James O'Brien's strong message for anti-migrant Brits, as UK and France sign new deal
14 November 2022, 12:50
'If it was 10,000, you'd still be furious'
This was James O'Brien's strong message for people who have bought into racist propaganda opposing migrants coming into the UK.
The UK and France have signed an historic deal to tackle the small boats crisis that will cost Brits millions of pounds more each year.
The aim of the deal is to completely stop illegal small boat Channel crossings, the Foreign Secretary has said.
The annual amount paid by the UK will increase to 72 million euros (£63 million).
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly makes a differentiation between refugees, who he defines as "fleeing war and persecution", and economic migrants, who may be "motivated to come to the UK because they feel it's a better place to live and work."
James reflects, "By most measures, we do considerably less than France does and we're phoning them up and offering them money in order to help us do even less than we do already.
"Outside of the crucible of this ludicrous post-Brexit scenario where we're just pretending that black is white, that up is down, the moon is made of cheese...outside of that ludicrous bubble, it's just absurd, this announcement today.
"If you don't think it's absurd, if you're still signed up to the 'grrr' school of thought, what does success look like?"
James asked whether people with anti-migrant beliefs would be "really happy" if the number of migrants on UK shores was halved to 20,000.
"I can't reason you out of a position you haven't been reasoned into. If it was 10,000 you'd still be furious. You'd still be spitting bile about Albanians, even if well over half of people coming in were not from Albania.
"They know what they're doing, these people. They turn their little dials, make you something that you don't need to be. Perhaps you prefer being furious and ignorant all the time. That's what Suella Braverman is calculating."
