Three times this century the elite has roused populist hatred against refugees. The first coalition of snob and mob produced the 1905 Aliens Act, which closed the ports to strangers from Eastern Europe. The second assault was against the victims of Nazism. For much of the nineties we have lived through the third alliance between governments and the far-right press. The chances of defeating it rest on the slender, well-shrugged shoulders of the Parliamentary Labour Party, which may find the justifications for the immiseration of women and children easier to rebut if it realises their pedigree.
On all three occasions, the reality of persecution has been denied and refugees presented as animals devoid of all human qualities save cunning.
In 1900, a Mail journalist described the Cheshire‘s arrival at Southampton and the “600 so-called refugees” among its passengers. “There were Russian Jews, Polish Jews, German Jews, Peruvian Jews: all kinds of Jews, all manner of Jews. They fought and jostled for the foremost place at the gangways; they rushed and pushed into the troopshed, where the Mayor of Southampton . . . had provided free refreshments. They had breakfasted well on board, but they rushed as though starving at the food. They brushed the attendant to one side, they cursed if they were not quickly served, they helped themselves at will, they thrust the children to the background, they pushed the women . . . they jostled and upset the weak, they spilled coffee on the ground in wanton waste.”
A suspiciously anonymous “officer” was said to have told the paper that the Jews “had been so bad” on the voyage, “we had to arm”.
Fashions change, but not that greatly. On 17 September 1998 the London Evening Standard reported that “so-called refugees” – sorry, “bogus asylum-seekers” – from Kosovo, Romania and Kurdistan were creating “havoc” in London. Their children “were demanding cash” outside Tube stations. They spat at citizens when they were confronted. They were professional crooks skilled in “repaying our kindness” with crime. “Undeterred by the police presence, teams of teenage [Kosovar] pickpockets work their way through the crowds drawn to Buckingham Palace to watch the Changing of the Guard.” A policeman, who was as reluctant to give his name as the Cheshire‘s officer 98 years before, said: “They are very, very good because many of them are trained in their own country before coming to London.” (Milosevic apparently sent Muslims to criminal night schools before driving them into exile.)
The kindness of a naive Britain is always being exploited by sly frauds. The Mail reporter saw Jews from the Cheshire board a train. “Incredible as it may seem, the moment they were in the carriages they played all manners of games at cards, staking sovereigns on a single card. These were the penniless refugees, and when the Relief Committee passed by they hid their gold and fawned and whined and . . . asked for money for their train fare.” On 11 February 1999 the Mail reported asylum-seekers “being sent out of London to stay at a picturesque camp on the Welsh coast . . . The immigrants, who benefit from free clothing, have, however, enough money to pop down to the Green Bridge Inn.”
The script requires that cheating refugees be contrasted with trusting natives. In 1900, the Mail invoked a “quiet, sad-faced” Englishman “with scarcely a rag of warm clothing” looking at the Jews “in silence”. Kosovars come to Britain, wrote Simon Heffer in the Mail of 26 September 1998, “because word has travelled far about the generosity of our social security system which they intend to milk while embarking in many cases on criminal activity . . . Money contributed by rate- payers [sic] for local services – such as educating our children, caring for our elderly or lighting our streets – has to be diverted.”
Heffer also echoed another Mail predecessor. “The way stateless Jews are pouring into this country is becoming an outrage” (Mail, 20 August 1938). “So many asylum-seekers are pouring into this country from the Balkans . . . that the authorities here are finding they simply cannot cope” (Heffer, 26 September 1998). “Once it was known that Britain offered sanctuary to all who cared to come, the floodgates would be opened and we would be inundated by thousands seeking a home” (Mail, 23 March 1938). “If nothing is done to tighten up procedures, within four years the number of asylum cheats awaiting deportation could total 111,000” (Mail editorial, 13 May 1998).
Populism as a weapon of mass distraction usually serves the elite well. But politicians and editors need to watch for the swerves of history that leave them rooted to the spot with their populist trousers round their ankles. In the first five years of Hitler’s rule, just 11,000 German refugees were let into Britain. But newsreel pictures of Jews being forced to scrub pavements on Kristallnacht inspired general disgust among a supposedly brutal and prejudiced public. The Home Office issued more visas. About 40,000 Jews found sanctuary in Britain between November 1938 and the start of the war.
Since the Kosovo crisis began, even the Mail and Standard have fallen silent. The vicious Immigration and Asylum Bill is an anachronism before it has become law; a grotesque play for an empty theatre.
“Cruel Britannia”, a collection of the writer’s columns in the “Observer” and elsewhere, will soon be published by Verso
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