The Royal College of Psychiatry has just expressed concern that asylum seekers, who have endured physical and psychological harm, are being “retraumatised” by our immigration rules and that “a robust immigration policy can still be guided by human kindness”.
Millions of Britons believe these claimants are liars. In fact, between 2018-22, over 70 per cent were allowed to stay because their stories checked out.
Exiles and other migrants and their children are highly aspirational. Most will strive to better themselves and add value to society.
I am encouraging a Syrian doctor, who has legal status, to get in to a recently announced British Medical Association scheme to help refugee medics get in to the NHS. The number of vacancies in the care sector has fallen, because overseas carers are joining the workforce.
Great Britain would be a lesser place without super-migrants. Google’s AI genius Demis Hassabis, 48, born in London to a Singaporean mother and Greek father, has just won a joint Nobel Prize for chemistry. And award-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen, son of a Grenadian mother and a Bajan father, releases an atmospheric feature film on the Blitz this autumn.
Racists will go on demonising asylum seekers, undocumented migrants, immigrants, settlers from the east and south, and their British-born progeny. And though it feels abject, I will go on defending them.
White Zimbabweans, South Africans, Australians, New Zealanders and the approximately 200,000 Americans on these isles do not have to perform this wearisome duty. They are seen as kith and kin. But migrants of colour must always explain, prove ourselves over and over, accept insults and injuries and demonstrate that we are worthy of this country’s “generosity”. Some tell me to get on a dinghy and go “home”, that their country will be white and great again.
Hardly any current politician speaks up for migrants. They are that scared of Nigel Farage and his followers. When Enoch Powell – the Farage of his day – made his nasty, divisive, racist speeches demonising Caribbean arrivals, MPs and Tory leader Ted Heath faced him down. That doesn’t happen now.
After rioters expressed their anti-migrant revulsion violently, the Keir Starmer condemned their populism: “We have seen shocking scenes across our nation… Smashing up communities and terrifying minorities. Vandalising and destroying people’s property. Even trying to set fire to a building – with human beings inside it…”
But the Prime Minister did not make an unequivocal commitment to asylum rights. And there were no lofty words about talented and hard-working migrants continuously renewing and energising this old land. All too soon, the two main parties were bickering over who would be tough enough to “control” immigration and fretting about diversity and nationhood.
These duplicitous politics have played out since the Windrush generation landed. Some groups – too many conservative Muslims, say, and white, xenophobic nationalists – undeniably keep to their own. Governments need to plan interventions to encourage social cohesion.
But be wary of hard right-wingers like Tory leadership contender Kemi Badenoch, an assimilationist, who propagates supremacist values without shame: “Not all cultures are equally valid… Our country is not a dormitory for people to come here and make money. It is our home. Those we chose to welcome, we expect to share our values and contribute to our society.”
Now here’s Badenoch’s own migrant story, taken from a citation when she was made fellow of Birkbeck College, London: “Badenoch ended up with a British passport when her mother came to Britain to give birth. She grew up, however, in Nigeria, with frequent trips abroad, including the US.”
Badenoch moved here when the political situation got bad back home. I am sure those weeping, pregnant Syrian women would love to give their babies the same life chances. Ah, but the Nigerian culture is valid, Arab cultures are not.
Robert Jenrick, Badenoch’s rival, is also virulently anti-immigrant: “The world and his wife can’t come to Britain.” His own wife did come over and has done exceedingly well. Born in Israel, Michal Berkner studied in the United States and is a corporate London lawyer. OK for some, I guess.
Tighter and crueller immigration policies will never be hard enough for nativists. Nothing ever will be. But politicians keep on trying to placate them. Migrant bashing is now mainstream. We who feel the knocks can, I suppose, put up, shut up or get out.
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