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‘Go Home’ vans must be challenged

The scenes in the film Children Of Men, where Britain in 2027 has public adverts on buses encouraging people to report illegal immigrants, doesn’t seem too far fetched after yesterday’s Home Office announcement.

Vans with giant billboards featuring the slogan ‘Go home or face arrest’ will be driven around London this week in an attempt to scare illegal immigrants into leaving the country. The Home Office pilot scheme will also see the message also displayed in leaflets, posters and messages in local newspapers.

Vans will be driven around Hounslow, Barking & Dagenham, Ealing, Barnet, Brent and Redbridge and will show residents how many illegal migrants have recently been arrested in their area.

The proposal which appears to be the work of Cameron-adviser Lynton Crosby’s dog-whistle, specifically blaming vulnerable immigrant communities and increasing the risk of racist scapegoating as a distraction from Tory austerity as it hits hard.

It is of concern that the Labour Home Affairs team has yet to respond. Others have written before about Maurice Glasman’s message that under the Labour government immigration numbers were too high. There is real concern that this approach still holds sway in the party leadership.

A number of Labour representatives have spoken out however, which is welcome.

Mohammed Butt, Labour leader of Brent Council where two of the vans are due to visit, led the attack and said on twitter last night, ‘Placing these posters in the most diverse borough in the UK is inflammatory and divisive. I have people in my surgeries every week who have been wrongly processed by the home office or who have come from places they simply can’t return to and are now going to feel publicly threatened as a result of these posters. It’s disgraceful and frankly unwelcome in our diverse and united borough.’

Today he appeared on BBC London News who said, ‘we still haven’t learned the lessons of the 50s and the 60s when the signs said, No Blacks, No Asians, No Dogs’.

Following that, I contacted a number of Labour representatives and asked for their response to which Diane Abbott, David Lammy and Claude Moraes MEP have responded.

Diane Abbott said the vans were, ‘an appalling idea. It will achieve nothing practical, but will stoke fears and resentments. The government should concentrate on sorting out the ramshackle immigration system rather than resorting to unpleasant gimmicks like this.’

David Lammy wrote, ‘These billboards aren’t an innocent public information campaign but a pathetic attempt to ratchet up the rhetoric on immigration. The sight of these vans driving around London will only succeed in creating division in a city famed for its diversity’.

And Claude Moraes MEP, London Member of the European Parliament, said, ‘Government can pursue immigration enforcement in many ways – the unprecedented use of mobile billboards in some of the most ethnically diverse London boroughs to target illegal immigrants will not secure results, but will potentially create suspicion, and intimidation, and are more about spending tax payers’ money on ‘get tough’ messages directed not at ‘illegal immigrants’ but at voters as key elections approach in 2014 and 2015.

He added, ‘What resources for example are being targeted at the now historically high immigration backlog which leave thousands in uncertainty? This campaign is not serious immigration enforcement – they are divisive, cheap, dog whistle election tactics .’

It is vital that this escalation of anti-immigrant rhetoric is challenged. Threatening messages on vans circulating around residential areas will not only frighten immigrants often living in vulnerable communities, but is a green light to those who would demonise and scapegoat them further.

Throughout Europe, racism against immigrants is on the rise as the political right seek to scapegoat in order to excuse the failings of their austerity policies. Labour must keep the focus firmly on opposing the scapegoating of vulnerable communities and of challenging austerity.

– See more at: http://www.nextgenerationlabour.org/2013/07/go-home-vans-must-be-challenged/#sthash.1Q1h56p2.dpuf

This article first appeared on Next Generation Labour.

2 Comments

  1. Rod says:

    Well done to all those who oppose this plan. Claude Moraes hits the nail on the head with his comment: ” ‘get tough’ messages [are] directed not at ‘illegal immigrants’ but at voters as key elections approach in 2014 and 2015.”

    But isn’t the Tory so-called ‘get tough’ approach identical to that of Labour’s front bench, whose anti-scrounger rhetoric chimes to the same cynical purpose?

    Perhaps, as a counter measure and in support of the silenced majority, the Unions could hire a fleet of vans with giant placards and have them drive around the City of London bearing the words: TAX DODGERS: PAY UP OR GO TO PRISON.

  2. Chris says:

    Well said Rod!

    Labour should be shaping this debate and leading public opinion, instead of the leadership meekly following the Tories down the UKIP route to populism.

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