The Green Sickle

Nigel Farage’s threat yesterday to deport legal and documented immigrants is not a promise he ever intends to keep. That is not why he said what he said.

Farage had two goals when he spoke. First, he wishes to cement the dichotomy of legal and illegal immigrant. By taking this bait, see the front page of The Guardian today, the progressive pro-immigration left will now start to delineate in their language between those law-abiding immigrants who followed the rules, and those pesky illegals who did not.

In one fell swoop, Farage has The Left using his language – good and bad migrants. George Lakoff warned us against falling into the trap of using our opponent’s political discourse as the frame of reference. To combat this, the left needs to revert to its original position. We do not differentiate between a good and bad immigrant. There are only immigrants. We can be proud. Immigration is good for the economy and society. And the rules and safe passages need reformed so that folk who want to come and live in the UK are welcome to do so and can do so safely.

The second motivation for Farage is to move the Overton Window, something he is especially skilled at. By adopting language ever further right on immigration he is altering the acceptable terms of the debate. This only works if the mainstream media and parties start to accept his frame of reference and aid and abet him in shifting the paradigm.

This usually has the effect of dragging centrist parties even further to the right, as we have seen with Starmer’s ‘smash the boat’ language and ‘strangers’ in our country. But is also has the effect of freezing out dissenting voices like The Greens. Ten years ago this very month, the world stood united in horror at the fate of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old child refugee from Syria who washed up drowned on a Turkish seashore. Allow your memory to take you back to the pain and revulsion you rightly felt that day.

The Overton Window at that stage rightly focused on the humane treatment of refugees. In ten years, that climate of empathy has evaporated. Centrist politicians have since then gifted Farage the luxury of hardening his language and position by following him down a trajectory of xenophobic anti-immigration discourse. Had the Alan Kurdi drowning happened this very week, it would be deemed loony left to hold any sympathy for his loss and his family’s pain.

The job of The Green Party is clear. We must not compromise in our language or policy. Let us work to move the Overton Window on immigration back to where it should be. Refugees are welcome. Immigration is good for the UK.