Today’s speech from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester had all the hallmarks of a leadership in desperation and a party willing to fan the flames of hate and division in our communities to score cheap political points at the expense of basic human rights and protections.
Beyond the scattergun, seemingly fictional, policy announcements from government ministers on abolishing non-existent meat taxes and banning mobile phones in classrooms (something widely recognised as a standard practice in British schools), the Tories redoubled their commitment to administering some of the most heinous attacks on our communities in modern British politics.
Behind the sensational tabloid headlines, there is a dangerous rhetoric not seen in the political mainstream since the days of Enoch Powell.
The government’s continued failure to build a humane migration system based on the principles of care, compassion and dignity will continue to cost lives in the English Channel. Only the provision of safe routes and processes will end the many needless and utterly avoidable deaths at sea.
The Home Secretary Suella Braverman has repeatedly signalled her desire to remove the UK from the Refugee Convention. This is a slippery slope into leaving other human rights treaties – which would consciously and cruelly sentence some of the most vulnerable people in our society to poverty, persecution and death.
Instead of declaring war on refugees, workers fighting for a payrise in the struggle against the cost of living crisis, and trans people who just want the same opportunities and access to healthcare, education and housing, the government should be building high-quality homes for the many, taxing the rich to save our NHS and kickstarting a Green New Deal to ensure a sustainable future for our planet.
The Tories continue to engage in divisive and toxic debate, whipping up fear to act as a smokescreen for their thirteen years of failure, destructive austerity and the protection of their profiteering mates they have enabled to leech off our industries and economy whilst workers are given poverty wages.
The Peace & Justice Project condemns the government’s appalling rhetoric and will continue to campaign for social and economic justice in Britain and around the world, in line with our 5 Demands to build a real alternative to the misery faced by millions.