 Hello, you're watching People's Dispatch. It's been a dramatic week or 10 days in the United Kingdom. We have had, of course, a very interesting Supreme Court ruling, which has ruled the Rwanda immigration plan as unconstitutional. We have had former Home Secretary Sula Braverman being fired by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. And most importantly, of course, we have had tens of thousands of people consistently taking to the streets in support of Palestine, in solidarity with Palestine. To talk about many of these issues, we have with us Dr. Edward Anderson from Northumbria. University. He's been working on a wide variety of topics which you're today going to be talking about, including, for instance, the diaspora, especially the Indian diaspora and British histories of migration and ethnicity and multiculturalism. Thank you so much, Edward, for speaking to us. Thank you. So first of all, I wanted to start with two connected topics, the Rwanda immigration plan and Sula Braverman itself. We know that the plan was declared unconstitutional. And a couple of days later, it may be an unconnected at one level unconnected decision, but something that, of course, has been building up for a time. We saw that one of the key architects, one of the key proponents of this immigration plan that Sula Braverman was fired by the Prime Minister. So maybe we can take us first through the context in which she was fired, because it also connects to the other issue we're discussing today, which is solidarity with Palestine. Sure. So Braverman was fired actually for the second time. Previously, she had been a minister in Liz Truss's government, who was Marishi Sunak's predecessor. And she was fired from that position for breaching ministerial code for sharing documents with people outside of the government. And then this time she was fired once again. And there's different interpretations on exactly why that was, but it came shortly after an article that she wrote, she published in The Times newspaper, one of the leading broadsheets in the UK, in which she criticized the Metropolitan Police. And in this article, she criticized them for what she claimed were double standards for not acting more forcefully to suppress, essentially, demonstrations by pro-Palestinian protesters. And these were kind of claims that the police sort of pushed back on. They said that they were essentially enforcing the law. And there was nothing unlawful about these protests. But it's thought that one of the key reasons why she was probably pushed out was that she'd just gone too far in time after time making statements, very controversial statements that either went against government policy or government rhetoric. And in this case, probably publishing this article without heeding edits that the Prime Minister might have suggested. Right, it's interesting you mentioned that aspect that, of course, it might have been that she went beyond government policy or just government rhetoric because a lot of what she says definitely is popular among at least the conservative party. And she sort of tried to recast herself as a different phase from Rishi Sunath. But coming back to the issue we started with, which is really the immigration policy. You get the feeling that just because she is fired and just because the Supreme Court has declared that a Vanda plan and constitutional doesn't mean that it really affects what this conservative government or the party in general sort of views as the correct approach towards immigration. So maybe could you take us through both that kind of approach, which this government has followed, as well as a specific plan regarding the Vanda itself, which of course is the most controversial bit, but is only part of what is a larger policy framework to a decision. The government's policy on immigration has been extremely hardline. Certainly the most harsh immigration policy in theory of our lifetimes, certainly in terms of the kind of rhetoric that they've used against immigrants. And that's been spearheaded not just by Braverman, but everybody really in that government has been pushing for it. And certainly Rishi Sunak kind of remains committed both to the specific Riranda policy and the broader kind of rhetoric against immigrants, which really seems to kind of surpass anything we've seen before recently. I mean, the policy of the Riranda policy essentially, the basic idea is that some asylum seekers, particularly those that arrive in the UK on small boats over the channel, that they ought to be sent to Riranda to be processed. Of course, all governments have a legal obligation, as well as not to mention a moral obligation to process claims for asylum. But the government wanted to instate this policy in which they would, through a financial arrangement with Riranda, send asylum seekers to Riranda to have those claims processed. And then if their asylum claims were successful, they would stay in Riranda or another sort of safe third country, as they were called. But no one actually ended up going, although the government has already spent, I think about 140 million pounds on this policy so far, and it will cost much, much more going forward. Probably an awful lot more than it would cost for asylum seekers to remain in Britain. Nobody went. So the first flight was scheduled for the summer of 2022, but this was cancelled after legal challenges, partly on the understanding that no proper assessment had been done to see whether Riranda was actually safe for asylum seekers. And it was felt by the courts, including most recently the Supreme Court, that there was evidence that they might be sent either back to their home countries to face persecution or that Riranda itself might not be safe. And this was deemed to be in breach, possibly of the European Convention on Human Rights, of which the UK is a signatory. But SUNAC remains committed to this. And in fact, as does Braverman's successor, who in his kind of inaugural social media sort of video, which he put up the day that he was appointed, he said, he reiterated this mantra of stop the small boats. And so it's become a kind of government that has been obsessed really with migration. It's obsessed about migration. Perhaps it's just run out of ideas. And in many other ways, its policies have failed to bear fruit. And Britain is, there's a government that are tanking in popularity as well. And it seems very likely that they're gonna lose the next election. And this very sort of harsh rhetoric on immigration seems to be one of the only things that they are keen to talk about. Right, of course, in this context, coming back to another area of your academic expertise as well, it's really the question of, you know, immigrants and immigrants, so to speak, of course, you're also at a time in the UK. And even globally, for that matter, when there's quite a bit of celebration about the fact that descendants of immigrants are in positions of power, you know, in both parties, for that matter, there is a fair degree of representation of descendants of immigrants in various levels of authority, for instance, both at the local level, the national level. And at the same time, we have a government on the one hand, but even for that matter, sections of the opposition, which are not really sort of lived up or really fiercely opposed the government on this. But so what explains this sort of, you know, on the one hand, a certain kind of celebration and, you know, chair or, you know, a highlighting of that diversity. And on the other hand, the prevalence of such a fierce anti-immigrant rhetoric as though poor people coming from Africa, poor people coming from parts of Asia in very difficult circumstances are really the threat to the country. I mean, it's a curious situation. I mean, we've gone from a situation in which, you know, when I was born, all the way back in 1984, there was not a single person of colour in the House of Commons. There was zero representation. And things have obviously changed very significantly since then. You know, the first time in my lifetime was in 1987 with the election of four Labour MPs of colour. And then things have shifted quite dramatically or well, maybe not dramatically, but certainly, you know, steadily over the years. Although, you know, although, you know, there are many, many, many, you know, Conservative ministers at the very top of government who are not white, the Labour Party still, you know, has a considerably larger number of MPs of colour. So this question of representation has kind of, you know, the landscape has changed quite dramatically in that respect. And, you know, it's a very significant moment that we have an Asian MP, an Asian Prime Minister, Home Secretary, other very, very senior ministers, as well as, of course, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and a huge number of front-benches, both for the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. So this question of representation has been, you know, really, really significant. However, you know, that doesn't necessarily translate into policy. Of course, you know, it has, on many occasions, a lot of kind of important, kind of radical progressive politics has come from MPs who are people of colour. However, that's not necessarily been the case, and it certainly has not been the case for the Conservative Party. And a lot of people have been very critical that, you know, progress has not necessarily been made in terms of the sort of policies that a lot of these leading ministers are putting forward. I mean, Braverman herself has spoken of a hurricane of uncontrolled immigration. She's talked about the failure of multiculturalism, the misguided dogma of multiculturalism. She speaks of planes going to Aranda as her dream. Although she isn't isolated in this, I mean, her rhetoric has probably gone further than many, although, you know, we mustn't forget that Pretty Patel, her predecessor, was also very eager to impose very draconian anti-immigrant policies. And yeah, it's a curious thing. I mean, how is it that the MPs who themselves come backgrounds that are dependent on immigration, their parents migrated, Braverman's parents migrated to Britain from, I think, Mauritius and Kenya, respectively, although are of Goan heritage? Why is it that they have adopted this very harsh line on immigration and have essentially found the flames of quite a lot of tension in this country in regards to immigration over recent years? Right, of course, that brings us to also something which is really very current, I think, for all of us, different parts of the world, especially both for media academics as well, which is really the protest in solidarity with Palestinian people that are taking place. We know that especially the UK, along with the US countries in the Global North and countries in the Global South, seeing tens of thousands of people taking to the streets almost every weekend in solidarity with these protests against Israeli occupation as well. You've been, I understand, part of some of these protests as well. So on the one hand, again, we have, say, someone like Braverman and Section, and for that matter, both conservative and Labour leaderships opposing the question, opposing even the possibility of a ceasefire and at the most willing to only talk about what is called a humanitarian pause which is quite farcical. And on the other hand, I think we have tens of thousands of people, I think the biggest such mobilization since Iraq war, taking place against, you know, against Israeli policies, Israeli offensive as well. So we maybe also talk a bit about the internal climate, the political sort of mobilization that is taking place on this issue. Yeah, I mean, there's been in this country outrage at the situation in Gaza, the humanitarian crisis that has evolved as a result of this sort of constant attacks on Gaza. The huge, huge civilian death toll, including more than 5,000 children, this has caused, you know, a huge amount of angst and sorrow and anger and there's been a really very substantial and sustained series of protest marches taking place really every single week. I'm up in Newcastle, there's been vigils and marches and rallies taking place on a weekly basis. I mean, and sometimes more than once a week. In London last weekend, there was a march of at least 300,000 people. The organizers think that it might be considerably more than that. As you say that the biggest rally of its kind, march of its kind in the UK since the Iraq war, the Iraq war in 2003, you know, a protest movement in 2003, an anti-war protest movement that of course was unsuccessful, although a protest movement that correctly predicted the crisis and enormous bloodshed that would result from those conflicts. That being said, you know, in spite of the being, you know, a huge number of people that are totally in absolute shock and horror of what's going on in Gaza, the political establishment seems to be unable to call for a ceasefire, both the government of Rishi Sunak and the shadow cabinet, the labor shadow government or cabinet of Keir Starmer will not even call for a ceasefire. His line is that there might be a pause rather than a ceasefire and certainly no sort of strong condemnation of Israel. And as a consequence of that, you know, a lot of members of the party have walked out. There's been sort of mass quitting of the party, including from many counselors. And there's a lot of anger at that. Right, of course, also I guess in the coming weeks, you're going to be seeing more protests of this kind. I guess the question of immigration as well, continuing to dominate, I think as well as for both activists and the news cycle in the coming months. Thank you so much, Edward, for speaking to us, for giving us an insight into some of these issues that are currently dominating British politics as well as I think also dominating the protests on the street. Thank you so much. Thank you. And that's all we have time for today. Do keep watching People Dispatch. Also visit our website, PeopleDispatch.org and follow us on all the social media platforms.