British home secretary Priti Patel reportedly wants to send migrants – the displaced people, Afghans included, who desperately attempt to cross the English Channel to seek protection and a new life in Britain – back to France.
Hearing Patel and Tory MPs’ demands for migrants’ forced return to France brought back memories of life under the far-Right-led government during my two years of research in Italy in 2018 and 2019. I was reminded of the frequent claim made by English expats (who, strangely, are not known as ‘immigrants’) when witnessing the end of Mediterranean Sea rescue and the criminalisation of non-government organisation (NGO) ships: “This would never happen in Britain.”
‘Sending migrants back’ was, for a long time, a task delegated and outsourced to the peripheral states of Europe. Now, post-Brexit, the British tabloid press again cries ‘migrant crisis’ and prime minister Boris Johnson pushes to deliver on the pledge of ‘keeping our borders under control’.
