'All the times Tory immigration policy was a lot like the Nazis'
And now here comes Gary Lineker, he's got an opinion about the government's asylum policy and he isn't afraid to tweet it.
Some Tories are goose-stepping onto the pitch, shouting about how they're not Nazis and he shouldn't say they are and if he's not more impartial he'll be up against the wall.
And there's the BBC, they've tripped themselves up, fouled themselves, suspended their star striker and seem to be following a completely bizarre set of rules even they don't understand. And now, oh look, the striker's back off the bench! He's scored an internal review, and the Tories are in a right old lather!
They think it's all over, and it isn't.
Ooh that's got to hurt (Monte Fresco / Daily Mirror)When a former footballer-turned-presenter commented that the latest Tory immigration policy was "reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s" it caused the sort of row only the BBC is capable of making worse. Tory wingnuts kicked off, the BBC demanded he apologise, and when he refused they told him to stay away from the studio. That in turn led to a mass-walkout by BBC sport presenters, pundits and commentators, which meant a flagship Saturday night show ran for just a quarter of its usual time, without the expert analysis it has spent millions on, but conversely got a ratings boost as everyone turned in to see how bad it was.
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Come Monday morning, the Beeb has backed down and announced a review, Lineker can probably expect a pay bump when his contract's up for renewal, and predictably-thick Tories, many of whom happily break Ofcom impartiality rules by presenting their own news programmes on Right-wing news channels, are trying to work out if they're for or against cancel culture.
All of which rather overlooks the fundamental point. Are the Tory government's immigration policies reminiscent of 1930s Germany, or not?
Spoiler alert: HELL YES.
Tories: can't even grasp the dress code at football, never mind the offside rule (The FA via Getty Images)1. The hostile environment
In 2012, Home Secretary Theresa May said she wanted to create "a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants". She was warned by internal reviews that her Immigration Bill would deny housing, driving licences, and bank accounts to foreign nationals. She also introduced biometric ID cards for asylum seekers. In 1930s Germany, the Nazis also "encouraged" Jewish people to emigrate voluntarily by banning them from housing, inter-marriage, and work, and forced them to carry identity cards.
2. The Rwanda plan
Legislation introduced by later Home Secretary Priti Patel made it lawful for stateless people to be forcibly deported to the African nation of Rwanda, a country where the government 'disappears' its critics, and from which they would never be able to return to the UK. In 1940, Hitler decreed that a million Jews a year would be forcibly deported to the African island of Madagascar, from which they could never return, as it would be run as a police state by the SS which 'disappeared' just about anyone.
3. Go home vans
In 2013, Home Secretary Theresa May spent almost £10,000 on an advertising campaign in which vans plastered with the phrase "GO HOME OR FACE ARREST" were sent to areas with high migrant populations. Eighty years earlier, in 1933, the Nazis' assault on Jewish people began. After the destruction of Kristalllnacht, 30,000 were arrested. As a result, thousands more tried to flee. The Nazis' official policy was that Jews should also be encouraged to leave, right up to the point the policy became murder instead.
One of the 'go home' vans (PA)4. Making people stateless
Last year the Nationality and Borders Act expanded government powers to render people stateless without notice. The Statelessness Index says "the UK government has far-reaching powers to deprive British nationals of their nationality" and there is no time limit on detention on immigration grounds.
According to Home Office figures, fewer than a dozen people were stripped of citizenship between 1973 and 2006. Between 2010 when the Tories came to power and 2020, it was more than 450. The international treaties forbidding nations from doing this were written as a direct result of the Holocaust, co-authored and co-signed by the UK.
5. Shutting down the media
Whenever the above Tory policies drew criticism, the BBC was accused of not being impartial. This deflections led to increased BBC navel-gazing, intestinal bureaucracy, and eventually inserting a former Tory councillor as Director-General, a Tory donor and loan-fixer as Chairman, and a former Tory spin doctor on the BBC board. They cancelled satirical comedy show The Mash Report, the newspaper reviews which allowed a wide range of views to be aired, and this month dumped an episode of Sir David Attenborough's nature documentary on iPlayer because it criticised recent farming policies.
By focusing the row on the BBC, the rest of the media reported on the BBC rather than, for example, the criticism, the satire, the views, or the farming policies.
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6. Blaming refugees
Tory MPs and their mouthpieces have said, repeatedly, that asylum seekers bring terror to our shores. That those who do not support their laws are "betraying Britain". That our housing shortage, NHS crisis, underfunded schools and struggling economy are somehow the fault of those people who arrive without the correct paperwork.
Thatcher sold off the houses, the NHS has been intentionally defunded since 2010, schools have been denied money for rebuilding programmes and the economy is literally the fault of the people in Downing Street, not the people in a dinghy.
But the real hint that Tory rhetoric is reminiscent of Germany in the 1930s?
7. Because Holocaust survivors said so
Last year, Braverman was sent an open letter by people who had escaped the Nazis. They told her: "Think before you speak. Your dehumanising language about people seeking asylum is dangerous... The horrors we experienced began inch by inch, by taking away people’s humanity, and casting them as threats, as others, as less than human. We’ve seen where this path can go. But when we treat people with compassion and dignity, our communities, and our countries, are better for it."
When Lineker said the rhetoric was a bit like the Nazis, Braverman pronounced herself offended as her husband was Jewish, and accuse him of belittling the Holocaust. When those who survived the genocide wrote to her, there was no public response at all.
But there the similarities end. The Nazis created a dictatorship, murdered 6million people, and waged war with the whole world. The Tories are still subject to democratic votes, their laws may be unpicked, and their wars are internal, with the BBC used for target practice. It is only the rhetoric, so far, which echoes humanity's darkest times.
The arguments about impartiality at the BBC made it the most biased it's ever been. the hostile environment and dog-whistle immigration policies to be strictly accurate began under New Labour, and there's no indication that if she became Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper would have any more workable solution to how to stop criminals trafficking vulnerable people across dangerous seas.
Labour decided in 2002 to ban asylum seekers from the right to work and earn a living while their claim was assessed. With a stroke, they made it harder for refugees to assimilate or to be seen, created a government bill for detention, and turned people who could otherwise be a tax-creating asset into a resented, taxpayer cost. It was not a million miles from the Nazi laws denying work to Jews, forcing them into ghettoes, and othering them to the extent that the rest of the population saw no problem with it.
The truth is that with climate change, failed states, and war people will want to move home. We would, if it was us. The proper way of dealing with it is to fix the things going wrong, as well as granting a safe haven for those who have a tie to another country.
If those seeking our votes worry about being compared to the Nazis, they could perhaps try not sound quite so much like them.
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