Activists demand that Britain welcomes refugees at this year’s March Against Racism in central London. (Picture: Alisdare Hickson)
As Tories ramp up vilification of refugees, a white man armed with petrol bombs attacked an immigration processing centre in Dover, Kent, on Sunday. He threw three petrol bombs attached to fireworks and reportedly killed himself afterwards. Two of the bombs went off and a fourth was found in his car.
Such assaults are the inevitable result of the relentless anti-migrant propaganda from the state and large parts of the media. If, as the Tories do, you demonise refugees, denounce them as fakes and scroungers, and dream of despatching them to Rwanda then some people will take that as a cue to violence.
Far from backing off, the Tories are piling on the incitement. In parliament on Monday, home secretary Suella Braverman said the public needs to know which party is serious about “stopping the invasion” of migrants to Britain. She said illegal migration was “out of control”. Her language is the sort of vile rhetoric that was until recently the ranting of fascists.
The cruelty of the state reflects itself in far right views and the horror of a man trying to set fire to desperate women, men and children crushed into a detention centre. The Dover site remains open, but 700 migrants were moved to Manston detention centre—where disease is allowed to run rampant.
The attack is not being treated as a terrorist act. Instead, it is being justified by “rising tensions” in Dover. Even while reporting what happened on Sunday, the right wing press focused on the number of refugees’ Channel crossings—blaming the migrants attempting to reach safety.
Far from being outraged, a local Tory councillor Nigel Collor said, “If they stopped the boats coming in you wouldn’t have the problem.” The number of asylum applications in Britain is still low in comparison to other European countries.
In the year ending March 2022, Germany received the highest number of asylum applicants—164,925—in the European Union, followed by France at 112,860. Britain received 66,838—including both main applicants and dependants. The crisis isn’t too many migrants, it’s a crisis of racism.
Braverman called the attack “distressing”. Her foul dream to deport refugees to Rwanda is typical of the driving forces behind such an attack. The Times newspaper simultaneously ran a story claiming locals in Dover are “sleeping with sledgehammers by their beds” due to fear of migrants.
Clare Moseley, founder of charity Care4Calais, said, “We are seeing an escalation in hate on social media and threats against our volunteers. The rhetoric from this government’s ministers is shocking and divisive. They call refugees in Calais ‘illegal immigrants’ despite extensive evidence they are genuine refugees in desperate need of help.”
The attack came as Rishi Sunak spoke with French president Emmanuel Macron about making the Channel “completely unviable” for people traffickers. But traffickers make a business out of dangerous crossings because there is no other way to reach Britain.By law, refugees must be physically present in Britain to claim asylum. Yet there is no visa to travel for that reason.
Former prime minister Boris Johnson and former home secretary Priti Patel worked with the French government to increase patrols and surveillance. The consequence was 27 migrants drowning. French anti-racist campaign group Utopia 56 tweeted that the objective is “to make them disappear”.
“The government’s policy is to tirelessly stigmatise these people by forcing them into the streets,” it said. “In nine months, France was able to accommodate 100,000 people fleeing the war in Ukraine. We are not talking about ability, but will.”
Shutting the borders and dumping refugees in Rwanda is the Tories’ plan. Refugees won’t stop fleeing to Britain for safety—we say open the borders and let them in.
The Labour Party has offered no serious opposition to right wing attacks on refugees. Instead it battles to seem like a safer pair of hands to keep refugees out.
A few days ago Labour leader Keir Starmer admitted there is “not a great deal” of difference between Labour and the Conservatives on immigration. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper dodged questions about migration numbers last weekend.
“The whole point of a points-based system ought to be that actually you look at it area by area rather than having net migration targets,” she said. Her only criticism of home secretary Suella Braverman was “trying to return to the failed net migration target that we had.”
Cooper criticised the overcrowding and conditions at Manston detention centre. But Labour has made it clear it wanted more money spent on imposing anti-asylum laws quicker. It follows shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ call for faster deportations. The Labour Party plays the role of trying to give anti-migrant racism a more acceptable face.
Home secretary Suella Braverman is rightly being blamed for appalling conditions refugees caged in the former Royal Air Force base at Manston, Kent, face. Braverman ignored warnings and refused to allow the transfer of migrants to hotels, leading to overcrowding and disease including diphtheria and scabies.
Last week Independent Inspector of Borders David Neal told MPs the situation at the centre was “wretched”. Manston was designed to process around 1,000 people at a time. But the Home Affairs Committee was told there are close to 3,000 housed there, including unaccompanied children. Most come from Syria, Iran and Afghanistan—driven from their homes by the West’s wars.
Following the petrol bombing of the migrant centre in Dover, coaches transported more than 700 migrants from there to Manston last Sunday. Neal said he had been left speechless by the “really dangerous” situation he found at the centre when he visited. He said he met families who had been there for weeks, including a family who had been sleeping on mats on the floor of a temporary marquee for 32 days.
Two weeks earlier the Refugee Council warned that Marston was dreadful. It said one 17 year old was held at Manston for 19 days, even though the Home Office said the maximum stay should be 48 hours.
The Tories’ response is to say that too many people are seeking asylum in Britain. On Monday ministers said, “We do want to proceed with the Rwanda policy, which we believe will have a significant deterrent effect.”
Refugees in Manston are surrounded by barbed wire and referred to by number rather than name. It is this dehumanisation of people seeking asylum that gives rise to the hate aimed at them.
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