Plan for asylum seekers is so cruel
The idea that the UK provided a safe and welcoming home for people fleeing war and conflicts is one of the central myths peddled by successive UK governments - and much of the British establishment.
Whether it is chartered deportation flights, the prison-like conditions of detention centres like Dungavel, the injustice of the Windrush scandal or the spectre of deportation vans and dawn raids, the Home Office has routinely targeted and punished some of the most vulnerable people in our communities.
Now that cruelty has escalated to a new level, with plans for the deportation from the UK to Rwanda of people seeking asylum, for the purpose of ‘processing’ them.
Many of the foundations for the hostile environment were put in place by Labour Home Secretaries, including much of the heartless and immoral detention and deportation infrastructure now fully taken advantage of by their Tory successors.
Behind every scare story or restriction, there are real people paying a terrible price.
We are often told that we are facing a ‘migration crisis’, but the real crises are the war, poverty and climate catastrophes which are forcing people to risk their lives to seek safety.
Five years ago, I saw the reality of this suffering when I joined a fact-finding trip to the islands of Sicily and Lampedusa.
While I was there I met Vivien, a 17-yearold from central Africa.
She was pregnant by rape and had been kidnapped twice and forced into sexual slavery.
In her short life, she had already experienced so much horror and violence.
I also saw the grave of Walala, an 18-yearold from Eritrea who had suffered terrible burns when gas canisters had exploded in the Libyan warehouse she was being held in.
Rather than take her to hospital, people smugglers put her on a boat to die in agony at sea. Nobody should have to go through what Walala did.
The hostile environment policies of Priti Patel and her colleagues and the refusal to open up safe routes to seek asylum do nothing for people like Vivien or Walala.
Those who benefit the most are the companies who profit from running much of this system on behalf of the UK Government.
That comes as no surprise in a UK ran in the interest of the Tory party’s friends and donors instead of those who really need help.