By David Osland

A government headed by an unelected prime minister has just unveiled proposals to detain tens of thousands of asylum seekers in contravention of international law, and deport some of them to one of Africa’s worst dictatorships. It cannot reasonably expect simultaneous plaudits for adherence to the norms of liberal democracy.

The backlash from the Tory attempt to take on Gary Lineker – as well as demonstrating that the English language needs a neologism meaning something like ‘rapidly escalating shitstorm’ – is immensely heartening for everybody making a stand for refugee rights. This is, to use the appropriate parlance, an own goal on the part of this Conservative government.

When it comes to football knowledge, don’t pick me for your pub quiz team. I am in a situation roughly analogous to the 1960s High Court judge who had to be told that the Beatles were a popular beat combo. But even I know who this guy is.

One of Britain’s most prominent public figures, with a Twitter following approaching nine million, Lineker is currently dominating the news after describing the rhetoric surrounding the ‘stop the boats’ policy as reminiscent of 1930s Germany.

The Conservative activist-led senior management team at the Beeb responded by suspending him from his Match of the Day gig. Leading players responded with a fine display of solidarity by boycotting the broadcast.

It’s good that football commentators have spontaneously walked off the job to support an unfairly dismissed colleague; would that ordinary trade unionists could legally do the same.

I’m of part-German heritage, and vividly remember the things older members of my family told me about the Nazi era when I was a child. As a result of this, as much as from reading history books, I’ve always disliked the tendency in some quarters of the left to describe anything distastefully right wing as ‘fascist’. But despite the hyperbolic front-page assertions of the right-wing press, Lineker didn’t do that.

His observation that the language of swarms and invasions has ominous precedents is substantially correct. It’s almost as if the Daily Mail has some reason it doesn’t want to be reminded of its coverage of asylum seekers in the twentieth century’s darkest decade.

Suella Braverman went on Radio 4’s Today programme to describe the comparison as “unhelpful”. She’d have had a harder job maintaining it is factually incorrect.

A side effect has been to highlight Tory politicisation of the BBC, currently headed by a director general who is a former Conservative council candidate, a chair who gave a six-figure donation to party coffers and facilitated an £800,000 loan to Boris Johnson, and a board member who was director of communications for Theresa May.

I have often defended the BBC and the licence fee television viewers must pay to support it. That support is motivated by my belief in the objectivity of its news coverage, combined with a willingness to put Diane Abbott and Michael Portillo together on a weekly late night talk show.

But Lineker’s dismissal is not ‘delivering on impartiality’, as Robbie Gibb insists. What we are witnessing is the grubby spectacle of Tory placemen acting like Tory placemen. To paraphrase another football commentator, the BBC’s reputation has taken a hell of a beating.

The initial response from the Labour front bench was the usual display of equivocation, born of its cowardly inability to make the rational case for safe asylum routes into this country. Sensing the shift in the public mood, there has been a change of emphasis, including some broadly supportive statements.

But the object lesson from the last few days – which could also have been drawn from Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford’s campaign for free school meals – is surely this: speak out for what is right.

And if you cannot speak out on a question of this importance, what will you ever find the courage to speak out on?

David Osland is a member of Hackney North & Stoke Newington CLP and a long-time left wing journalist and author. Follow him on Twitter at @David__Osland

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/91261194@N06/49734191586 Author: Jernej Furman. Licence: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)