Inflammatory rhetoric – and action – against asylum seekers in Britain is reaching a tipping point. After last year’s petrol bomb attack in Dover, we now have scenes of violent disorder outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in Knowsley.
How did we get here? Terms such as “invasion” have insinuated themselves into the public discourse, and these malign references have only ramped up in recent weeks. Organisations on the far right, often engaged in in-fighting, have united over the issue of asylum seekers. Their messaging is bold and simple, drawing on familiar tropes in their worldview: asylum seekers are stealing accommodation from homeless British veterans, they say, and pose a threat to white British girls.
