priti patel | Pandaemonium

ON BECOMING A WOKE VILLAIN

August 16, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on how I became the centre of a minor controversy by speaking to civil servants, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 13 August 2023, under the headline “How I became a ‘woke’ villain with treacherous views too heretical for civil servants’ ears”. When I speak to civil servants next month about my book Not So Black and White, it will be, according to former home secretary Priti Patel, “an extraordinary betrayal of the voters who elected us to […]

Categories: Free Speech, Kenan Malik • Tags: censorship, civil service, dan kaszeta, immigration, priti patel, steven edginton

IMMIGRATION POLICIES THAT CREATE THE IMMIGRATION CRISIS

November 10, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on why immigration policies create the immigration crisis, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 6 November 2022, under the headline “Sealed borders are a fantasy and talk of invasion is toxic. There is an alternative“. On one thing, Suella Braverman is right. The system is broken. But about almost everything else, she is grievously wrong, especially about the reasons for it being so. The cause of the brokenness is not a surge of migrants and asylum seekers, still […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: asylum seekers, channel migrants, deterrence, eu immigration policy, immigration panics, immigration policy, polarisation, priti patel, rwanda deportation scheme, suella braverman

HOME OFFICE STATISTICS AND HOME OFFICE PROPAGANDA

September 1, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the reality of immigration statistics, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 28 August 2022, under the headline “There are lies, damn lies, and then there is Home Office propaganda about migrants”. There are Home Office statistics and then there are Home Office press releases. And the gap between the two is often so wide that even the most resourceful migrant would be unlikely to discover a way of navigating from the one to the other. Last week, the […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: afghan refugees, albanians, asylum seekers, channel migrants, home office, immigration, immigration statistics, priti patel, refugees, rwanda deportation scheme

MANAGING THE UNWANTED

August 25, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Britain’s Rwanda deportation scheme, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 21 August 2022, under the headline “Treating refugees like ‘waste people’ is abhorrent, wherever they end up”. “There are state control, security, surveillance structures from the national level down… Political opposition is not tolerated and arbitrary detention, torture and even killings are accepted methods of enforcing control too.” The email from a Foreign Office official to colleagues in the Home Office in response to Britain’s plans to […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: deportations, fortress europe, human rights, offshoring, paul kagame, priti patel, racism, rwanda, rwanda deportation scheme

ON THE FLAUNTING OF DOUBLE STANDARDS

October 19, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on immigration, free speech and double standards, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 17 October 2021, under the headline “Whether freedom of speech or fairness to migrants, some principles are sacred”. “Why is hypocrisy so odious?” asked the political theorist Judith Shklar almost half a century ago. Hypocrisy, she argued, is a necessity, a recognition that we are human and imperfect and that we cannot but transgress. The calling out of hypocrisy, Shklar observed, can often be more […]

Categories: Britain, Politics, Race & Immigration, Women • Tags: channel migrants, chimamanda ngozi adichie, double standards, feminism, free speech, gender critical feminism, home office, hypocrisy, immigration policy, judith shklar, michelle donelan, no platform, priti patel, priyamvada gopal, selina todd, transgender

REFUGEE POLICY FROM INSIDE THE BUNKER

August 24, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the Afghan crisis and Home Office refugee policy, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 22 August 2021, under the headline “Britain’s offer to Afghan refugees is not ‘generous’. It’s blindly inhumane”. Boris Johnson and Priti Patel believe that Britain’s “bespoke scheme” for Afghan refugees is “one of the most generous in our country’s history”. That says more about their ignorance of British history than it does about the scheme itself. The government has promised 5,000 refugees […]

Categories: Britain, International, Race & Immigration • Tags: afghan refugees, afghanistan, asylum seekers, boris johnson, david blunkett, deportations, home office, hungarian refugees, iran, margaret thatcher, nationality and borders bill, pakistan, priti patel, refugees, ted heath, ugandan asians, vietnamese boat people

CYNICISM & CRUELTY DRESSED UP AS LAW

July 13, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the government’s new immigration proposals, was my Observer column this week. It was published in the Observer, 11 July 2021, under the headline “After Priti Patel has finished, which refugees will carry a torch for Britain?” “Before I died I contemplated how drowning would feel.” So opens Gulwali Passarlay’s 2015 book The Lightless Sky. Passarlay was, in 2006, a 12-year-old boy in a rural village in Afghanistan, caught in the crossfire between Taliban and American forces. After his father was shot […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: asylum seekers, british politics, gunwale passarlay, immigration, nationality and borders bill, people smugglers, priti patel, sabir zazai, the lightless sky

PROTESTS & POLICING AFTER THE PANDEMIC

March 16, 2021 by Kenan Malik

. This essay, on the government’s new policing bill, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on the new government policy of “unlevelling down”.) It was published on 14 March 2021, under the headline “If you thought the right to protest was inalienable, then think again”. The next time you take part in a protest, don’t shout too loudly, don’t get in anybody’s way and don’t cause a commotion. Best to sit quietly in a corner […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: cressida dick, free speech, police, priti patel, protests, reclaim these streets, right to protest, rights, sarah everard

MIGRANT INVASIONS AND CULTURE WARS

August 18, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the debate over undocumented Channel migrants , was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on Kamala Harris, birtherism and identity.) It was published on 16 August 2020, under the headline ‘Inventing a “migrant invasion” is part of a toxic rhetorical ploy’. It’s a title of which Captain Mainwaring would have been proud: ‘Clandestine Channel Threat Commander‘. The man responsible for saving Britain from the threat of a migrant invasion. If you invent an invasion, […]

Categories: Britain, Politics, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, channel migrants, colin yeo, immigration policy, paulette wilson, priti patel, racism, undocumented migrants, windrush scandal

THE NEED TO TRANSFORM THE IMMIGRATION MINDSET

June 30, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the fundamental problem with the way British officials view immigration, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 28 June 2020, under the headline ‘That Clayton Barnes is still not a citizen shows the ongoing cruelty of ‘hostile environment’. Clayton Barnes came to Britain from Jamaica in 1959. He spent a lifetime in this country, working, paying taxes, raising a family. He was in his mind British, as he was in the eyes of his family, his […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: british politics, clayton barnes, colin yeo, hostile environment, immigration policy, priti patel, windrush scandal

DIVERSE, PERHAPS, BUT NOT MODERN

August 3, 2019 by Kenan Malik

I am away for a couple of weeks, so am posting little new material on Pandaemonium. I am taking the opportunity to publish some of those shorter pieces from my Observer column that I don’t normally post on Pandaemonium. Having said that, this short comment on the diversity of the Boris Johnson cabinet was published in the Observer on 28 July not as part of my weekly column but as part of a feature on the new Johnson government. ‘People seem to be disappointed that the […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: boris johnson, british politics, diversity, priti patel, racism, sajid javid