There they are, the hordes. See them coming, the marauders at the gate, the unwashed barbarians, ready to swamp us, ready to take us back to some primeval dark age, those ne’er-do-wells! Stop them! They’ll take all the vegan sausage rolls!!
But don’t fear, the best men are on the job. Defence secretary Gavin Williamson is calling in the Navy. He’s deploying boats to the Dover Strait. It’s like taking on the Armada again. They had 130 ships and they were done for. Tally-ho!
Hold on, here’s another. Home Secretary Sajid Javid is doubling down. He’s tweeting Williamson’s original tweet to make it sound like it’s his idea too. And he’s going bigger. “We will do whatever it takes to protect the UK border and human life,” he tweets, with purpose. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes.
We will do whatever it takes to protect the UK border and human life.
Thank you @RoyalNavyhttps://t.co/cKKhpNX7rB
— Sajid Javid (@sajidjavid) January 3, 2019
There were fewer things grubbier last week than seeing two of Britain’s most senior politicians – men, we’re led to believe, with eyes on Number 10 – scraping it out to show who could be more bilious.
The instinct to demonise rather than help the outsider is not new
At time of writing, 539 people were known to have tried to enter the UK on small boats across the Channel in 2018. Of these, the Home Office say, 227 were intercepted by French authorities. So that’s just over 300 in a year who have successfully made that perilous crossing. Fewer than one a day. Some were children as young as nine. This is what Sajid Javid counts as a major incident. His response makes no mention of very real major incidents in Britain, like growing poverty and homelessness.