Letter from Mark Langabeer, Hastings and Rye Labour Member
Nye Bevan, one-time Labour MP, and the Health Minister who gave us the NHS, once described the Tories as ‘vermin’. The events of the past week suggest that he was not wrong.
The Tories’ attempts to blame asylum seekers for the problems facing working people is an attempt to divert attention away from the real causes of poverty wages, affordable housing and lengthy NHS waiting lists. Then there is the cost of living crisis, a lack of affordable social care and childcare provision.
The list is almost endless. In trying to cover up their own responsibility for this chaos and shift attention to what is in economic and political terms a minor issue, the Tories are supported by the right-wing tabloids who have headlines on asylum seekers almost on a daily basis. The Tories and their press are blaming all and sundry for the rise in numbers seeking asylum: ‘lefty’ lawyers, the Labour Party, and even civil servants.
As one Labour MP put it, it is ‘dog whistle’ politics. But while the Tories hope to get support by demonising those who travel on small boats across the Channel, in my opinion, they will fail. Even if they are successful in reducing the numbers of so-called ‘illegal’ asylum seekers, that will do nothing to improve the lives of the majority in Britain.
They are now attempting to get former football player and BBC pundit, Gary Lineker, sacked, because he described the Tory rhetoric as similar to that in Nazi Germany in the 1930s – as it is. To Lineker’s credit, he has refused to retract his comments and has pointed out that Britain has fewer migrants than most other EU countries. The Tories are claiming that Lineker should be ‘impartial’ because he has a contract with the BBC. These are the same people who claim that they support free speech and who said nothing when right-wing commentator Andrew Neil tweeted all sorts of stuff while still working for the BBC.
Although it is incorrect to describe the Tories as fascist, it is possible that a section of the Tory Party will be at the forefront of any future fascist Party. They drink from the same well and their statements and incendiary language have emboldened the fascists in organising anti-migrant protests. The labour movement must adopt a programme that can solve Britain’s social ills and conduct a campaign that challenges Tory propaganda on immigration.
