I watched the first of Steve McQueen’s powerful and moving plays on BBC1 last Sunday. Mangrove tells the real-life story of a Black community in London that was harassed by racially prejudiced police officers. When the community tried to stage a peaceful protest, they were kettled and physically attacked while mass arrests were made. The ‘Mangrove Nine’ fought for justice in court – and won.
Fifty years on, and another legal battle with racist overtones has just been fought, again in London. This time, it is the Home Office itself that has come under scrutiny, not what in time would be labelled an ‘institutionally racist’ police force.
In 1970, the police put the Mangrove Nine in the dock and the Mangrove Nine showed the charges and evidence to not only be false but in some instances downright ludicrous.
In 2020, three potential victims of trafficking brought a case to the High Court to prevent their deportation from the UK. The Eritrean and two Sudanese defendants had sought asylum, were put in immigration detention, and would have been on planes back to the hell they had fled if they hadn’t hired lawyers who were able to show they were the potential victims of trafficking.
Mr Justice Fordham, who heard the case, said: “It is strongly arguable that the home secretary is acting unlawfully in curtailing asylum screening interviews by asking a narrower set of questions than those that are identified in the published policy guidance.”
I’m shocked by what the potential outcome could have been.
Since Theresa May was Home Secretary from 2010 to 2016, that nasty phrase ‘hostile environment’ has wormed its way into the national consciousness, until some – influenced also, perhaps, by headlines that talk of “hordes” and “swarms” of refugees and asylum seekers, suggesting the country is “swamped” by these unfortunate people – can’t see past a metaphorical Trump-like wall erected on the Kent beaches.
Priti Patel has followed in her predecessor’s footsteps with what could be argued is an even greater lack of sympathy. And it looks – though I am no legal expert – as if Mr Justice Fordham has found her out at her own game.
He says she is departing from her own published policy to identify victims of trafficking by asking questions about their journeys to the UK. The three who brought the case to the High Court confirmed that no such questions – which would have identified them as potential victims of trafficking – had been asked of them.
The Home Office says that’s because of COVID – that because of the pandemic (really?) asylum seekers have been asked what Mr Justice Fordham called “a narrower set of questions than those identified in the published policy guidance”. And that, he said, is arguably acting unlawfully.
Pope Francis urges us in Fratelli Tutti to engage with our brothers and sisters, to cultivate a culture of encounter. Surely we could at least ask the right questions of folk who’ve escaped nightmare situations, and not blame COVID for skimping on life and death situations. Such skimping is tantamount to signing death warrants – where’s the justice in that?