{"id":21375,"date":"2022-04-24T10:38:23","date_gmt":"2022-04-24T10:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=21375"},"modified":"2022-11-11T10:17:04","modified_gmt":"2022-11-11T10:17:04","slug":"the-human-cargo-of-voluntary-departure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2022\/04\/24\/the-human-cargo-of-voluntary-departure\/","title":{"rendered":"The human cargo of voluntary departure"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following article written by Mike Small first appeared in bella caledonia<\/em><\/a>. It examines the ongoing assault on migrants, which has become the centre-piece of the Tories’ attacks on democratic right across the board in Brexit Britain ,\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE HUMAN CARGO OF VOLUNTARY DEPARTURE<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone entering the UK illegally\u2026 may now be relocated to Rwanda\u201d \u2013 Prime Minister Boris Johnson.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like a bad dream you can\u2019t ever wake up from. Britain is now the world\u2019s leading people trafficker.<\/p>\n

Are these the sunlit uplands you were waiting for?<\/p>\n

The \u2018Memorandum of Understanding between the UK and Rwanda\u2019 is a descent into fascism facilitated by Brexit. It was framed as such by the Prime Minister who announced the programme on the BBC live from Kent saying: \u201cThe British people voted several times to control our borders, not to close them but to control them, this is what Brexit has allowed us to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deal \u2013 shaken on by Priti Patel in Kigale \u2013 is a face-saver for Johnson and Paul Kagame, but is Patel\u2019s work. More of this in a moment.<\/p>\n

It is undoubtedly a shameful moment \u2013 a shift in the Overton Window of acceptable politics.\u00a0\u00a0This is fascism and it should be seen for what it is.\u00a0This is extraordinary rendition on a mass scale.\u00a0This is a departure from international law and obligations Britain has signed up to and pretends it is party to. It should be a moment of profound national shame as the pretence of the Britain of yesteryear is revealed to be a folk tale re-told only by people who aren\u2019t really paying attention.<\/p>\n

Beyond Sanctuary<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is all a desperate attempt to re-ignite the post-Brexit culture wars and play-up and enflame the fire of racist populism. Given that we are actually living though a period characterised by people reaching out to those feeling war and violence, it is a bitterly odd announcement. As Enver Solomon , chief executive of the Refugee Council has written:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe British public have shown remarkable compassion and understanding in\u00a0wanting to offer<\/a>\u00a0a warm welcome to all Ukrainians seeking sanctuary in the UK. But instead of harnessing this compassion for refugees and making Britain a nation of sanctuary \u2013 as the Scottish government has pledged to do<\/a>\u2013 Boris Johnson\u2019s administration in England has chosen to effectively\u00a0offshore people seeking asylum<\/a>\u00a0to Rwanda; to treat them as no more than human cargo to be shipped thousands of miles away so they are out of sight and out of mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Make no mistake, Rwanda has one of the most sinister human rights records on the continent of Africa.<\/p>\n

The murder of Patrick Karegeya (Rwanda\u2019s former intelligence chief) who was found dead in 2014 in a hotel in South Africa is just the most high-profile case of a litany of violence. Karegeya was murdered in Johannesburg by Rwandan agents after he, having fallen out of favour, had fled Rwanda, setting up an opposition organisation in exile.<\/p>\n

It was a murder that Kagame\u2019s ministers publicly celebrated.\u00a0\u00a0Kagame\u2019s message<\/a>\u00a0to Rwanda\u2019s domestic audience was clear. At at a prayer breakfast in Kigali: \u201cWhoever betrays the country will pay the price, I assure you,\u201d he told a small crowd of dignitaries.<\/p>\n

Do Not Disturb<\/strong><\/p>\n

In fact the summary of the 2021 US State Dept of \u2018Democracy, Human Rights & Labour\u2019 report on Human Rights Practices in\u00a0Rwanda: has the country as \u201cone of the most autocratic, authoritarian & repressive regimes on earth\u201d, ranked 150th out of 179 countries in the world on its index of liberal democracy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Michela Wrong\u00a0author of \u2018Do Not Disturb. The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad<\/a>\u2019 has explained:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cFor Kagame, this deal with the UK marks part of a relentless and strikingly effective campaign to persuade the west to embrace him as a proactive African leader offering radical solutions to thorny domestic and foreign policy problems. When Total\u2019s giant liquefied gas project in Mozambique was closed by jihadist rebels last year, for example, Kagame was quick to send 1,000 troops, which swiftly secured the area and won him admiration from France\u2019s Emmanuel Macron. This new offshore processing deal possesses a similar imaginary silver bullet quality.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is far closer to the mass deportation of the 70s National Front than an immigration policy. But even under its own terms, it makes no sense whatsoever. We know this because the scheme has already failed.\u00a0 Of about 4,000 people estimated to have been deported by Israel to Rwanda and Uganda under a \u201cvoluntary departure\u201d scheme between 2014 and 2017, almost all are thought to have left the country almost immediately<\/a>, with many attempting to return to Europe via people-smuggling routes.<\/p>\n

Check the language, people are to be sent 5000 miles away to be \u201cprocessed\u201d, and the scheme was previously called \u201cvoluntary departure\u201d,<\/p>\n

This sinister distortion of language is part of the fascism it facilitates. As Pinar Aksu and Alison Phipps<\/a>explain: \u201cAnother word used like an evil mantra is \u201cillegal migration\u201d, a deliberately inaccurate, erroneous, term used to describe the use of irregular routes for those for whom regular immigration processes are closed. In reality, it will be the opposite, banning people from working, creating detention accommodation across the country, criminalising people seeking asylum and refuge, taking away citizenship and now creating offshore asylum processing centre \u2013 as we call it \u201coffshore detention\u201d. This exact discussion and the use of words such as \u201cillegal\u201d migration should not be normalised. This language will create space for further division, and state-sanctioned racism within communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will this be popular?<\/p>\n

God knows. It\u2019s difficult to track the extent to which English political culture has been twisted and morphed into some hellscape of normalised racism.\u00a0Because we\u2019ve been building up to this for years, from decades of a daily-diet of tabloid racism to the normalisation of fascism onto primetime flag-ship television, from the Windrush Scandal that blew away to the Hostile Environment, to Theresa May\u2019s Hate Van, to the elevation of Farage and Faragism and Lawrence Fox and a thousand variants of reactionary bigoted and casual toxicity, and on and on and on. Racism has seeped through British culture for years, the acceptable face of post-imperial decline, a \u00a0seeping-through.<\/p>\n

Under the Nationality and Borders Bill, which will next week return to the Commons after being\u00a0defeated for a second time<\/a>\u00a0by the Lords, those coming across the Channel would be criminalised and could face imprisonment for\u00a0up to four years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s deeply disturbing to watch this unfold and not really know if there is ANY threshold beyond which people will revolt. It\u2019s really unsettling to watch all of this and realise that this might actually be quite popular. Think about that.<\/p>\n

Liberal Disgust and Disquiet<\/strong><\/p>\n

Watching the discussions roll-out across my timelines on Friday there was a secondary impression. The incredulity of the liberal commentariat as they watch open-mouthed as the logical consequences of the last decade of a shift to the right takes place. The Times columnist David Aaronovitch bleated: \u201cIt\u2019s true that it\u2019s quite likely to be illegal, that it will certainly be incredibly expensive and that it probably won\u2019t work. But worse than all this is that the Rwanda plan is shaming. Britain is better than this\u201d \u2013 while Newsnight\u2019s Emily Maitlis chipped-in saying: \u201cThis is the point. It just feels deeply deeply \u201c unBritish\u201d. We used to be great at compassion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did we aye?<\/p>\n

This nostalgia for the compassionate Britain of yesteryear is urgent myth-making. It\u2019s liberal self-delusion on a grand scale. And, what\u2019s next? Who knows but the notion of this being used as a political platform for Prit Patel\u2019s career shouldn\u2019t be ruled out.<\/p>\n

Once treatment of asylum seekers in the Channel and vicious attacks on the poor became normalised, anything was possible. Writing in Prospect Magazine<\/a> last year\u00a0 the ex-Labour MP Chris Mullin had a foreboding premonition:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Tory Party is now firmly in the hands of English nationalists. I do not see this changing in the near future. Flag-waving is all very well, but eventually they will need more to offer. In due course, I would not rule out a referendum on the reintroduction of the death penalty. Britain would have to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, but the next step in the plan may be precisely that. The year before Boris Johnson brought him into Downing Street, Dominic Cummings wrote on his blog that once Brexit was done \u201cwe\u2019ll be coming for the ECHR referendum and we\u2019ll win that by more than 52-48.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe path would then be clear to bring back the gallows, but it wouldn\u2019t get through parliament directly\u2014what is easier to imagine is the matter being thrown over to the public. Proponents would need to choose their moment carefully\u2014the immediate aftermath of a terrorist incident or a particularly shocking murder\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

If that doesn\u2019t terrify you nothing will.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for an Easter Rising.<\/p>\n

17.4.22<\/strong><\/p>\n

____________<\/p>\n

also see:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Glasgow protest against The Nationalities and Borders Bill – Maria Elena Carpentero Torres-Quevedo, bella caledonia<\/em><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    2. The aftermath of Kenmure Street – Sean Bell, Source News<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

    3. Further reflections on the Battle of Kenmure Street \u2013 Smina Aktar Alistair Davidson, bella caledonia<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

    4. Glasgow says \u2018No Pasaran\u2019 to the hostile environment – Robina Qreshi, Positive Housing<\/a><\/p>\n

    5. Pimlico Academy students destroy Tory myths on racism- Anti*capitalist resistance<\/a><\/p>\n

    \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The following article written by Mike Small first appeared in bella caledonia. It examines the ongoing assault on migrants, which has become the centre-piece of the Tories’ attacks on democratic right across the board in Brexit Britain ,\u00a0   THE HUMAN CARGO OF VOLUNTARY DEPARTURE \u201cAnyone entering the UK illegally\u2026 may now be relocated to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1843,1858,1867,1873,8976,1872,1878,1876,1875,1877],"tags":[8984],"class_list":["post-21375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-capitalists-organise","category-oppression-liberation","category-emancipation-liberation-and-self-determination","category-against-unionism","category-migrant-struggles","category-sub-saharan-africa","category-england-against-unionism","category-ireland-against-unionism","category-scotland-against-unionism","category-wales-against-unionism","tag-author-mike-small"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/mastodon.scot\/@rcfscotland\/109324653594033869","error":""},"views":5597,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21375"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22514,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21375\/revisions\/22514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}