News

Words that can start fires

7 March 2023

It’s not just the lack of safe routes that is pushing desperate people into small boats, it’s also the government's racist rhetoric.

Each time the Home Secretary utters her incendiary rhetoric, more desperate refugees - with no safe alternative - pile into small boats, risking their lives.

The far right is capitalising on the false illusion peddled by Braverman that all refugees are trying to come here. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Most refugees remain in the regions of conflict, and the UK is low on the list of countries to go to.

*Why did Braverman not mention the 220K Visas issued to Ukrainians coming here under safe humanitarian routes or the 150K Hong Kong residents who came here since June 2020?

These are much larger numbers, legal routes, yet she falsely implied that 100M "migrants" are on their way here. They are not. A tiny fraction of the world's refugee population makes their way to the UK because they may have family connections here or because of language, work, or study.

This ratcheting up of racist rhetoric has to stop. This false and fascistic messaging is repeated and continually filtering down to the street. Words have consequences.

Why is the Home Secretary implying that there is a vast influx of refugees when the numbers show otherwise? Because hate generates likes and follows. It doesn't matter if it's not the truth. Get some ignorant racists to spout lies enough times, and people believe it.

It's in Braverman's interest to bait Muslims, migrants, and minorities, whip up hatred and throw every dog whistle. Divert the masses from real crimes like the incompetence of government, like the billionaires that don't pay taxes, or the corporate multinationals profiting from keeping refugees in asylum accommodation.

The people at most significant risk are those refugees accommodated in hotels dotted all over this country that are being targeted by the far right, like tinderboxes waiting for a spark.

People in these hotels live a miserable existence, on £9 a week, unable to start their lives. Meanwhile, they notice the differential treatment.

Ukrainian war refugees are being provided with free travel, the right to work, benefits and safe passage for themselves and even for their cats and dogs so that they can resettle. And then you get the far right claiming that refugees are being put up in expensive hotels. At the same time, brown and black people are demonised and left to drown like we are not human.

They are merely providing a profit for asylum accommodation contractors like Mears and SERCO, shipped like parcels between hotels wherever a profit can be made, with no regard for their local connection to family, lawyers, universities or urgent medical appointments.

We urge the Home Secretary to stop ramping up her fascistic rhetoric.

The Home Office's failure to plan has resulted in millions of pounds spent on hotel accommodation that goes to contractors - not refugees. And now this Home Secretary is about to spend billions of pounds of taxpayers' money on sending brown and black refugees to Rwanda. To what end?

There is no vast influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in a language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s. This is no slur. It is a fact. The Home Secretary has crossed a red line. Fast forward to today; our mothers and fathers would be on those boats. Like drowning our mothers and fathers. Like sending them to Rwanda. Yet none of this cruelty will work. These are war refugees, and the words of politicians can start fires.

What measures has the Home Office taken to provide safe routes for refugees from other conflict regions like Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen? One word. None. There are no safe routes. Brown and black refugees are - literally - left to drown.

Don't blame refugees. Braverman knows what she is doing. She and the rest of the government are burying their gross incompetence in bad news by scapegoating refugees. The Home Office spends millions a day on hotels because it failed to plan for the year-on-year rise anticipated in the global refugee crisis, like building housing. How effective is the Home Office's plan to send refugees to Rwanda, and what are the potential consequences of this decision? Short answer: it isn't. They are going to spend BILLIONS sending refugees to Rwanda, only for those refugees to pay people smugglers to bring them back to Europe several months later.

Robina Qureshi

***

Home Office figures:

As of 28 February 2023, 220,300 Ukraine Scheme visas had been issued to Ukrainians fleeing the war (Ukraine Family Scheme visas: 66,300; Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme visas: 153,900).

Over 144,000 Hong Kongers have moved to the UK in two years since the launch of the BNO visa scheme. The Home Office launched this emigration path after Beijing imposed the national security law on the city in June 2020.

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