No longer is the right wing in British politics content with dog-whistle antics; we now have dog-megaphone politics. One of the “best” vehicles used to stir up fear is immigration, and the master conjuror is, of course, N Farage. Last year he made much trouble for the police by riding piggy-back on the rumours that there was a widespread policy of “two tier” policing in the UK and on the accusation that the murderer of 3 girls at Southport was a recent immigrant. In fact the perpetrator was a British citizen.
Nigel has been surpassed this year by the Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick. Mr J desperately wants to be leader of the Tory Party using any means available… a worrying possibility. He attended Trump’s first inauguration as President and last autumn said he would be voting for Trump if he were American, despite knowing what “the Donald” is capable of. His principle is to “always be honest with the public”, but while Housing Minister he helped a chum and Tory donor, R Desmond, avoid paying £45m tax due on a proposed property development. This is the same R Desmond, former owner of the Daily Express, whose other publications included ‘Horny Housewives‘ and ‘Mega Boobs‘. Might we judge a man by the company he keeps, especially when the chum’s motto is “Nothing is difficult for the strong”.
As shadow Minister for Justice, Mr. Jenrick obviously has no wish to bring calm to the sporadically tense situation outside several “immigrant” hotels in the UK. When interviewed by BBC Radio, he fired off phrases that poured much oil on the combustible situation. “Public patience snapped long ago…immeasurable harm to our communities…peoples’ lives being wrecked” and “increasing evidence of the link between illegal migration and sex crimes”. He then correctly stated that “we don’t have good data” on the nationality of perpetrators of such crimes but in the same breath claimed that “hard statistics proved” that a high percentage of sex crimes in London were perpetrated by “foreign nationals”.
The Head of the BBC Verify Section explained that some of Jenrick’s stats were based on “shaky ground” and that objective observers should “run a mile” from others.
Earlier, as Immigration Minister, Jenrick also hoped to earn popularity with voters by ordering the painting over of some Mickey Mouse cartoon figures on the wall of an immigrant detention centre in Kent. No justification was given, but the assumption must be that migrant kids, surviving such physical and psychological mayhem as they witnessed on terror journeys away from civil war and abuse, deserve no warmly child-friendly welcome in this country. “Nothing is difficult for the strong”. Some of Mr. Jenrick’s other statesman-like assertions include “we should deport everyone who comes here…we should stop foreign aid… there are hundreds of thousands of mostly men flooding into our country”. His desperate ambition also meant that he volunteered to serve in the 45 day Liz Truss Government which attempted to turn the economic foundation of sane government on its head. He also championed the Tory Government’s failed deterrent policy of expelling immigrants to Rwanda. This was the policy, costing the taxpayer £715m, that transported no asylum seekers and only one Government minister on an inspection visit. Conversely the Labour Government, currently trying to extract us from the mayhem of 14 years of Tory rule, have among so many other seeds of positive change reduced the number of migrants in hotels in the first quarter of this year by 6000.
Mr. Jenrick has recently stated that, because of the migrant issue, our country is “like a tinderbox” while contributing to this tension by asserting his respect for “mothers and grandmothers”(!) who were “on the streets” in angry protest. At least with this he is showing his “wokeness” by following the principle of “inclusivity”. Even more troubling for the Tory Party and the nation was his statement that he would welcome Nigel Farage should he wish to join the Tories. The reaction of the two most significant Tories of the last 75 years, W Churchill and M Thatcher, would be unprintable.
Ed: The BBC, in a craven act of toadying, apologised to Jenrick over Thought for the Day contributor theologian and author Dr Krish Kandiah’s description of Jenrick’s comment in an article that he wouldn’t want his daughters living near “men from backward countries who broke into Britain illegally and about whom you know next to nothing” as an example of xenophobia. He said:
“These words echo a fear many have absorbed – fear of the stranger. The technical name for this is xenophobia. All phobias are, by definition, irrational. Nevertheless, they have a huge impact.
“It is understandable that many people are scared by the unknown, especially if they’ve been told illegality and unfairness are part of the story. However, over the past year, xenophobia has fuelled angry protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers, deepening divisions in our communities.”
It is profoundly disturbing to see the accommodation afforded by the BBC to ugly, hate-filled and incendiary views. Enough.
