Van urging immigrants without legal status to "go home" seen as offensive and racist by some, but Downing Street considering deploying it nationwide
A controversial government campaign to encourage immigrants in the UK without legal status to "go home or face arrest" is to face a court challenge, the Guardian reported on July 26th.
The widely publicised pilot campaign saw two Home Office vans prominently displaying the "go home" message driven around six London boroughs: Barking, Barnet, Brent, Dagenham, Ealing, Hounslow, and Redbridge.
The campaign has drawn numerous criticisms from many different quarters.
According to the Guardian, court action has been launched by the Refugee and Migrant Forum of East London (Ramfel). The group says the vans are intimidating, and warned they created "a sense of apprehension, tension and confusion" among its clients.
The campaign has notably even drawn criticism from UKIP's Nigel Farage, who told ITV: "I think the actual tone of the billboards is nasty, unpleasant, Big Brother. I don't think using messages like this will make any difference."
Redbridge Council published a statement asking the Home Office to withdraw the campaign. "[W]hatever effect this campaign might be intended to have on people who are in the country unlawfully, that message is far outweighed by the negative message to the great majority of people, from all backgrounds, who live and work together in Redbridge, peacefully, productively and lawfully, " the statement read.
On Twitter, numerous people used the hashtag #racistvan to describe the campaign.
Brent resident 'Pukkah Punjabi' writing in the Guardian said how, as a child in the 1970s with migrant parents, she remembered "go home" being shouted at the family in the streets and graffitied on walls.
"So when the government today tells illegal immigrants to 'go home', the phrase is not an abstract one: it is rooted in the popular fascism of that period, a fascism we were forced to challenge in order that we could say 'we are here to stay'," Pukkah Punjabi wrote.
Even the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights today posted on Twitter to say that the campaign "propagates anti-immigrant feelings and a climate of suspicion" and it should be ceased.
The Daily Mail reported yesterday that the coalition was "at war" over immigration after Vince Cable accused the Conservatives of trying to stoke up a 'sense of fear'.
Cable was quoted as saying of the van campaign: "It was stupid and it's offensive. It is designed, apparently, to sort of create a sense of fear in the British population that we have a vast problem with illegal immigration. We have a problem, but it's got to be dealt with in a measured way by dealing with the underlying causes."
Today, the Guardian reported that Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg spoke out against the campaign, suggesting it was out of step with the "decent" centre-ground tradition in British politics.
"You can enforce the law effectively without instilling a tone which is unsettling to communities, particularly to mixed communities," Clegg was quoted as saying on BBC radio.
However, the Telegraph reported yesterday that Downing Street has claimed that the campaign is "already working" and suggested it could even be rolled out more widely across the country.
A spokesman for David Cameron disagreed that the campaign was offensive, saying: "This pilot is about targeting people who are here illegally and giving the opportunity to leave the country voluntarily rather than be arrested, detained and removed and we know that voluntary returns are the most cost effective way of removing illegal immigrants."
While the spokesman gave no figures, he also said that the campaign had proved effective and the Home Office had received a "great deal of interest" from immigrants voluntarily calling the helpline number advertised on the van.
Writing in the Daily Mail today, Immigration Minister Mark Harper responded to what he called the "astonishing" claims of racism by "the Left and the pro-immigration industry" to the campaign.
"All mobile billboards aimed at illegal immigrants do is inform people who have no right to be here that the Government will help them return home voluntarily," Harper wrote.
Harper said that by no stretch of the rational imagination can it be described as 'racist'.
For Don Flynn, Director of the Migrants' Rights Network, the main business of the campaign is simply more Tory electioneering: "to corral the anxious majority of voters who think that immigration probably has been running at too high a level into a tight corner where they feel that only [the] Conservative party has the plans to do something about it."