The British government enshrined the British Citizenship of the ‘Windrush Generation’ and their scions in law. That included those without migration papers like children. So, like any white British Citizen, they were legally resident without the need for paperwork to prove it. However, in 2012 Theresa May, then the home secretary, created her ‘hostile environment’ for migrants without leave to remain in Britain. May forced all landlords and employers to do border control inland. Or risk heavy fines and or going to jail. But May did not create the hostile environment with her immigration policy; it was an extension of the Tory’s existing hostile environment culture. So, we have to push back before Caring Society become a thing of the past.
Hostile Race Policies
Racial hostility is a feature of Tory politics. Enoch Powell was not the last torch-bearer. He inherited it from Winston Churchill. And although Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech has never materialised, he was right in saying ‘Whereas all rockets fall to Earth, this one is going to stay up.’
Theresa May is now her party’s torch bearer for racism. May deliberately and proudly created a hostile environment for migrants which has led to the Windrush scandal. And Theresa May knows what she should do, in her own words ‘Resign’ (video below).
Hostile Social Policies
The Tory’s use of race is just one of their tactics to divide and rule. The Tory’s promote a hostile society. It is clear in Tory policies which embed infrastructural cruelty and division.
Tories like Ian Duncan Smith spin questionable narratives of the ‘workshy and feckless’ demonising a whole group of the vulnerable. It allows the government to enact policies like benefit caps and they cause poverty to be normalised. And in-work poverty is rife.
But cheap shots like Duncan Smith’s also divides society. Some people believe there are these ghettos populated by people who prefer a ‘benefit lifestyle.’ And although they don’t exist, the Tory press does not tell the backstory of ravaged industries and broken communities. Nor do the Tory’s because a solution would require public spending and that goes against Tory policy.
Hostile Times For The Sick and Disabled
For the Tories creating a hostile environment knows no bounds. They have presented disabled people as benefit scroungers since 2010 and accompanied the rhetoric with substantial benefit cuts.
The Tory’s hostile treatment of the sick and disabled is all too familiar. They include assessors letters telling sick and disabled applicants of their fitness for work. But sometimes assessors’ letters arrive just after the applicant’s death. Or there are Tory policies like the bedroom tax. It cuts housing benefit to disabled people with a ‘spare room’ which they use to store life-preserving medical equipment and so on.
Hostile Times
The Tories treat any group that stands in the way of their policy or ability to rule in a hostile manner. So, Jeremy Hunt created a hostile environment with doctors when he wanted to change their contracts of employment. Hunt portrayed them as greedy. And then Hunt cut the doctors salaries. May is at war with the police who she accuses of ‘scare-mongering’ and ‘crying wolf’. May cut their pay, pensions and numbers. And Esther McVey says the government’s rape clause for child tax credit is “‘an opportunity’ for rape victims to gain emotional support.”
The persistent Tory hostilities towards various sections of society may have had us anesthetised. The Windrush scandal appears to have woken us up. It’s time to push back with kindness and how we use our vote. The May 3rd local elections are mere weeks away.
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Audioblog
Theresa May – Resign
Theresa May Denying Justice
In October 2013 @theresa_may proudly boasted that she would “deport first and hear appeals later”. I opposed her then and I oppose her now. Theresa May must take responsibility for the Windrush crisis. It is because of her race to the bottom pandering to anti-immigrant sentiment. pic.twitter.com/xExpXKnLJI
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) 20 April 2018
