The new Home Secretary must show Britain is a welcoming country. That must include protecting EU citizens after Brexit.
Amber Rudd’s resignation is not surprising. But the saga says more about Britain’s approach to migrants than one person.
It was surely inconceivable for any minister, let alone any one time Home Secretary, to claim ignorance of the deportation targets: they go back over successive governments – and that is a sad indictment of our government.
Rudd’s resignation should end a chapter in the Home Office – and that must include ending the ‘hostile environment’ policy.
The hostile environment is a sprawling web of immigration controls embedded in the heart of our public services and communities. It is a cancer at the heart of our politics. Best for Britain believe it is not the type of country we are or the place we want to live in. It is not the type of nation that I want my kids to grow up.
This country is best when its open, tolerant and united. Brexit has picked at the seams of our society and made families fight and started to tear families part. The Americanisation of politics that reached Fox-news levels with the shabby Brexit debate.
But what worries me more than the level of discourse is that hate and anger is now flowing on twitter and can even be seen on our streets. We have seen a massive spike in hate crimes: the toxic fallout to the nasty, divisive European referendum campaign that pulled apart communities, families and neighbours.
The public is now seeing the harsh and inhumane implications of this policy – not least with the Windrush generation, who helped to rebuild post-war Britain, being denied their rights.
But what is more galling and angers me more is that the evidence isn’t sure it has actually worked.
David Bolt, the independent Chief Inspector of borders and immigration, said in a 2014 report that there was “insufficient hard evidence to say whether they were achieving what the government intended”.
He added that the justification for extending these powers in 2016 was “based on a conviction that they are ‘right’ in principle” rather than on any evidence they were working.
Farage stood next to dehumanising posters that depicted people as hordes and then stood back shocked that their fanning the flames of prejudice had a reaction. Our government is no better.
Telling 16 million people they are ‘citizens of nowhere’, trying to force out some of the Windrush generation and the grubby Go Home vans: all of this is beneath contempt. It is no way to treat those who believe Britain should be at the heart of Europe.
Two things must be at the top of Sajid Javid’s intray – one is to end to the Hostile Enviorment. The other is for EU citizens, worried about the Windrush Warning to be given total and clear safeguards. Words are not enough.
Paul Butters is a spokesperson for Best for Britain.
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