RESPONDING to 2014 news that Britain was spending £100 million on asylum seekers, and showing his characteristic tact and humanity, Labour MP Frank Field asked: “Can you imagine the wall we could build around the country for £100 million?”

Nobody from Labour stepped in to condemn this Westminster echo of Donald Trump. And why should they? Until last week, such sentiments seemed to form part of Britain’s “national consensus”: Field was only urging Labour to be responsible, to heed public opinion, to “listen to the doorsteps”. An Israeli-style separation wall for Britain – why not? It was only a few months ago when Labour produced their “controls on immigration” mugs.

To criticise this “national consensus” was to appear out of touch. After all, the story presented by the media is that Britain has been relentlessly and unfairly targeted by bogus economic migrants abusing the asylum system, aided by a sinister force known as political-correctness-gone-mad: “tabloid truths” presented as “common sense”.

For the last few years, millions of us have watched on aghast as this pantomime of “British values” dominated the political debate. We know it is madness, but we’ve all heard family members, colleagues and friends repeat this compulsory bigotry and it becomes emotionally difficult to confront. It doesn’t help that working class communities in Britain have seen little or no benefit from so-called “globalisation”. In reality, the problem is free movement of money, not free movement of people, but the left has always struggled to explain this view, especially when New Labour was trumpeting the untold benefits of global markets.

And is it any wonder that good people forget our common humanity and our history when every single day, media coverage dehumanises people with nature-like metaphors: flocks, contagions, or even “cockroaches” for Sun columnist Katie Hopkins.

We’re told time and time again that resources are “scarce”, that Britain is “full” and that there simply isn’t enough to go around. The truth is that there is more than enough to go around – there’s just a lack of political will to redistribute wealth and power. The scapegoating of refugees, asylum seekers or migrants is an irresponsible and disgraceful lie.

However, in the last fortnight something truly exceptional has occurred. The relentless wheel of hatred ground to a halt and started, slowly at first but then at a pace, to turn in the other direction. David Cameron has been forced to climb down from his “tough talk” and to accept a measure (just a measure, mind) of humanity in refugee policy. In the latest announcement, the Prime Minister said Britain would take 20,000 Syrian refugees over five years. Small beans, in truth, but far from “the good old British common sense” of earlier weeks.

Let’s be clear: with honourable exceptions like this newspaper, the traditional media has had almost nothing to do with this transformation in public mood. The usual suspects served up the usual tripe. But increasingly, citizen journalism spurred by non-traditional media forms allows us to mock and condemn the previously-inevitable rule of compulsory bigotry. Online petitions, including one proposal to swap Katie Hopkins’ massive head for 50,000 Syrian refugees, have gone viral. Thousands have become involved in organising support through churches, trade unions and social media networks.

Increasingly, we are forced to confront the humanity of the victims and the consequences of our governments’ actions. Britain spends £37 billion on “defence” (ie war) every year, compared to about £2 billion (according to the ultra-racist Migration Watch) or £155 million (according to the Red Cross) spent every year on asylum. Often, Westminster explains that we spend money on war because it helps “bring human rights” to other countries, democracy at the end of a gun. Of course, generally the opposite is true. But when people flee persecution caused by our foreign policy, it seems we’ve got scarcely a penny or two for them. And David Cameron still wants us to believe that dropping more bombs on Syria will solve the problem in the long run. Really? You’ll forgive me for being sceptical.

And so, we’ve watched as people have struggled across land and sea, boarded trains and walked miles to seek refuge in Fortress Europe. Those who reach the UK will be greeted by many with empathy and openness. But many who make it to Britain, like those trying to escape misery in Calais, will also face a degrading UK asylum system, where, barred from working, you live on less than £40 per week, with the threat of indefinite detention in Dungavel or Yarl’s Wood.

This is the real experience of women like Pinar Aksu, who arrived as an asylum seeker to the UK from Turkey, aged eight. Now studying human rights at university in Glasgow, she recalls the experiences of detention with a quiet rage.

“In Yarl’s Wood, it’s like a prison” she told me “the walls are so high, you can’t see outside.” Pinar’s family were forcibly removed from their Glasgow flat during a dawn raid by the UK Border Agency. When she tells me about her family’s detention, both in the infamous Yarl's Wood and at Dungavel, I can’t help but feel angry and ashamed to live in the UK, where people fleeing brutality, famine and oppression are locked up, in Pinar’s words, “like prisoners”.

Her indignant anger and disbelief at the treatment of refugees is the one many of us feel right now: “why would you not open your doors to people fleeing from war?”

Pinar’s experience should remind us that, though we’ve begun to turn back decades of dehumanising propaganda, there’s much left to do. The huge social media campaigns to raise money for Calais have been tremendous. But our immigration and asylum systems have been made thoroughly immoral by decades of scapegoating and the system remains largely unreformed.

I grew up in the relatively free and normal circumstances of Lanarkshire, not far from where Pinar’s family and others like them are still held prisoner with no charge nor trial. That’s an ongoing disgrace that we must campaign to end.

Freedom to be rational about asylum is greater at this moment today than at any time in decades. Far more, in fact, than two weeks ago. If we can win the battle to have people presented like humans in the media, then we can also win the battle against the UK’s cruel immigration policy. Our task is to allow those who flee from persecution to tell their stories. If we can mobilise that force and if we can humanise the people routinely derided as swarms, then the rule of bigotry will collapse in seconds.

If there’s one thing people hate, it’s being turned into a fool. And British tabloid journalism has made fools of its readers for decades with misleading statistics and mock expressions of outrage. Enough is enough. It’s time for a humanitarian revolt against “good old British common sense.”

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