Throughout British history, the political sphere has been stalked by a far-right shadow. One of the earliest examples being the British Union of Fascists, but more contemporary examples include the British National Party, or the UKIP, now known as ‘Reform UK’. With this phenomenon being a relative constant, (what were) fringe, somewhat extremist, racialist viewpoints would be isolated and ignored, written off as nothing more than unsubstantial reactionism from one of the aforementioned micro parties. There have only been a few instances of such beliefs being presented by a major party’s senior personnel. A cabinet minister, the Home Secretary, from a majority conservative government in a western democracy takes the cake. Suella Braverman’s campaign of hatred, bigotry and a diminishing sense of international accountability has been exemplified most recently by her ‘hurricane’ of mass migration speech, claiming that the Human Rights Act (which protects refugees) is little more than the ‘Criminal Rights Act’, giving ‘criminals and illegal migrants’ the upper hand.
The speech, delivered to the Conservatives in Manchester, reads like an unhinged polemic comparable to Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’, where he detailed the ‘great replacement’ of the white man in the United Kingdom and how in ‘15 or 20 years’ time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man.’ The difference is, former shadow cabinet minister Powell was sacked immediately after his speech for racism, inciting violence and being highly inflammatory. That was in 1966. Today, Braverman presents a near-identical speech in tone, message and delivery, yet in 2023 the best the Conservative party can offer in contest is having the Prime Minister haphazardly suggest he disagrees with her. Braverman’s speech is not the first of its kind either, merely days beforehand we heard from her the extent to which ‘multiculturalism has failed’ the United Kingdom. There are a wealth of other articles combatting the ethics and morality of such a claim, so I wish not to focus mine on that too, but rather the blatant invalidity of it.
Yes, Braverman’s hate riddled speeches fail to account for any humanity, but it is also this hatred that blinds her to the facts. In order to produce a thought process even similar to Powell, She must’ve completely forgotten to look at the statistics in relation to the matter. The United Kingdom, as of 2023, has 1.1m job vacancies throughout the public and private sectors. Combine this with a declining birth rate and shrinking ‘native’ population, with more people than ever in retirement, and you have what is a national workforce and population crisis. Why, then, would the answer be to see migrants, who have crossed war zones, lethal waters and economic hardship, desperately seeking a stable job and a place to call home, as an invading ‘hurricane’, rather than a force for good? These are people who want to wake up, put a uniform on and work a 9-5. They want to come home, dress their children for a game at the local football club, children who will go on to contribute to our society.
These are people who want to fill the 1.1m jobs we have going. To demonise them as anything else, as Braverman would know if she paid more attention to her parents (who are first generation immigrants), would not only be a moral ravaging but plainly wrong. It is puzzling to wonder what Braverman thinks migrants risk their lives coming to the UK for. If she didn’t want them sitting around and ‘taking up space’, perhaps she and her party over the last thirteen years should not have invented such a flawed, delayed processing system for migrant arrivals that means they must wait in hotels and accommodations, unable to get a job or start their new lives for months, sometimes years, before their claims are processed.
If there is one thing we absolutely cannot lack as a nation it is the compassion, empathy and open mindedness that is so seldom seen throughout Braverman’s rhetoric. No society will survive if it attempts to be exclusive, history tells us this much. We must stamp out cheap shots at reactionism and attempts to shift the blame for problems in the system manufactured by our own government onto the people it affects. Refugees are welcome here.
