For once, I find myself nodding along sagely with something one of God’s vicars on Earth has had to say. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has criticised evil, thick home secretary Priti Patel for her plan to force desperate refugees to go to Rwanda as their asylum claims are processed. It’s the “opposite of the nature of God” said Welby, fresh from his hotline to Heaven. I am making the assumption that Welby is not making a reference to the God of the Old Testament, who was a pretty unpleasant fellow, but some later version. Either way, his intervention is welcome.
Before we take this debate any further, let’s be clear about one thing: the idea of forcibly moving refugees onto aircraft which will take them to an African country with a less than stellar human rights record is about far more than keeping those annoying refugees out of the country. In case you hadn’t noticed, this is 100% political; a desperate government trying to distract us all from Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak’s lockdown partying and at the same time throwing a large slab of red meat at a section of the Conservative party’s core vote who they perceive to be racist bigots, its elderly members and of course the right wing so-called libertarian wing who basically dislike anyone who could be a foreigner, unless that is they are Priti Patel, Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid. Yes, I know that these three aren’t foreigners but had they been around in the 1960s and 70s, people like Patel, Sunak and Javid would be finding ways to send them to – um, let’s think – Rwanda.
Some folk are comparing the actions of Patel to the mentality of Farage’s Ukip/Brexit Party but that’s not fair. For those of us who have been around a bit longer, Patel is far close to the fascist National Front, which gained strength in the 1970s with its hardline attitude to Johnny Foreigner and was particularly keen to rid the country of people who didn’t have white skin. The irony must be lost on Patel and co.
My feeling is that Patel, or rather someone of intelligence and raw cynicism who is encouraging her, is employing these sordid tactics for purely party political reasons, partly as a part of the government’s endless culture wars and also to pretend to seek out clear blue water between the Tories and Labour by pretending Labour and other opposition parties are in favour of “uncontrolled immigration”, like it’s oh so easy to contain desperate people fleeing terror and even genocide. Although to be fair to the wretched Patel, she has so far managed to stop desperate Ukrainians coming to the UK, most of whom appear to be white. It is hard to take in the fact – and it is a fact – that we have a home secretary, Patel, the daughter of Ugandan Asian parents who escaped Idi Amin’s murderous regime back in 1972. In fact, some 28.000 of them came to the UK in one go and the young teenager that was me welcomed them when millions didn’t.
Although hardly anyone believes in God these days, I suppose we should be grateful at Justin Welby’s intervention, as we should be for the comments of another of God’s senior vicars, none other than Pope Francis himself. He said: “The refugees are divided. First class, second class, by skin colour, whether you come from a developed country or a non-developed one. We are racists. And that’s bad.” Yes, very bad, Frankie, but lucky for you our very own prime minister Boris Johnson and the Minister for the 19th century Jacob Rees-Mogg are devout Catholics. Maybe you should have a word? After all, it wasn’t that long ago when your church made a grovelling apology for its dreadful role in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. So, you must know more about the country than most.
I never expected to be pleased to have God on our side but desperate times require desperate measures. And when Johnson realises that God himself is unimpressed with his policies, he might have a change of heart?
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