Yesterday, on Facebook, someone I know posted the usual nonsense about asylum seekers getting free holidays in hotels. The facts don’t back them up, of course, but facts don’t matter in this world where “right or wrong, it’s my opinion”. We’re living in a post-truth world, now, where feelings trump all. Anyway, this chap reckons that “loyal British patriots” who protest outside hotels are “right in their beliefs”.
I obviously don’t. And, to date, I’ve never met one of these “British patriots” who makes an argument based on facts rather than myths they read on the internet, myths which plug straight into their sense of outrage, resentment, and fear. I’ll be honest, I’d love to read an interview with a “British patriot” where they did recognise the facts. I think it might go something like this…
Wrapped in a flag, outside a hotel
“Yes, Nigel, I’ve come here today, wrapped in a flag, to shout at a hotel. Why? Because it’s full of people I don’t know, Nigel, that’s why.
“And it’s a shit hotel, mate, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t stay there if you paid me, but that’s not the point, is it? I’m here to shout at people I don’t know who our government has chosen to leave in a limbo I can only describe as Kafkaesque, Nige. Really.
“They’re trapped inside a shit hotel whose owners are pocketing millions of pounds – of our money, Nigel – and they could be stuck here for months, years even, while their paperwork winds its way through a labyrinthine bureaucracy I can’t begin to understand.
“Terry spent less time inside for drink-driving, and he put a pensioner in hospital, but that’s another story.
“The people in there – the people I don’t know – they have to get by on £49 a week. £49. No-one can live on £49 a week, Nigel, it’s ridiculous. Imagine fleeing your home and putting your life in the hands of people smugglers to end up in a shit hotel on £49 a week while people wrapped in flags come and shout at you.
“It’s no life, is it? And some of them could be doctors, or nurses, or teachers, they could be paying taxes and making a contribution to society. But we don’t allow them to, Nige. We don’t allow them.
“And I’m here today because wealthy and powerful men tell me that all the problems in this country – one of the wealthiest countries in the world, Nige – are down to a few people stuck in a shit hotel, and not because our political system has been hijacked by the very same wealthy and powerful people who are telling me to be here, and who are siphoning money away from the services we need and into their own pockets.
“I mean, when you put it like that, Nige, there’s no two ways about it – I’m being played for a mug. An absolute mug. Sod this for a game of soldiers, I’m going home.”
