UK immigration law is a shambles, but the home secretary seems to want to make it worse
There is a smear on the colour spectrum where blue shades into black and conservatism turns into something darker. The reasonable desire of states to control their borders can slip into the stab-in-the-back myths and paranoid self-pity of the demagogue who can raise a mob but can’t run a country.
To give the worst of many examples, here is Priti Patel implying that critics of her plans to limit the arrival of asylum seekers, including all-too-genuine refugees, are in league with criminals. What am I saying – “implying”? Patel is from an administration that can campaign but can’t govern. She doesn’t imply, she spits it out. “Those defending the broken system – the traffickers, the do-gooders, the leftie lawyers, the Labour party – they are defending the indefensible,” she boomed into cyberspace at the virtual Conservative party conference.
