In The Critic, Joel Rodrigues considers what the media narrative would say if the constant stream of migrants from the EU to Britain was reversed, as all the major media outlets predicted would happen if Brexit went through:
This map shows the location of the Strait of Dover between England and France, and part of the English Channel and the North Sea. It also shows nearby towns such as Dover, Calais, and Dunkirk.
Image created by NormanEinstein via Wikimedia Commons.
Imagine “tent” cities on the Kent coast, similar to “the Jungle” that existed in Calais up until 2016. These camps are the type of camps that the Remain campaign (wrongly) warned would spring up if Britain voted to leave the EU, as part of their Project Fear campaign. The tent cities are full of migrants, hoping to reach the French coast and the “sunlit uplands” of the European Union.
The camps are filthy, riddled with violent crime, and it is here that people traffickers sell spaces on dinghies to cross the channel for thousands of pounds a ticket. The British police and immigration services are aware of undocumented people living in squalor in the camps, but largely do nothing.
Occasionally a camp is cleared to placate the locals, but it quickly springs up somewhere else. The British government make no effort to document, accommodate or process the migrants living in appalling conditions on its territory. Instead, it blames the “pull factor of the EU’s single market”, saying that many of these migrants have family in France and want to live in a French or German speaking society. A junior British minister suggests that the black market economies in the EU are also a pull factor, and that there are a “lack of safe asylum routes” into the EU.
People smugglers continue operating from the British coast, and the migrant camps expand. Dinghies are now launched daily from the UK towards the continent. Police are aware of the launches, but do nothing. The RNLI and Royal Navy escort these flimsy boats until they are in EU waters, despite their not being seaworthy. Thousands succeed in making the crossing.
Then, tragedy strikes when a boat sinks. Statements are released from the British and French governments lamenting the loss of life. Trying to find a solution, Emmanuel Macron writes a letter to Boris Johnson urging increased collaboration, with joint patrols if necessary, to prevent a repeat of the tragedy.
The British government issue a response claiming that the perfectly conciliatory letter is in fact unacceptable, a “threat to British sovereignty”, and that France is uninvited from crisis talks. British media later reports that in a meeting with some of his advisors, Boris Johnson branded Emmanuel Macron as “a clown in charge of a circus”.
Imagine the media commentary and narrative in the UK surrounding such a situation, especially post-Brexit.
“Migrants die fleeing racist, Brexit-ridden, plague island,” says an op-ed in the Guardian. The comments are largely agreed that Boris Johnson is personally responsible for each of their deaths.
“UK condemned as using migrants to destabilise the EU’s single market,” reports the BBC. Parallels are also drawn in The Times between Boris Johnson and Belarus’ Lukashenko. There are mass demonstrations outside Parliament as the crisis worsens.
One can imagine the EU Commission swiftly and publicly denouncing the UK and drawing up sanctions. The Labour party would likely call it a national scandal, and demand resignations, as well as accusing the government of taking a hardline stance as cynical electioneering.
I searched for public domain or Creative Commons images of the English Channel migrant crisis, but came up surprisingly empty, hence the generic map to illustrate this post. I had expected to be inundated with lots of heart-rending images of desperate refugees, but not this time…
