In 1938, a report in the Daily Mail began by quoting approvingly a magistrate who had condemned “the way stateless Jews from Germany are pouring in from every port of this country”. For many British Jews, Suella Braverman’s shameful labelling of those fleeing conflict and torture in 2022 as an “invasion” sadly feels all too familiar (‘Invasion’ of the UK? Experts dubious of Suella Braverman’s claim, 1 November).
There can be no justification for a member of the government using such incendiary words. Amid the context of the appalling attack on a migrant centre in Dover last weekend, these comments are particularly irresponsible.
The home secretary’s shocking replication of the language of the far right may provide a temporary distraction from the disgraceful conditions at Manston immigration processing centre, but such an approach cannot align with the compassion and fairness the new prime minister spoke of last week.
Many of those forced into such dangerous journeys across the Channel today are unaccompanied children. While far more could have been done in the 1930s, and circumstances are different today, the contrast between the government’s hostility to asylum seekers and the Kindertransport feels stark. We hope that the home secretary will rethink, and commit to reforming our asylum system to be kinder, fairer and more effective.
Dr Edie Friedman and Jack Kushner
Jewish Council for Racial Equality
Rabbi David Mason
Muswell Hill Synagogue, London
• It is no surprise that Suella Braverman’s latest broadside is not borne out by the facts, as you report. We know that some viruses can emerge with a vengeance, having lain dormant in their host for some time, and Braverman’s reference to an “invasion” is not only evidence of viral xenophobia in the Tory party, but also of the ferocity with which it can erupt when a political immune system, impaired by weeks of sustained assault, drops its guard.
Braverman’s repellent characterisation of asylum seekers draws a direct line from Margaret Thatcher’s infamous 1978 dog-whistle that people were “afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture”. There was another such outbreak in 2014, when Michael Fallon MP suggested that British towns might be “swamped” by migrant workers. But Braverman might be evidence of a virulent new strain, given that she aimed her repugnant slurs at those arriving in desperate circumstances.
A prolonged period of isolation for the party incubating this infection is surely an essential antidote if the safety of the wider body politic is to be ensured.
Paul McGilchrist
Colchester, Essex
• It is not widely enough known that the British ran concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer war. Reading the horrific accounts of the conditions people are trying to survive in Manston camp, I’m left thinking that this nation has never lost that inhumanity. In my 70s, I’ve never been so ashamed to be British.
Joy Webb
Penistone, South Yorkshire
• The government’s policy on immigration centres harks back to the 1834 Poor Law, when, in order to deter people from applying for indoor relief, conditions inside the workhouses were to be worse than the worst outside. Centuries on, how far have we come in treating those less fortunate than ourselves?
Dennis Johnson
Kempston, Bedfordshire
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