matthew goodwin | Pandaemonium

IMMIGRATION POLICY AND THE THEATRE OF CRUELTY

December 22, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on immigration policy as more theatre than workable solutions, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 18 December 2022, under the headline “Workable proposals? No, western immigration policy is a theatre of cruelty”. A decade ago, on 3 October 2013, a boat carrying migrants caught fire and sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa; 366 people died. It was not the first migrant disaster in the Mediterranean – at least 12,000 migrants had drowned in the previous 20 […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: centre for policy studies, channel migrants, criminalising rescue, deterrence, human smugglers, immigration policy, immigration statistics, matthew goodwin, mediterranean migrants, migrant deaths, rwanda scheme, suella braverman

SOCIAL CONSERVATISM AND THE WORKING CLASS

December 23, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate about social conservatism and the working class, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 152December 2019, under the headline ‘The idea that the British working class is socially conservative is a nonsense’. ‘It is easier for the right to move left on economics than it is for the left to move right on identity & culture.’ So tweeted politics professor and TV pundit Matthew Goodwin on the morning of the Tory election victory as […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: british politics, conservatives, grunwick strike, identity politics, immigration, labour party, left, liberalism, matthew goodwin, metropolitan liberals, social conservatism, trust, working class

EUROPE’S NEW FAULTLINE

May 18, 2014 by Kenan Malik

The Front National is expected to win next week’s European election in France; UKIP may well do so in Britain. Both parties combine a visceral hostility to immigration with an acerbic loathing of the EU, a virulent nationalism and deeply conservative views on social issues such as gay marriage and women’s rights. The problems that such parties pose for mainstream politics goes, however, far beyond the odiousness of their policies. What their success expresses is the redrawing of the political […]

Categories: Britain, International, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: britain, british politics, european union, france, front national, identity politics, immigration, matthew goodwin, racism, robert ford, ukip, working