Fergus Finlay: Decency needs people like Lineker to stand up and be counted

I admit I’m no expert on professional football. Here’s what I knew about Gary Lineker before last week. I knew that he was one of the few footballers — maybe even the only one — who never got a yellow or a red card in his entire career. I knew he made very funny TV ads for an English brand of crisps that weren’t a patch on Taytos.

And I know him as a really personable presenter of BBC sports programmes (in my ignorance and apathy I associate him with coverage of the Olympics and stuff like that — I haven’t watched enough episodes of Match of the Day).

What I didn’t know, I guess, is just how principled he is, and what real character he has.

I knew he had strong opinions because I’ve seen them before on social media. But he chose last week to stand up against a vicious and uncivilised proposal by the Tory Government, and he expressed himself in trenchant language accusing the Tories of using language redolent of 1930s Germany. It seems it was his choice of language that got him into trouble.

I don’t know whether the words he used were spontaneous or fully considered. They have been described as off the mark and dangerous. 

And I know direct comparisons to the Nazis are considered beyond the pale, but in all sorts of ways he was right, 100% right, and I’ll tell you why.

I need to talk about immigration policy first. I’ve written here before that the most compassionate and open immigration system in the world has to have limits.

Every country is entitled to set out in its laws and regulations how and in what number it will accept people who want to come to the country to work or to make a better life for themselves.

They’re called economic migrants. Throughout our history, we’ve possibly had more economic emigrants than most countries — Irish people who have chosen to make better lives for themselves elsewhere and not always legally.

The other type of migrant is people fleeing persecution. They’re asylum seekers. If people want to come to Ireland or anywhere else to claim asylum, they must have a genuine reason for that. They must be trying to escape from tyranny or persecution and be genuinely afraid to go home.

Every country has a right — even an obligation — to test whatever claims are made by asylum seekers. And if those claims are found to be false, they have the right to make the applicant leave.

In essence, that’s what international law says. And what it says to asylum seekers is: if you want asylum, you must be in the country where you want it. And then you must apply to an appropriate authority in the country. Your claim will be examined in accordance with UN rules, and you’ll either be told you can stay or you must go.

In principle that’s the way it works — sometimes with cumbersome processes and unreasonable delays, sometimes tougher, sometimes more gentle — in most civilised countries.

Ukraine is one example we all see every day, although the rules are different for Ukrainian refugees. As of now, Ireland has taken at least four to five times the number of Ukrainian refugees per head of population more than the UK. It has put us under considerable pressure but it’s something to be proud of. And yes, there has been some incipient racism here too in the face of asylum seekers, but nothing nearly as bad as the UK.

But now the Tories are proposing to change British law. Their new law will say: if you land in the UK by any method we don’t approve of, you’ll be arrested and deported. Not only will your claim to asylum not be entertained, but you also won’t be entitled to make a claim. You may have come from a killing field, you may have witnessed members of your family being maimed or raped or killed. It doesn’t matter. You may be a child who has lost everyone you love. Land on UK shores by any means we don’t approve of and you’re a criminal, not an asylum seeker.

And they’ve accompanied that change by language which has two objectives.  It’s aimed at stoking fear, creating the impression that Britain is about to be overrun (just look at the statistic I mentioned earlier about Ukrainian refugees to see how phoney that is).

And it seeks to dehumanise all asylum-seekers. Swarm, invasion, siege, deluge, millions — even billions — they’re some of the words used by Tory Ministers. Any opposition is part of a “blob” of lefty lawyers and other fanatics.

Gary Lineker has been criticised for comparing this “progress” to 1930s Germany. Here’s a couple of things that happened back then.

In 1933 Germany passed a series of laws prohibiting Jews from joining the civil service, sharply limiting the intake of Jewish children to schools, and preventing Jews from owning farms. All this legislation was accompanied by vicious rhetoric aimed at Jews — designed to paint them as sub-human and as responsible (as part of a global conspiracy) for the country’s problems.

Throughout the early 1930s, there was also a pretty steady increase in sporadic street violence. Thousands of Jews, in growing fear, wanted to emigrate, and an international conference was held in 1935 to address the problem. It was called the Evian Conference. Dozens of countries attended, everyone unanimously recognised the growing crisis of persecution, and none agreed to open their borders to the Jews. Hitler gloated that it all just proved that nobody wanted these “criminals” – his word for the Jews. After Evian in 1935, the real violence began. We all know where history led to next.

That’s why Lineker is right. I’m not a historian, but it’s impossible to deny the trend at work here, the dehumanising, the appalling legislation, the smearing of democratic opposition. 

It’s impossible for anyone with a sense of history not to be terrified at the parallels.

Look at the first few articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They’re about life, liberty, dignity, equality before the law, freedom from exploitation, discrimination, servitude, and slavery. To describe anyone as lacking impartiality because he or she defends these principles is to miss the point entirely.

There is one saving grace in all of this. Britain is a democracy. Race, and dehumanisation based on ethnicity, is the straw the Tories are clinging to. Nothing else can save them from a political disaster at the next election. They’re playing this race card now and they’re doing it in ways that can only attract the description of incipient fascism. Hopefully, it will blow up in their faces. But until it does, decency needs people like Gary Lineker to stand up. And we need to stand with him.