When the British Prime Minister attended a fascist rally in Rome on the weekend, he crossed a line. When he claimed in his speech at that fascist rally that "our enemies... will use migration as a weapon, deliberately driving people to our shores to try to destabilise our societies," he crossed a line.
In the year to June 2023, the British government allowed 1,200,000 people to come to Britain, of whom 40,000 arrived on 'small boats' seeking asylum. In the previous year, the figures were 1,100,000 and 35,000 respectively. To pretend that the 3% of all immigrants who come to Britain as asylum seekers in small boats are 'deliberately driven by our enemies to destabilise British society' is a very convenient scapegoat for a Prime Minister eager to distract from the many failings in British society. It is the Prime Minister's claim that has the deliberately destabilising effect.
Asylum seekers were not responsible for Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss or Sunak himself.
Asylum seekers were not responsible for the need to bail out our banks during the financial crisis or the crippling austerity budgets that followed.
Asylum seekers were not responsible for Britain's disastrous decision to leave the EU Single Market and Customs Union.
Asylum seekers were not responsible for perpetrating the vast financial waste and fraud during the Covid19 pandemic.
Asylum seekers were not responsible for ministers and officials partying while everyone else obeyed their Covid restrictions.
Asylum seekers were not responsible for sexual assaults by police officers or MPs.
Asylum seekers are not responsible for the sewage in our rivers or on our beaches.
Asylum seekers are not responsible for our crumbling hospitals, schools and courts, or the potholes in our roads.
Asylum seekers are not responsible for the lack of funding for legal aid, social care, education or social housing.
Asylum seekers are not responsible for our declining incomes, higher taxes and inflation.
Asylum seekers are not responsible for our bankrupt councils or the lack of government in Northern Ireland.
We were, and we are, responsible for all those things.
We elected the people responsible for those things and we keep electing the people who are responsible for those things.
Our enemies are within.
And we have a responsibility to put those things right. A responsibility to defeat the enemies within.
Not to blame vulnerable people in rubber dinghies for the problems that we created, that we tolerate, among the politicians and their donors and cronies.
We get the government we deserve. It's up to us to choose to deserve better.
No comments:
Post a Comment