Howard's Myth posted by Richard Seymour

"The Way to Deal With Racism is to Clamp Down on its Victims."

Michael Howard blasted the BNP today in a devastating speech to Burnley residents, who were no doubt sitting in rapt attention. He announced:

"The BNP preaches a message of racism, intolerance and brutality that flies in the face of this country's history and heritage."

Before adding:

"And what's more, they're a bunch of fucking foreigners!"

Okay, he didn't say that, but his speech was pretty boring you know. I'm trying to make it more interesting for you. The trouble is that the BNP message does not "fly in the face" of Britain's heritage, it amplifies and distorts and exaggerates the worst elements of it. What, we never kicked out our Jews? We never tried to burn them, stone them, convert them? We never locked the Jews up in camps?

Howard attacks the BNP only to steal some of their clothing:

"He reiterated his call for a two-year moratorium on the freedom of workers to come to the UK from the 10 EU accession countries without a work permit, and repeated his insistence that all asylum seekers should have their claims assessed before they reach Britain."

Unsurprisingly, Nick Griffin was able to retort that Howard was stealing the rhetoric but not the substance. In other words, racist voters would go for the real Armani, not some pale, wishy-washy impersonation. Which is exactly why Howard's argument that the answer is "managing migration and asylum to stop extremists making capital out of the issues" is such unmitigated crap.

It is even more inappropriate a reaction given that the scene of the BNP's most conspicuous success was also the scene of riots not about asylum seekers, but about non-white British people living in the industrial north. In other words, it is about race and not about the Home Office working the asylum system more effectively. And what is the likely effect, one wonders, of a major national political figure travelling to one of the most racist areas of the country to deliver a speech which in substance tells the locals that the problem is too many asylum seekers and immigrants? Apart from letting voters know that they can trust the Tories to implement a more respectable racism, it can only contribute to the sense of validation for arrogant little bigots storming the streets with knuckledusters and illiterate tattoos on their foreheads.

There is a perfectly sound psephological analysis behind Howard's move. The top political issues among Britons for the next election, according to Mori, are:

"[T]he NHS (mentioned by 40%), race relations/immigration (34%), education (26%) and crime (25%). Europe is mentioned by only one in seven people." In other words, since they cannot possibly beat Labour on health (they may just get equal figures if Labour continues its Foundation Hospitals and PFI), the Tories are going to beat the dead horse of immigration. It will certainly scatter a few flies, but if the next election is to be determined by the racialisation of the political agenda, it will also unleash the stench of a rotten body politic. Labour competing with the Tories on this issue is disgusting enough - what is more amazing is that Blair should have dragged the debate so far to the right that Michael Howard can bring himself to condemn the illiberalism of New Labour:

"Children of asylum seekers are to be taken into care in order to force their parents to leave the country.
The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary should be ashamed of themselves.
We shall oppose any legislative provision that seeks to give effect to this despicable provision." (From Michael Howard's reaction to the Queen's Speech.)

Naturally, New Labour's spinmeisters are eager to point out Howard's hypocrisy on this:

"When Michael Howard was Home Secretary, he passed a law withdrawing benefits from all asylum seekers, not just those whose claims had failed. This was successfully challenged in the courts but if carried out, would have left thousands of children destitute, some of them from families who had escaped from death and torture and were waiting to be given refugee status in the UK. David Davis voted for this law too."

All very true, but it doesn't stop New Labour's current policy being a bag of shit. Mark their own self-serving justification for removing the children of Asylum Seekers (from the page linked above):

"The Government has three choices when faced with these families.

Choice One is to let everyone stay and tear up our immigration laws altogether. This is a non-starter.

Choice Two is to detain more families in secure removal centres to ensure they can be removed quickly. But these centres are not a happy environment for children and we try to keep their presence in them to a minimum.

Choice three is to do everything we can to encourage people to take a paid-for flight home. Why? Because enforced removals - where immigration officers have to take families from their homes in the middle of the night – are traumatic for the children involved. We want to avoid this wherever possible but despite the fact we pay for flights and offer generous resettlement grants, many of these failed claimants still refuse to leave. That is why we are planning on removing state benefits when people refuse to take our offer to leave. However, we will continue to protect children from destitution, whatever the selfish actions of their parents who are trying to frustrate the immigration laws of the UK."

Just those three?

Well, how about another choice - FOLLOW THE LAW. If your concern is the well-being of asylum seekers, that is. Abide by the Geneva Convention, and stop attempting to deport 30,000 people a year on the basis of a purely arbitrary set standard . Instead, consider each case on its merits. Then you won't have as many crying babies and broken families to deal with. Stop denying asylum seekers who sleep rough the right to food and shelter. That'll cover you for the European Convention of Human Rights. If the well-being of asylum seekers is actually your concern, that is. Stop bombing the hell out of other countries. See, it turns out that people don't like being bombed and they try to flee abroad - a meagre 0.05% of whom come here. And finally, for those 0.05% who do come here?

Fuck it, let 'em stay! Option number one, your "non-starter" would be a perfectly humane and rational gesture. "Ah, but then the racists will..." Yes? They'll what, exactly? Quit the government? Drop out of the police force? Refuse to appear on Kilroy? The only winners of the race game are the racists - they play it best. If you stop playing the race card, and attack racists not their victims then we might have a solid basis for tackling the far right. And anyway, if you stop immigration, who will Lord Irvine get to clean his bog for £4.10 an hour?