Let's understand what "offshore refugee processing centres" and "wave machines to deter crossings" are: racist fantasies. They're being floated as ammunition in the culture war by far right ideologues in Whitehall.... 1/
2/ ... so the BBC can ask, credulously, "would this be a good idea?" then interview a bunch of Aussie racists who say, yes, you know what, it would be a good idea... as if this country's commitment to human rights were negotiable...
3/ ... and by mid-morning I can confidently predict a bunch of elderly racists will be spewing hate into the microphones of the talk-radio shows, saying "offshore detention centres are too good for them"....
4/ While in the pubs, closed Facebook groups and private Telegram channels, the real genocidal ideation is going on: "tow 'em out and sink 'em" etc. We're in an information war: Cummings & co are waging it, the talk radio channels are the weapon, the BBC the conduit...
5/ Amid it all, we never actually hear from refugees. Notice that? All that's happened in 24 hours is: the racist mind-garbage of some PADs and right-wing civil servants (yes these too exist) has been dumped into the public discourse...
6/ Lesson: out of literally nothing - two phone calls to the press, no leaked documents, no statements - the Vote Leave/Bannon government dumped a new consignment of racism, to top up all the existing racism into our country's public life. Silence is complicity.
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