"The hostile environment" nous a amenés ici
La confiance et l'amitié brisées prendront du temps à se reconstruire mais en tant qu'être humain, nous sommes résilients.
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Newly appointed on 21 August 2024 as Baroness May of Maidenhead to the House of Lords, Teresa May has previously served as British Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party.
Architect of the ‘hostile environment’ when she was Home Secretary in 2012, one wonders if she might have anticipated the ugly scenes that unfolded earlier this month, on the streets of the UK, some 12 years later.
We watched in disbelief as gangs of far-right sympathisers engaged in dystopian mob violence, terrorising migrants and whole communities. Immigration lawyers were personally threatened, as were many advice centres helping asylum seekers.
What is a ‘hostile environment’?
At the time, Teresa May's stated aim was to ‘create here in Britain a truly hostile environment for illegal immigration’.
‘The hostile environment’ (a term later softened to “compliant environment”) is in fact a set of harsh measures that brings to bear the full weight of intolerance on any migrant who breaks immigration laws, whether wilfully or accidentally. The sharing of data between government departments and external organisations allows a clarion call to stop services.
A House of Lords report on the impact of the policy in June 2018 looked at how people with the right to work legally have been affected and the UN Special Rapporteur on Racism found that the policy could be at the root of racism and discrimination.
The consequences for individuals concerned are traumatic, while society as a whole suffers from the fallout.
Even inadvertently, if a person overstays their visa by one day, every aspect of their life collapses, life becomes so unbearable that they are forced to leave the country rather than endure a hellish life.
Illustration of the hostile environment
Let's imagine that Mr X, a carer for the elderly who arrived in the UK with his dependent wife two years ago, forgot that his visa had expired on 15 July 2024. He was preoccupied with his wife's sudden illness while juggling his demanding job. Those who shouted that foreign ‘scum’ were taking their jobs would not have dreamt of doing the demanding job of a care worker. X had thus failed to apply for a renewal of his visa on time.
On 16 July 2024, his employer, fearing a civil penalty of between £45,000 and £60,000, terminates his employment contract because X can no longer prove that he is still entitled to work. X's landlord gives him notice to leave his home rather than risk a £20,000 fine, as he will no longer be able to legally rent to Mr X and his wife. X and his wife will no longer be able to rent other accommodation. Mr X and his wife will not be able to open a bank account without proof of his immigration status. The DVLA will be informed by the Home Office and, without a driving licence, he will be unable to get to work anyway. Neither he nor his wife will be entitled to NHS healthcare or social security. He and his wife will face hardship in every aspect of their lives and will be forced to leave the UK. Having sold everything they owned to come to the UK, they may not have a home to return to.
As the Guardian noted in an article entitled ‘ Hostile Environment; an anatomy of a policydisaster’ exactly six years ago, on 27/8/2018:
“Only May can say whether she knew then the “hostile environment” strategy – essentially empowering figures across society to become immigration enforcement officers – would evolve into to a catch-all brand for her approach to migrants, illegal or otherwise. Because “the hostile environment” came to encapsulate not just her approach to illegal immigration but to reflect a broader rancour towards migrants in the UK.”
This hostility therefore concerned not only illegal immigrants, but also legal immigrants, thrown into the same pot of ‘undesirables’.
The social fabric of cohesion was gradually picked away bit by bit . Mrs May's successors have continued to demonise and make political capital out of using the effigy of migrants to stick pins in.
Repressed angst
The Pandora's box opened at Southport on that fateful day of 29 July 2024 unleashed chaos. The cost of living crisis, Brexit and the pandemic sowed the seeds of acute discontent that exploded in a fury.
Is this pent-up malaise a reflection of much deeper issues and a hidden racism that has been brewing for decades?
When we chose to leave the EU, we did so partly because people like Nigel Farage of UKIP (now Reform UK) stirred up anti-EU rhetoric and fearmongered by talking about an ‘invasion’ of Turkish nationals if the EU continued to expand.
Another Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, in his efforts to appease the right wing of his party, called for a referendum on the EU in 2016 and we have all borne the consequences.
Scapegoating migrants, Muslims and anything visibly foreign is base behaviour and an inexcusable reaction for all the ills of ‘Little Britain’.
Inflammatory language
Crowds shouting ‘get them’ as they surround and pounce on a car with three bewildered Romanians in it, or a little girl gleefully skipping next to her mother singing ‘Pakis out’ as if she were singing a catchy tune, or gangs firebombing asylum accommodation or besieging places of prayer, may or may not show remorse for their hideous behaviour.
The language used by irresponsible politicians has repercussions on the masses. Those crowds shouting ‘stop the boats’ and throwing bricks were echoing the words of our former Prime Ministers and Home Secretaries.
Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech, delivered in 1968 to lament the arrival of migrants from the new Commonwealth (black and Asian migrants from the former colonies), seems premonitory of what happened earlier this month.
‘Looking into the future, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the Tiber foaming with much blood’, Powell told a Tory party conference at the time.
Does political rhetoric fuel these feelings?
Powell's offensive language about ‘smiling picaninnies’ refusing to integrate because of their ‘vested interests’, as if there were a plan to invade the British way of life by stealth, may not have been ‘politically correct’ in early July 2024. But what about after August 2024?
Will people of colour have to look over their shoulders for some time to come?
Failed integration policies?
Ultimately, the phenomenon we have witnessed is perhaps due, to some extent, to the failure of the integration policies pursued by successive governments.
It's perfectly natural for people to tend to come together in groups when they share common characteristics. This is not ghettoisation. Does the preponderance of French people in South Kensington make it an affluent ghetto? Such things used to be seen as a celebration of the diversity of multicultural Britain.
What can we do better to ensure that we never see these appalling scenes on our streets again? We all want ‘our country back’.
Life in the UK
The ‘Life in the UK’ test, which is aimed at people wishing to settle or naturalise as British citizens, and the cross-cutting English language test in the immigration rules, are designed to help immigrant communities integrate.
Is a series of 24 multiple-choice questions that the average Briton would struggle to answer the best way to integrate a foreign-born person into life in the UK?
Sample questions include:
Why did the Chartists campaign?
The right to vote for 18 year olds
The right to vote for the working class
The vote for women
The right to vote for 21 year olds
Other similar questions can be asked:
-When did the first Christian communities appear in Britain?
-When is St David's Day celebrated?
-Has the British government use its power to suspend the Northern Ireland Assembly?
-When did the ‘Battle of Agincourt’ take place?
While it is expected that anyone seeking to integrate into Britain should be able to speak English, it is hard to imagine that integration can be facilitated by knowing that the Statute of Rhuddlan annexed Wales to England.
It would be more helpful to know that ‘a pint of draught bitter’ means a sizeable glass of hoppy beer and is not a reference to an unpleasant, windy location. Knowledge of idiomatic English, such as ‘it ain't half hot’, which means that it's extremely hot, or ‘going around the houses’, which means wasting time doing or asking for something in a very complicated way (and not visiting your pals), could be more useful in everyday life, for communicating with the indigenous population, than knowing how many American colonies declared their independence in 1776.
Where do we go since the Ugly Week?
The deep wounds caused by "Ugly Week" may have left neighbours pitted against each other.
Can we all heal and move forward by forgetting what happened?
Broken trust and friendship will take time to rebuild
However, as human beings, we are resilient.
Sincere and genuine regret on the part of those who attacked their neighbours might help heal psychological and moral wounds.
Some things can be forgiven, but they must not be forgotten, lest we forget what should never happen again.
Author: Nilmini Roelens
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