Editorial
Blunkett learns lessons of France - from Le Pen!
On Sunday April 21 France – and the whole of Europe – went into shock as Jean-Marie Le Pen beat Lionel Jospin, to go through to the second round of the French Presidential elections. The response of Jospin’s fellow Social Democrats in France, Britain and every other country was to blame everyone but themselves for creating both the conditions that allow the far-right to flourish and the pernicious ideology which scapegoats asylum seekers and racial minorities.
On Wednesday 24 April, before the French results had even sunk in, Home Secretary David Blunkett pitched in to this debate. He argued on Radio 4’s "Today" programme that "restoring confidence in the asylum system would be a step towards social cohesion and seeing off the far right in Britain."
The interview took place on the same day as the second reading of the asylum, immigration and nationality bill was to happen in the Commons.
The provisions of the bill include the imposition of English lessons, and an oath of allegiance to the crown, on those immigrants who wish to apply for British citizenship, as well as more detention centres for asylum seekers.
The Bill will also further tighten border controls. The decision to introduce variable fines of up to £4,000 on airlines and ferry companies which carry migrants without proper documents comes after the high court ruled flat-rate £2,000 fines illegal because they failed to take account of individual circumstances
Blunkett is also proposing that new asylum seekers should be only receive education and health care in asylum centres while they are going through the appeals system.
Detention centres have already segregated asylum seekers from the rest of society to a huge extent – these proposals take that apartheid even further.
The bill proposes that the children of 3,000 new asylum seekers attend special schools at four new pilot "accommodation centres". A shortlist of eight sites are being looked at, nearly all of which are former Ministry of Defence bases and are in rural areas.
The Home Office says the new accommodation centres, which will not be locked, will provide full healthcare and legal and education facilities, including interpreters. But some MPs are sceptical that they will be able to deliver a broad enough range of services.
"Whilst they’re going through the process, the children will be educated on the site, which will be open, people will be able to come and go, but importantly not swamping the local school," intoned the Home Secretary.
He continued by telling his audience that a GP’s surgery in his constituency wrote to him a few weeks ago saying it could not cope because a third of its patients required "intensive language interpretation".
His response is not to see how those resources could be found to enable adequate health and education to be delivered to all – and thus really undercut the divide and rule policies of the BNP, but to pander to them.
Asked whether he wanted to see more or fewer foreigners come into Britain in 10 years time, Mr Blunkett said:
"I’d like to see dramatically fewer people coming under the asylum regulations and then failing, because 80% of them fail, and I’d like many more people to feel free to come and work here, to holiday here, to feel welcome here.
Mr Blunkett returned to the airwaves the following day to defend his use of the term "swamped", calling his critics "ridiculous". The defiant home secretary refused to apologise for his remarks and accused the media of "making a mountain out of a molehill".
His original comments prompted an outcry, drawing comparisons with Margaret Thatcher’s controversial claim in 1978 that Britain was being "swamped" by immigrants following riots in Wolverhampton.
Mr Blunkett not only refused to apologise: he also insisted that he had not made a slip of the tongue and insisted that he had chosen the world deliberately, even though he could have picked another expression.
The education secretary, Estelle Morris, said she agreed "101%" with Mr Blunkett’s analysis of the problems of educating the children of asylum seekers but refused to endorse his use of the word "swamping".
Former Labour party deputy leader Lord Hattersley however called on him to withdraw his comments. "It was a mistake that he ought to be much more categoric in disclaiming and apologising for," he said.
Mr Blunkett was also criticised by the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, Gurbux Singh, who described his use of the word swamping as "regrettable".
"Political leaders need to provide leadership. To create the image, which I think is the danger, that the country is being swamped by asylum seekers and immigrants just leads to a false impression and it doesn’t do justice to the debate."
Refugee groups warned that politicians who tried to sound tough on asylum threatened to fuel anti-immigrant feeling.
"Rather than appeasing the views of racists and bigots the main political parties should be clearly distancing themselves from these views and showing leadership by informing the British public as to why it is morally right to welcome refugees," said Nick Hardwick of the Refugee Council.
Tauhid Pahsa, of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, was also critical: "The use of the word swamping actually demonstrates the true intention of government - to keep them out of sight and out of mind, far removed away from mainstream communities."
But Downing Street supported to Mr Blunkett, stressing that asylum had been discussed at cabinet and that Blair had told colleagues that the success of the far right in the French elections would move the issue up the British domestic agenda.
"People in this country are not against people coming in but they want to see a system that is fair," said the prime minister’s official spokesman.
New Labour even insists that, far from pandering to the right, Blunkett is addressing a leftwing agenda, designed to raise standards for families seeking asylum and provide a faster process for assessing their claims
This is the same nonsense they have been parroting since they were elected in 1997.
In those five years the conditions under which asylum seekers are forced to live has become worse, while the administrative system for process claims has become more and more chaotic. Racist violence has increased - and so has support for the BNP.
The response of the left must be to step up our defence of asylum seekers – and build for the biggest possible demonstrations in Scotland and England on June 22.