Book review: Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Become Scapegoats, by Maya Goodfellow
Goodfellow makes her position clear in setting out to prove how badly immigrants have been mistreated in the UK and testifying to their suffering in human terms. The book is part revealing exploration of how immigrants came to be the scapegoats for all manner of societal ills, part impassioned attack on the harsh government policies informed by that false conclusion.
No side of the political spectrum escapes censure, and it often seems to be the Left’s hypocrisy that takes the lion’s share of Goodfellow’s criticism, perhaps because it is less well-recognised than the open hostility of many on the Right. The book is informed by quotes from a range of political figures, lawyers, support workers, union representatives and immigrants, all accompanied by conscientious reminders of who everybody is for ease of reading.
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Hide AdA plethora of statistics and comparisons lay bare the hypocrisy at the heart of the anti-immigrant campaign (the government launching a public crackdown on health tourism after admitting it made up a tiny proportion of NHS spending, or ordering “virginity tests” on some female immigrants, for example).
Goodfellow also debunks the popular idea of a historically white Britain only recently beginning to contend with the “problem” of immigration, pointing out that Britain has never been as homogenous as some would like to believe, and citing examples of immigration hysteria from hundreds of years ago remarkably similar to the hostility witnessed today.
As Goodfellow writes, it is not bald facts but human stories that will change people’s minds, and the statistics are woven together with individual accounts of the toll taken by UK immigration regulations, some of which make for particularly painful reading.
Hostile Environment is not solely about the UK government policy of the same name, nor is it about Brexit, or the refugee crisis of 2015. It is a book made even more poignant by those recent events, but one whose reach goes much deeper: a thoughtful and eye-opening look at British colonial history and the question of what sets “Britain” apart from those seeking to join it, as well as a call to arms against the horrific way those immigrants are treated. Elsa Maishman
Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Become Scapegoats, by Maya Goodfellow, Verso Books, £12.99