When I set off last week to a protest outside the Home Office with my Refugees Welcome placard, I had to battle some reluctance. Yes, I wanted to demonstrate solidarity with those refugees still waiting to hear if they would be on the plane to Rwanda. I wanted to show the lawyers and campaigners working round the clock that there are many of us who believe they are doing a heroic job. I wanted to remind onlookers in the UK and beyond that many here want to stand up for a more humane society.
But also, I did not want to go. I felt a creeping anxiety that campaigners are being used, forced to play a bit part in Priti Patel’s nightmare vision of an ever more polarised, ever more angry nation. She proposes a vile policy, so people shout at her. She tries to do something illegal and judges oppose her. She characterises opponents as a mob and we sit down in the road. No wonder some of us feel as if we are being forced to fulfil a direction set by the government. It provides the plot, we are just the reaction shot. The government is pushing those who care about refugees – or about other, no less urgent issues – into a position of permanent protest.
