The tale of Brexit is one of two privileged Etonians: one a King’s scholar; the other the aristocratic son of a stockbroker. One a blonde, bumbling buffoon; the other a giant arsehole. One promised the nation a referendum he had no right to promise; the other duped the public into cashing out. Together they have thrown the political jigsaw up into the air as we wait to see where it all lands.
A few days before Brexit, I travelled from the polite middleclass metropolis of Highbury and Islington to the boisterous bustling hubbub of West Croydon. Leaving the station, I was greeted by a peculiar incident that left me pondering Brexit with great perplexity. Sat patiently amongst the crowds of people swarming through the high street was an elderly Caucasian gentleman offering ‘Vote Leave!’ leaflets to an uninterested public. This seemingly hopeless endeavor left the man a blink away from a snooze before his attention was seized by an altercation played out in front of him. A large African lady, after snatching a leaflet from his sleepy stall, began to abuse an innocent passerby with a Nigerian accent even more prodigious than her embodiment; “I am going to vote LEAVE so that people like YOU will not be allowed in the country!” The subject of this abuse was an incredulous Indian man.
Croydon, this great multicultural melting pot, is home to the Home Office. This young man may have been on his way to Lunar House, the headquarters for UK Visas and Immigration. He may have been an “irregular migrant” in the eyes of the Home Office. Whoever he was, he did not deserve to be singled out in this manner. Home Office policy over the years has moved rapidly toward the criminalisation of irregular migration, often lumping together migrants without sufficient leave to remain with the most despicable criminals in the eyes of the public. These policies – propagated by the trivialisation of the plight of immigrants on TV shows like UK Border Force – undeniably breed the type of bigotry and xenophobia espoused by the Nigerian lady and ultimately seek to undermine social cohesion.
Official discourse on immigrants, especially in such times of economic depression, is deeply troubling. Terms like “Illegals”, “overstayers”, “foreigners” seek to dehumanise migrants and have a very harmful impact on their lives. Unless their immigration status can be regularised, migrants remain without any legal status and are subsequently condemned as aliens. This can have the effect of depriving them of their very identity. And what are we without an identity?
The debate surrounding immigration has become toxically politicised. It is ridiculous to allow, as Brexit did, immigrants of any shade to be blamed for the failings of our hospitals, schools or housing when our government so stubbornly implements economic austerity as a political choice. The UK is the fifth largest economy in the world – why can’t we build more hospitals, schools and houses? Immigrants are the convenient scapegoats.
I found this incident at West Croydon Station increasingly disturbing in the weeks after Brexit. The abuse hurled at the Indian student by the Nigeran lady was completely misplaced. The incident is indicative of the pathetically low level of intelligence which characterized the referendum and which caused the growth in racist incidents in the immediate aftermath of Brexit. Why had immigration overtaken the economy as the primary concern of much of the electorate? Why, even if immigration may be a legitimate concern to some in the country, are non-EU nationals being subjected to abuse?
I can’t help feeling that the British public has been sold a nasty lie. Dave offered a referendum on a monumental decision that the electorate wasn’t sufficiently qualified to pass judgment on. And he only did so to settle a dispute within the fringes of his own party. Boris went against his natural instincts to selfishly exploit the opportunity for personal gain. If Boris were to have run for Mayor after outing himself, any electoral success would be remote. Boris met Dave at Oxford in the mid 1980s at a time when Thatcherism infected young minds with a ruthless, greedy, pursuit of selfish ambition that would, many years later, see the former stab his junior classmate in the back at the denouement of a petty, personal rivalry acted out on the largest public stage possible with cataclysmic political circumstances.
Syed Aun Mohammed 