I have nothing but sympathy for EU citizens facing the hostile environment. There's nothing new about it though. This has been the reality for non-EU citizens for years. It's tragic that so many people have only just woken up to the reality of that. 1/
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
While you see a number of people hark back to 2012 as a time of an open and welcoming Britain with the Olympics, many others remember it as the year when Theresa May officially brought in a series of policies actually called the "Hostile environment". 2/
Even then they weren't new. They built on the policies of successive previous governments. Among other things, the coalition brought in new eligibility criteria, including the £18,600 minimum income requirements and restricting access to benefits. 3/
Under the previous Labour government a whole raft of policies were brought in under its newly termed "managed migration" goals, including new restrictions on asylum seekers and, drum roll please...a points based immigration system. 4/
Right, left and center have attacked migrants for decades. Unfortunately we still see some, and in particular right now those who claim to be "progressives", ignore this and maintain a "good/bad migrant" narrative between EU and non-EU, which plays straight into xenophobia. 5/
It doesn't matter where someone was born. It's great that people are waking up to the damage the hostile environment does, but you can't make this only about EU citizens. We need to fight for all migrants, otherwise we undermine the fight for any migrants. 6/
The second you try and divide the argument between EU and non-EU you open the door to the argument that it is "acceptable" for some to be denied rights based on where they are born. That is the argument that has been used by racists and xenophobes for decades to destroy lives. 7/
Do you honestly think they will stop? Of course not. You've just handed them the win they need. This isn't an area you can compromise on. Fighting for migrants has to be about all migrants, otherwise it very rapidly starts to fracture and fragment and becomes about no migrants 8/
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