Two groups of politicians have looked at the burning hospitals and ravaged cities and thought: “This is the ideal opportunity to advance my career by lying about a merciless imperial war.” The first consists of Vladimir Putin and his organised crime gang. The second consists of Boris Johnson and his ministers.
If – and I hope when – Putin’s gangsters face trial, they will plead that the boss gave them no choice. If Sergei Lavrov does not pretend the war is not a war and “we have not even attacked Ukraine”, he will lose his job and maybe more than his job as Putinism turns into Stalinism. Russia is now behaving as if 1989 never happened. The few Russians with the courage to speak out risk 15 years in jail for publishing “fake news” (or “telling the truth”, as the rest of us would say).
No one threatened to lock up Priti Patel if she refused to mislead parliament. She was not saving herself from the sack when she told MPs she had set up a visa application centre for Ukrainian refugees in Calais, when no such centre existed. No secret policemen will interrogate Patel on the origins of the sick rumour that streams of Ukrainians running for their lives “may” be riddled with Russian agents . (Pause for a moment to admire the cynical cleverness of the smear. No one can conclusively disprove it.)
Patel could tell her honourable counterparts in Dublin that she worried that Ireland’s decision to welcome refugees could allow them to reach the UK by the back door, and then toddle off to her safe home and warm bed, and enjoy a sleep undisturbed by nightmares.
Come to that, no one bullied Grant Shapps into allowing a sly smirk to suffuse his puffy face as he announced that the Conservatives were following the express wishes of Volodymyr Zelenskiy when they denied sanctuary to Ukrainian women and children.
For who would punish them? They were simply riffing on a cracked tune sung by Boris Johnson when he told a straight lie (again) and asserted: “The UK is way out in front in our willingness to help refugees.” The trouble with liars is they force you to waste everyone’s time by stating the obvious. So for the record, and as I’m sure you know, the EU gave freedom of movement to all Ukrainians, while Johnson and Patel insisted on visa restrictions. Nowhere in Europe is as small as Global Britain.
Two forces have driven the abandonment of our allies and the denial of common humanity: the bureaucratic ineptitude of the Home Office and the calculations of the Conservative leadership.
The Home Office is an institutionalised absurdity. You can only make sense of it if you’re drunk. In theory, it believes in a “hostile environment” that makes life so miserable for migrants they would think twice before coming here. In practice, the hostile environment does not work even on its own mean-spirited terms.
The untutored might think a hostile environment meant deporting migrants whose asylum claims failed. But the rate of enforced deportation has collapsed under Patel to the lowest level since records began in 2004.
All that is left is her determination to use every Kafkaesque ploy to stop asylum seekers reaching the UK unless they have been through an authorised government scheme and force them into a 100,000-strong queue of applicants if they make it through. The determination to control means the Home Office must pay for accommodation, while its processes grind on full stop. The Treasury is sick of meeting the bill and is insisting on economies. Given the cost controls, the Home Office under its current policies may not be able to afford a Ukrainian refugee influx.
Financially, morally and practically, the hostile environment is a farce. But here is the point you may find hard to grasp – the Home Office doesn’t care. In 2016, the chief inspector of borders reported that senior Home Office managers had told him they were unlikely to change policy even if there was no reduction in the number of asylum seekers entering the UK. Inflicting pain was “the right thing to do”, they said … The public would not accept asylum seekers receiving “the same range of benefits and services” British citizens enjoyed. They must suffer.
If puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy, conservatism is the haunting fear that some claimants, somewhere, may be comfortable. Conservative policy towards refugees is driven by the same crabbed and punitive moralism that led the Victorians to build workhouses. To add to their absurdist atmosphere, Patel is presenting a nationality and borders bill to parliament that will criminalise Ukrainian refugees who cross the Channel without her permission. The spectacle of Tory MPs, who have denounced Russia and praised the resistance, voting to treat Putin’s victims as villains will test all but the strongest stomachs.
A home secretary and prime minister with empathy and political will could have cleared the obstacles and forced the bureaucracy to relent. The government was generous to Hongkongers fleeing the Chinese communist takeover, after all. But that was because the Foreign Office drove the policy. Ukraine has been left to Johnson and Patel and they believe their supporters are racist. The decision of the 1997-2010 Labour government to allow the largest mass migration in UK history destroyed it, they reason. The failure of the Cameron government to contain migration led to the Brexit vote and Ukip threatening to supplant the Conservative party. They think that if they forget their base’s xenophobia for a moment, they will suffer the same fate.
Downing Street and the Home Office can beat the most elitist Remainer in their contempt for working-class Conservatives. They assume they are thick and prejudiced, even when those same supporters say they are nothing of the sort.
Opinion polls may show 76% of the public want Ukrainian refugees to be allowed into the country. Conservative politicians and journalists may berate the government’s heartlessness and mendacity as forcefully as any leftist. Johnson and Patel don’t believe they mean it. George Bernard Shaw said: “The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.”
The liars at the top of government cannot believe the electorate. They are certain that their power depends on thinking the worst of the British.
• Nick Cohen is an Observer columnist
