The ‘elitism’ of mere thought
Last week Matt Goodwin published an article on his Substack (most of it paid-for, which I refuse to do, but you can read the first few paragraphs free) claiming that the controversy over the use of barges to hold asylum seekers (who allegedly arrived on small boats across the Channel, though it is actually known that many did not) was merely the case of the “new elite” shrieking about an issue the majority of the population are fine with. The barges in question have in the past been used for worker accommodation, but are being “maxed out” with rooms being fitted to hold more inmates than usual, and gyms and common rooms being refitted as dormitories, and in one of them the Legionella bacteria has been found in the waterworks. The barges have been commissioned as an alternative to the hotels being used until now, at least some of which had previously been used as Covid quarantine hotels. (You’d think that if hotel chains could make them pay by admitting paying guests, they would not allow them to be used as migrant hostels; the policy is at least keeping some of them in business.)
The barges, in short, are designed to reinforce the government’s narrative that it is taking the British people’s concerns seriously, it is actively deterring other migrants from crossing the Channel, and is getting things done —however unpopular they might be among the liberal progressive new elite who dominate the institutions.
And it is definitely unpopular among the new elite. Much like the Rwanda Plan before it, the last few weeks have been filled with members of our new ruling class voicing if not shrieking their opposition to the plan, a reaction fuelled by the unfortunate revelation this week that one barge has a Legionella bacteria outbreak.
The Rwanda plan was an unworkable plan intended to grab sympathetic headlines by copying Australia’s policy of interning “boat people” in desert camps or in nearby third-world countries such as Papua New Guinea. Britain, unlike Australia, does not have nearby third-world countries. Rwanda, or parts of it, is comparatively well-developed by central African standards but is a country which produces refugees rather than being a country people beat a path to. Some migrants might be able to make better lives for themselves there, but refugees who are looking to live in a democratic country with the rule of law, or to live near family or friends here, will not feel safe in Rwanda, regardless of how many women are in its parliament, and are likely to just abscond.
As for the barges, the reason we object to them is that migrants, especially if they are genuine refugees, are not criminals and should not be treated like criminals by being herded onto an overcrowded, insanitary floating prison, something we do not do to actual convicts. Goodwin points out that the MP Lee Anderson, the vulgar lout who suggested they “f**k off back to France”, is “working class” as if that gives him particular authority. True, his comments may have struck a chord with people who lap up the hate delivered on talk radio and junk news channels or to people whose opinions are formed by reading tabloid newspapers, but to others, they were reminiscent of the racist graffiti we all saw on subway walls in the past that was painted by members of the National Front. Just because you have a more nuanced view of the world than that delivered by the Sun or GB News does not make you part of an elite.
Goodwin doesn’t let basic facts like these get in the way of his propaganda, nor basic political principles such as the notion that representative democracy does not always mean the people get what they want, or think they want. Sometimes representatives owe the people their judgement. Sometimes there are bigger things than what would win votes, such as a hard-won peace after a long civil war that in large part depends on an open border, or our ability to export food to our neighbours, or people’s jobs, or as in this case, the need to uphold basic humanity. If we do not, we do not remain a civilised country — we end up like one of the places all the refugees are fleeing from. There is also nothing ‘new’ about branding people who are not mean, bigoted, xenophobic and unthinkingly punitive, who don’t let tabloids tell them what to think, as an “out of touch elite”; this has been a standard right-wing tactic here and elsewhere since at least the 1980s if not earlier, and often the politicians who exploit this line of thinking to become an actual ruling class are anything but working-class themselves: often old-money aristocrats, big businessmen who want to avoid regulation so they can pollute at will, media barons, wealthy bankers. We have an actual ruling class riddled with these groups of people in the UK right now and the only way they know to appeal to ordinary people is through their prejudices.
We don’t have a liberal ruling class; we have a reactionary ruling class of the super-rich.
Possibly Related Posts:
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- The London school fighting its own pupils
- Nick Timothy itching for a fight
- On the Daniel Jou “virginity test” controversy
- Boris Johnson: goodbye, and good riddance
