What the hell just happened? When parliament rose for the summer recess, the debate about immigration was still – just about – the right side of toxic. There was a pretence at least that the people coming to this country, either legally or by small boat crossings, were human beings just like us. They lived and breathed. Had feelings.
Fast forward six weeks, in which government ministers have been putting their feet up doing not very much apart from intermittent attempts to stop the wars in Ukraine and Gaza – that went well – and the public discourse, stirred by Nigel Farage’s weekly press conferences, has altered radically.
Forget George Orwell’s “Two Minutes Hate”. That was strictly for amateurs. If you haven’t got in a full half hour of loathing for foreigners then you clearly don’t love your country very much. And this hate is no longer confined to the far right. Even some bien-pensants of the centre left are joining in. Everyone now has licence to hate. The fightback against foreigners starts here.
It’s a time of very public displays. Come draped in flags and colour in roundabouts with the cross of St George. Anything to make foreigners feel unwelcome. If they don’t like it, then they know what they can do.
Even the language has changed. Immigrants are no longer immigrants. They are sex offenders in waiting. With Nige’s prodding we are encouraged to think of them as invaders. A scourge on a country that for far too long has been treated as a soft touch.
A moment in time for true Brits to rise up and come to the defence of Lucy Connolly. A true red, white and blue patriot who had the courage to call for hotels to be set on fire while the asylum seekers were still inside. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to do that? It’s only the last vestiges of woke holding you back. Never mind that Connolly admitted her guilt and was sentenced by a judge, she was the champion of free speech and the victim of a two-tier judicial system. Her release from prison after serving 40% of her 31-month sentence before being freed on licence was the righting of a miscarriage of justice.
An age of a new morality. When Richard Tice, a newly self-appointed archbishop of Canterbury, declares himself to be better versed in the Christian scriptures than the archbishop of York. Because what God wants is for all Brits to be able to live in a country where 600,000 foreigners have been deported. Enough is enough. Our suffering is far greater than theirs. God has always been a Brit at heart. He’s one of us. As are the Taliban.
At a press conference on Monday morning, Dicky declared himself relaxed about sending refugees back to a country where they might be tortured or executed.
All of which is tricky for the Labour government. Because with anti-migrant rhetoric reaching fever pitch, Keir Starmer clearly reckons he has little choice but to lean into it if he wants to boost his flatlining popularity ratings. After all, he was elected on a promise to stop the small boats, and the people crossings – albeit with a small drop in August – are now at record levels. Keir is looking increasingly shell-shocked. Yet another reshuffle, another reset and a radio interview on Monday afternoon in which he declared a love of flags. “I love flags, me.” You can almost smell the desperation.
So on the first day back in the Commons, it was left to Yvette Cooper to give a statement. To try to convince the right and the centre that she had what it takes to be tough and the left that she still had some compassion. And herself that she had something more than a ”one in, one out” pilot scheme with the French as a plan. It’s slowly dawning on the government that the appeal court’s decision on the Bell hotel in Epping was a breather, not a victory.
What followed was a collective display of amnesia from the home secretary and Chris Philp. Cooper began by saying the situation she had inherited had been terrible and that everything was the fault of the Tories. Which was fine as far as it went. Only she rather entered the world of fantasy by appealing to her own record of dealing with the problem. All things considered, everything was going swimmingly, she said. Just not if your prime goal is to stop people arriving by small boats. Just give her a little while longer and the sclerotic system would be fixed and every hotel closed. Not forgetting a small tweak to family reunion law. Schrödinger’s European convention on human rights. There and not there.
The Philpster’s forgetfulness was more forgivable. Mostly because he’s not very bright and not a serious shadow home secretary. More like someone from CCHQ on work experience. A quarter wit in a shiny suit. There again, Chris has got a lot to forget. Hard to believe, I know, but not so long ago he was the immigration minister on whose watch the number of small boat crossings soared and who actively went out of his way to requisition more hotels.
You’d have thought he might have been embarrassed about that. There again, he has no shame. Rather he just dribbles out some nonsense about deporting everyone and that every asylum seeker is a rapist. He even had the front to bring up the pointless Rwanda scheme, while boasting it had removed four volunteers in two years. His Tory colleagues held their heads in despair.
Neil Hudson, the Tory MP for Epping, declared his constituency to be a tinderbox. Dicky Tice, Lee Anderson and the Philpster all looked priapic at the thought. Just what they wanted to hear. A country on the edge. Cooper tried to calm them down by saying that she too loved the flag. It’s become a competition. You wouldn’t put it past Kemi Badenoch to come to prime minister’s questions draped in a St George’s flag.
That just left time for Esther McVey. The government was putting immigrants before born and bred Brits. Bridget Phillipson had admitted as much the previous day. Cooper was outraged. How dare Esther accuse her of compassion. She was a tough home secretary for tough times. Phillipson had been guilty of thought crimes. School has not yet started and the education secretary is already on the naughty step.
