an active, imperative verb start. A verb with a hard consonant. “Get”, “Stop”…
Hate the haters! (A universal one.)
Brilliant idea – 3 word slogan them back!
Blame Everyone Else
Make You Poorer
Destroy The NHS
Work You Longer
Stop The Yatchs (lol)
Trash Our Economy
Make Everything Worse
Increase Billionaire Wealth
International Laughing Stock
Fail The People
Destroy All Hope
Decimate Public Services
Sully Our Country
Shame Our Veterans
Worship Non-Doms
Take Your Rights
Gaslight The Gullible
Syphon Taxpayer Funds
We could have a field day with this.
I confess I know little about the journalist and commentator Ian Dunt, save that he is anti-Brexit (what’s not to like?) and writes for i-News; but I think his article on the ‘Stop the Boats’ policy makes some telling points; here: https://inews.co.uk/opinion/suella-braverman-asylum-bill-moral-degeneration-2195445
Incidentally, ‘Stop the Boats’ is not what this is about. We are not stopping empty boats. This is about how we treat people. so this is about the Boat People. The fact that the Conservatives try to make this about “Boats” is a cowardly evasion of the reality they are creating.
He is very scary on Twitter and very good
His book on being a liberal is worth reading.
Came across this on Twitter
Tories – Strong against the weak and weak against the strong.