Meaning nothing but good: Ethics, history and asylum-seeker phobia in Britain

Patterns of Prejudice

Volumn 37, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 257-276

  Kushner, Tony ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Asylum seekers; Ethics; History; Immigration; Lee on the Solent; Racism; Refugees; The Moral Maze

Indexed keywords

EID: 0042333125     PISSN: 0031322X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00313220307593     Document Type: Article

References (104)

1. Quoted in Observer, 23 February 2003.
2. Steve Cohen, It's the Same Old Story (Manchester: Manchester City Council 1987).
3. Tim Bouquet and David Moller, 'Are we a tolerant nation?', Reader's Digest, November 2000, 64-5.
4. Press statistics from Lexis-Nexis search engine; Chris Searle, 'Your daily dose: racism and the Sun', in Nancy Murray and Chris Searle, Racism and the Press in Thatcher's Britain (London: Institute of Race Relations 1989), 21-37. Arun Kundnani comments, regarding the tabloids, that 'the Mail's nastiness stands out; the Mirror is sometimes more generous, though it still operates within the same framework' ('In a foreign land: the new popular racism', Race and Class, vol. 43, no. 2, 2001, 48-9). There are, however, important differences between the tabloids relating to their particular world views, and the Mirror's more recent radical perspective, including its stance against the war in Iraq, has been reflected in a more critical view of the press campaign against asylum-seekers. See, for example, the editorial in the Daily Mirror, 28 January 2003, which backed David Blunkett in his attack on the Sun's anti-asylum campaign. For the growth of the press campaign against asylum-seekers in the first half of the 1990s, see Ron Kaye, 'Redefining the refugee: the UK media portrayal of asylum seekers', in Khalid Koser and Helma Lutz (eds), The New Migration in Europe: Social Constructions and Social Realities (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1998), 163-82. A detailed analysis of a specific media campaign in the early 2000s is provided in Article 19, 'What's the story? Sangatte: a case study of media coverage of asylum and refugee issues', 15 May 2003, available at www.article19.org/docimages/1625.doc (viewed 11 June 2003).
5. Press statistics from Lexis-Nexis search engine; Chris Searle, 'Your daily dose: racism and the Sun', in Nancy Murray and Chris Searle, Racism and the Press in Thatcher's Britain (London: Institute of Race Relations 1989), 21-37. Arun Kundnani comments, regarding the tabloids, that 'the Mail's nastiness stands out; the Mirror is sometimes more generous, though it still operates within the same framework' ('In a foreign land: the new popular racism', Race and Class, vol. 43, no. 2, 2001, 48-9). There are, however, important differences between the tabloids relating to their particular world views, and the Mirror's more recent radical perspective, including its stance against the war in Iraq, has been reflected in a more critical view of the press campaign against asylum-seekers. See, for example, the editorial in the Daily Mirror, 28 January 2003, which backed David Blunkett in his attack on the Sun's anti-asylum campaign. For the growth of the press campaign against asylum-seekers in the first half of the 1990s, see Ron Kaye, 'Redefining the refugee: the UK media portrayal of asylum seekers', in Khalid Koser and Helma Lutz (eds), The New Migration in Europe: Social Constructions and Social Realities (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1998), 163-82. A detailed analysis of a specific media campaign in the early 2000s is provided in Article 19, 'What's the story? Sangatte: a case study of media coverage of asylum and refugee issues', 15 May 2003, available at www.article19.org/docimages/1625.doc (viewed 11 June 2003).
6. Press statistics from Lexis-Nexis search engine; Chris Searle, 'Your daily dose: racism and the Sun', in Nancy Murray and Chris Searle, Racism and the Press in Thatcher's Britain (London: Institute of Race Relations 1989), 21-37. Arun Kundnani comments, regarding the tabloids, that 'the Mail's nastiness stands out; the Mirror is sometimes more generous, though it still operates within the same framework' ('In a foreign land: the new popular racism', Race and Class, vol. 43, no. 2, 2001, 48-9). There are, however, important differences between the tabloids relating to their particular world views, and the Mirror's more recent radical perspective, including its stance against the war in Iraq, has been reflected in a more critical view of the press campaign against asylum-seekers. See, for example, the editorial in the Daily Mirror, 28 January 2003, which backed David Blunkett in his attack on the Sun's anti-asylum campaign. For the growth of the press campaign against asylum-seekers in the first half of the 1990s, see Ron Kaye, 'Redefining the refugee: the UK media portrayal of asylum seekers', in Khalid Koser and Helma Lutz (eds), The New Migration in Europe: Social Constructions and Social Realities (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1998), 163-82. A detailed analysis of a specific media campaign in the early 2000s is provided in Article 19, 'What's the story? Sangatte: a case study of media coverage of asylum and refugee issues', 15 May 2003, available at www.article19.org/docimages/1625.doc (viewed 11 June 2003).
7. Tom Leonard, 'MPs land a scoop as Daily Mail, editor faces a grilling', Daily Telegraph, 26 February 2003.
8. ABC National Newspaper Circulation figures for January 2003 excluding bulk sales.
9. Dorothy Sheridan, Brian Street and David Bloome, Writing Ourselves: Mass-Observation and Literacy Practices (Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press 2000), esp. section 3.
10. 'Coming to Britain' (Directive, Summer 2000): Mass-Observation Archiv, University of Sussex, Brighton. There were 200 responses to this directive, three-quarters from women. For a more detailed analysis of its contents, see Tony Kushner, Remembering Refugees: Then and Now (Manchester: Manchester University Press forthcoming).
11. Richard Crossman, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister. Vol. I Minister of Housing 1964-66 (London: Hamish Hamilton and Jonathan Cape 1975), 149.
12. See, for example, Paul Gilroy, There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation (London: Hutchinson 1987); Caroline Knowles, Race, Discourse and Labourism (London: Routledge 1992) and Kathleen Paul, Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press 1997).
13. See, for example, Paul Gilroy, There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation (London: Hutchinson 1987); Caroline Knowles, Race, Discourse and Labourism (London: Routledge 1992) and Kathleen Paul, Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press 1997).
14. See, for example, Paul Gilroy, There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation (London: Hutchinson 1987); Caroline Knowles, Race, Discourse and Labourism (London: Routledge 1992) and Kathleen Paul, Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press 1997).
15. Anthony Giddens, 'The Third Way can beat the far right', Guardian, 3 May 2002.
16. Home Office, Fairer, Faster and Firmer. A Modern Approach to Immigration and Asylum, Cmd 4018 (London: The Stationery Office 1998), paras 8.12-8.826.
17. David Blunkett on BBC Radio 4, Today, 24 April 2002; editorial in the Daily Mail, 25 April 2002. For criticism of his use of the word 'swamping' and its echo of Margaret Thatcher's use in 1978, see Guardian and Independent, 25 April 2002.
18. Peter Riddell, 'Britons seek limit on number of asylum seekers', The Times, 12 February 2003.
19. Tony Kushner and Katharine Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide: Global, National and Local Perspectives during the Twentieth Century (London: Frank Cass 1999), ch. 3 on the 1920s.
20. On Migrationwatch UK, see Observer, 1 December 2002; Melanie Phillips, 'Worried about immigration? You're fascist. Proud of our culture? You're racist', Daily Mail, 4 December 2002. A MORI poll carried out in May 2002 found that on average the sample believed that 23 per cent of the world's refugees and asylum-seekers were in the United Kingdom, more than ten times the reality of less than 2 per cent.
21. On Migrationwatch UK, see Observer, 1 December 2002; Melanie Phillips, 'Worried about immigration? You're fascist. Proud of our culture? You're racist', Daily Mail, 4 December 2002. A MORI poll carried out in May 2002 found that on average the sample believed that 23 per cent of the world's refugees and asylum-seekers were in the United Kingdom, more than ten times the reality of less than 2 per cent.
22. Ian Burrell and Paul Peachey, 'Violence against refugees reaches new high', Independent, 16 September 2002; 'Could you live on £71 a week?', Observer, 12 May 2002.
23. Ian Burrell and Paul Peachey, 'Violence against refugees reaches new high', Independent, 16 September 2002; 'Could you live on £71 a week?', Observer, 12 May 2002.
24. Michael Marrus, The Unwanted: European Refugees in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1985), 135.
25. Roy Greenslade, 'So just why is the Daily Meldrew so grumpy?', Guardian, 2 September 2002.
26. John Cooper Clarke, 'You never see a nipple in the Daily Express', c.1978, stage version.
27. Daily Mail, 21 January 2003.
28. Daily Mail, 20 November 2002.
29. Riddell. See also the Institute for Public Policy Research's 'attitudes to race surveys', carried out in February 1997, which put the figure at 75 per cent support for those 'in need of our help and support'.
30. Andrew Shacknove, 'From asylum to containment', International Journal of Refugee Law, vol. 5, no. 4, 1993, 517.
31. See, for example, Bernard Gainer, The Alien Invasion: The Origins of the Aliens Act of 1905 (London: Heinemann 1972).
32. Daily Mail, 3 February 1900. For further discussion of this episode of anti-alienism, see Tony Kushner and Katharine Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide, 23-5.
33. Daily Mail, 3 February 1900. For further discussion of this episode of anti-alienism, see Tony Kushner and Katharine Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide, 23-5.
34. Tony Kushner, 'Local heroes: Belgian refugees in Britain during the First World War', Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 18, no. 1, March 1999, 1-28.
35. Hansard (HC), vol. 180, cols 313-14, 11 February 1925.
36. German Jewish Aid Committee Executive minutes, 5 January 1938: Central British Fund Archives, London Metropolitan Archives, 174/263.
37. Marrus, 297.
38. Bernard Wasserstein, Vanishing Diaspora: The Jews in Europe since 1945 (London: Hamish Hamilton 1996), 8.
39. Patricia Tuitt, False Images: The Law's Construction of the Refugee (London: Pluto Press 1996).
40. Roger Zetter, 'Refugees and refugee studies - a valedictory editorial', Journal of Refugee Studies, vol. 13, no. 4, 2000, 353.
41. Jack Straw and David Blunkett, Labour home secretaries, respectively, since 1997, have argued for the re-interpretation or reforming of the universal aspects of the 1951 Convention and its subsequent protocols. In January 2003 Tony Blair similarly argued for amendment to the European Convention on Human Rights so that more control over the entry and removal of asylum-seekers could be exercised. For the safe haven policy and limited UK entry, see Elspeth Guild, 'The United Kingdom: Kosovar Albanian refugees', in Joanne van Selm (ed.), Kosovo's Refugees in the European Union (London: Pinter 2000), 67-90, and Kushner and Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide, ch. 13.
42. Jack Straw and David Blunkett, Labour home secretaries, respectively, since 1997, have argued for the re-interpretation or reforming of the universal aspects of the 1951 Convention and its subsequent protocols. In January 2003 Tony Blair similarly argued for amendment to the European Convention on Human Rights so that more control over the entry and removal of asylum-seekers could be exercised. For the safe haven policy and limited UK entry, see Elspeth Guild, 'The United Kingdom: Kosovar Albanian refugees', in Joanne van Selm (ed.), Kosovo's Refugees in the European Union (London: Pinter 2000), 67-90, and Kushner and Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide, ch. 13.
43. Express, 7 January 2003.
44. Gainer, 154.
45. William Evans Gordon, The Alien Immigrant (London: Heinemann 1903), 6-8.
46. Royal Commission on Alien Immigration: Minutes of Evidence Taken before the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, Cmd 1742 (London; His Majesty's Stationery Office 1903), vol. 2, cols 23178-83.
47. Kushner and Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide, ch. 5.
48. Louise London, 'Whitehall and the refugees: the 1930s and the 1990s', Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 34, no. 3, 2000, 17.
49. Home Office, Fairer, Faster and Firmer, 35.
50. Statement made by Lord Rooker, 14 May 2002, reported in Guardian, 15 May 2002. See also Alan Travis, 'Figures, not fairness, behind Blair's new asylum plan', Guardian, 24 May 2002, for the wider context of Rocker's remarks.
51. Observer, 10 February 2002; Guardian, 15 May 2002. See also the Home Office White Paper, Secure Borders, Safe Haven: Integration with Diversity in Modern Britain, Cmd 5387 (London: The Stationery Office 2002), 15.
52. Observer, 10 February 2002; Guardian, 15 May 2002. See also the Home Office White Paper, Secure Borders, Safe Haven: Integration with Diversity in Modern Britain, Cmd 5387 (London: The Stationery Office 2002), 15.
53. Observer, 10 February 2002; Guardian, 15 May 2002. See also the Home Office White Paper, Secure Borders, Safe Haven: Integration with Diversity in Modern Britain, Cmd 5387 (London: The Stationery Office 2002), 15.
54. Guardian, 8 July 2002; Horatio Clare, 'Now what?', Guardian, 9 July 2002.
55. Guardian, 8 July 2002; Horatio Clare, 'Now what?', Guardian, 9 July 2002.
56. Guardian, 19 September 2002.
57. For national news coverage, see Independent, Guardian, Daily Mail and The Times, 12 February 2003.
58. Quoted in The Times, 12 February 2003.
59. See, for example, letter to Southern Daily Echo, 15 February 2003, and a report in the same paper, 24 February 2003; also Carole Malone, 'How we handed victory to bigots', Sunday Mirror, 16 February 2003.
60. Sian Davies, 'Say no to asylum seekers', This Is Hampshire, 14 February 2003.
61. Southern Daily Echo, 21 February 2003.
62. 1 See Southern Daily Echo, 21 and 24 February 2003. The petition has gathered 13,000 signatures.
63. Southern Daily Echo, 24 February 2003.
64. Sian Davies.
65. Southern Daily Echo, 21 February 2003.
66. Southern Daily Echo, 24 February 2003.
67. Comments made on South Today, BBC1, 11 February 2003; Southern Daily Echo, 24 February 2003.
68. Comments made on South Today, BBC1, 11 February 2003; Southern Daily Echo, 24 February 2003.
69. Southern Daily Echo, 15 February 2003; Michael Clarke, 'Swamped!', Daily Mail, 12 February 2003.
70. Southern Daily Echo, 15 February 2003; Michael Clarke, 'Swamped!', Daily Mail, 12 February 2003.
71. Viggers on South Today, BBC1, 11 February 2003.
72. Southern Daily Echo, 15 February 2003.
73. Quoted in Guardian, 12 February 2003.
74. Letter in Southern Daily Echo, 27 January 2003.
75. Letters in Southern Daily Echo, 24 and 31 January 2003 and 15 February 2003 in response.
76. Letter in Southern Daily Echo, 15 February 2003.
77. Kushner and Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide, ch. 3; Alice Bloch, Refugees' Opportunities and Barriers in Employment and Training, Department of Work and Pensions Research Report no.179 (Leeds: Corporate Document Services 2002) highlights the problems caused by dispersal as well as the fresh networks that have been created; Keith Hamilton, 'Memory lane', Southern Daily Echo, 21 February 2003.
78. Kushner and Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide, ch. 3; Alice Bloch, Refugees' Opportunities and Barriers in Employment and Training, Department of Work and Pensions Research Report no.179 (Leeds: Corporate Document Services 2002) highlights the problems caused by dispersal as well as the fresh networks that have been created; Keith Hamilton, 'Memory lane', Southern Daily Echo, 21 February 2003.
79. Kushner and Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide, ch. 3; Alice Bloch, Refugees' Opportunities and Barriers in Employment and Training, Department of Work and Pensions Research Report no.179 (Leeds: Corporate Document Services 2002) highlights the problems caused by dispersal as well as the fresh networks that have been created; Keith Hamilton, 'Memory lane', Southern Daily Echo, 21 February 2003.
80. Southern Daily Echo, 15 February 2003.
81. The Moral Maze, broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 5 February 2003.
82. See, for example, David Aaronovitch, 'Lies, damned lies', Observer, 26 January 2003; Libby Brooks, 'Asylum: a special investigation', Guardian, 1 May 2003; and Refugee Council, 'Get the facts: nailing press myths about refugees', December 2002, available at www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/news/myths/myth001.htm (viewed 11 June 2003).
83. See, for example, David Aaronovitch, 'Lies, damned lies', Observer, 26 January 2003; Libby Brooks, 'Asylum: a special investigation', Guardian, 1 May 2003; and Refugee Council, 'Get the facts: nailing press myths about refugees', December 2002, available at www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/news/myths/myth001.htm (viewed 11 June 2003).
84. See, for example, David Aaronovitch, 'Lies, damned lies', Observer, 26 January 2003; Libby Brooks, 'Asylum: a special investigation', Guardian, 1 May 2003; and Refugee Council, 'Get the facts: nailing press myths about refugees', December 2002, available at www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/news/myths/myth001.htm (viewed 11 June 2003).
85. Monty Python, series 2, programme 7, broadcast on BBC television, 10 November 1970.
86. Daily Mail, 4 December 2002.
87. Editorial, Daily Mail, 21 January 2003.
88. London, 18.
89. David Cesarani, 'Anti-alienism in England after the First World War', Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 6, no. 1, March 1987, 5-29.
90. Kushner and Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide, ch. 5.
91. Guild; Tony Kushner, 'Kosovo and the refugee crisis, 1999: the search for patterns amidst the prejudice', Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 33, no. 3, 1999, 73-86.
92. Parkes Papers, University of Southampton, 60/9/5/1.
93. I b i d.
94. Frederick Forsyth, on The Moral Maze, broadcast BBC Radio 4, 5 February 2003; letter to the Southern Daily Echo, 15 February 2003.
95. Frederick Forsyth, on The Moral Maze, broadcast BBC Radio 4, 5 February 2003; letter to the Southern Daily Echo, 15 February 2003.
96. For the redemptive approach, see Martin Gilbert, The Boys: Triumph over Adversity (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1996).
97. Kushner and Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide, 206-14.
98. Bob Rowthorn, 'Migration limits', Prospect, no. 83, February 2003, cover story and description.
99. Norman Davies, The Isles: A History (Basingstoke: Macmillan 1999).
100. Paul Langford, Englishness Identified: Manners and Character 1650-1850 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2000).
101. Speech, published as A Moral and Spiritual Index (London: Refugee Council 1996).
102. I b i d.
103. I b i d.
104. Cooper Clarke (my emphasis).