It's time Labour told us: whose side are they on?

Telegraph

a day ago

There are two ways the Government could have chosen to deal with the mass migration crisis (and it is a crisis).
It could have taken voters' concerns seriously. It could have tried to understand and empathise with the concerns of those who are angry at the use of local hotels for housing asylum seekers who should surely have claimed asylum in France when they had the chance.
It could even have shared the anger of parents in Southport last summer – not the anger displayed in response to the riots or the demonstrations. Rather, ministers could have echoed the rage felt by residents who had just been told about the murders of three young girls.
Instead, ministers adopted a different approach. As revealed by The Telegraph, the focus of government activity was apparently less about addressing the public's concern over immigration and more about targeting social media posts that criticised migrant hotels or complained of 'two-tier policing'.
It has been revealed – courtesy of a US congressional committee rather than Whitehall sources – that civil servants working for the technology secretary, Peter Kyle, flagged videos with 'concerning narratives' to social media giants including TikTok, warning that they were 'exacerbating tensions' on the streets.
But you know what is even more likely to exacerbate tensions on Britain's streets than a TikTok video? The maintained presence of 'asylum seekers' from developing countries whose cultural values are sometimes at odds with Western liberal values.
Which is more damaging to the fabric of our society, the accusation on social media that police officers deal more harshly with some protesters than others, even if their actions are the same, or the Afghan rapist who blamed cultural and language differences between him and his victim?
The leaked emails from the Government's National Security and Online Information Team (NSOIT) were centred on last year's protests following the killings in Southport.
It's possible the same unit was back on the case during the recent demonstrations at an asylum hotel in Epping, around which police had to erect a ring of steel in order to protect guests from the anger of protesters. But to what extent did ministers seek to understand the rage felt by parents following the revelation that an Ethiopian asylum seeker at the hotel had been reportedly charged with sexually assaulting a schoolgirl just days after arriving in the UK? Were they more concerned about the damaging narrative of the event as portrayed on social media?
Ministers still seem not to have got the message. When foreign, undocumented, unvetted young men are placed in any local community, residents' fear and suspicion is an inevitable consequence that must be acknowledged and addressed, not suppressed. Where evidence emerges of sexual assault by one of those young men, public outrage is a natural response.
The days of not looking back in anger are far behind us. Silencing critical voices is not only anti-democratic, it is positively harmful and destructive to the social contract. Rather than risk its total destruction, the Government needs to repair it. It could start by reassuring the country whose side it is actually on.