Completely absent in this debate – which apparently we are all too frightened to have, yet we have constantly – is any sense of a better idea. If the problem with refugees is that they arrive illegally, would it help to have more legal routes? If the hotels are the issue, could we not work towards dispersal in the first instance, and much faster processing of claims? Is there no world in which we could engage imaginatively with the violence and upheaval that people are fleeing, and pull together to support them until they’re legally able to support themselves? That seems to be the reasonable expectation with Ukrainian refugees: if we can’t extend the same empathy to those from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Bangladesh, can anyone at least explain why? Would a refresher in the political context of those countries help? If the problem is the numbers, can anyone explain how many asylum seekers they would like instead? We currently rank fifth when compared to European nations in the absolute number of asylum claims received, and 17th when numbers are adjusted for population – should we be 20th?
Does anyone want to resile from the 1951 UN refugee convention? That would seem to be implicit in Reform UK’s promise to leave the European convention on human rights, but would any party or organisation that doesn’t want that care to explain how it is executing its duty towards refugees, and plans to do so in the future? The problem with anger as a political instrument – well, one of the problems, alongside the violence – is that it’s never called upon to be articulate or constructive. It would undermine its own strength if it were.
There was another element of the campaign that led to this ruling, which is subtle but important: the erasure of the category of refugee and asylum seeker. When you make the focus of your argument a hotel and its planning status, on the surface this is a battle over place. But if you take away the refuge someone is seeking, are they a refugee? If you take away the protection granted to them by the state, there is no asylum to claim. How, then, do we define these people? Without a political definition, do they exist? Even though the issue is very different, it’s not tactically dissimilar to the legal campaign waged against trans people, resulting in April’s ruling that everyone has to use the toilets and other facilities of their biological sex. It doesn’t say you have no right to live as trans; it’s just unfortunately impractical for you to do so unless you stay at home. Do you still exist, do you still have rights?
The problem with anger in politics is that combustion is the only way to expend the built-up energy. It’s much easier to keep things humane and civilised in the first place. But it’s too late to wish we had done that – an injection of humanity is the only way to cool things down.
Somebody needs to start answering these questions.
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