Home Secretary, Suella Braverman MP, calls asylum seekers travelling here in small boats across the English Channel an “invasion.”
One of her predecessors, Priti Patel MP, called them ‘illegal immigrants’.
They are mostly desperate, destitute, often stateless men, women and children fleeing from war, torture, oppression, sex-trafficking and persecution.
And the conditions when they arrive on these shores are often appalling.
As Owen Jones points out in The Guardian today about the Manston ‘processing centre’ for ‘migrants’ in Kent:
‘Most people would find the conditions at Manston intolerable if it were housing cats and dogs, let alone people’
He rightly points out that our political masters scapegoat asylum seekers to cover up
‘their failure to provide the citizens of a wealthy nation with a comfortable standard of living and adequate public provision.’
After all, a government that shows no compassion for destitute asylum seekers is hardly going to show compassion for our poor and destitute either.
The bottom line is that the Conservatives in charge today have and show NO compassion.
Those WITH compassion have condemned Home Secretary Braverman for her ‘inflammatory language’ in claiming that asylum seekers are engaged in an ‘invasion’ of the south coast.
Care4Calais, a charity I support that works with refugees, described Ms Braverman’s rhetoric as ‘incredibly offensive’.
The charity commented:
‘Refugees are escaping from conflicts – they know what being invaded feels like. We are lucky that many of us do not.
‘To suggest that they are committing an act of war, when that is what they are fleeing, is indefensible.’
Let’s put this into context.
Britons have probably been the most prolific illegal immigrants in the planet’s history.
Not to claim asylum in other countries. No.
Mostly to plunder other countries of their riches, which to this day has contributed to the world’s enormously lopsided north-south wealth divide, and the cause of so many displaced peoples.
The British have ‘invaded’ almost every country.
Nearly 90 per cent of the planet’s nations have at various times in history been attacked by the British, according to a list of British conquests compiled by historian and author Stuart Laycock for his book:
‘All the Countries We’ve Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To‘
The irony.
We invaded and colonised them in old days, bombed them in modern days, and now complain that a few thousands of them reach out to us for asylum.
Instead of helping, our government wants to wash their hands of them and accommodate them in appalling conditions before despatching them to Rwanda.
𝗧𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗴𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁.
𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗵𝗼𝘄𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹, 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 Care4Calais 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆, 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝘂𝗴𝗲𝗲𝘀.
‘All the Countries We’ve Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To’ by Stuart Laycock https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Countries…/dp/0752479695/
