2 May 2024

As if that will save you

Since childhood, I remember the angry faces of the National Front on the news.

It was ingrained in us that we did not belong. I became self-conscious about being “coloured” or “immigrant”. Most of us did then.

I remember the posters that said, “First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak …”

Knowing that people were standing up for us planted a revolutionary thought in my 8-year-old head: we had rights.

My mother and father would warn us this was not our country and that we would be sent back home one day, even though the younger four of us were born here.

When the police visited our shop, my parents would smile, make them tea, and give us that look that said don’t dare speak to them. 

Each time there was a news bulletin calling for immigrants to go home, my father would go on at my older sisters about naturalisation and getting our papers.

I guess Rishi Sunak’s parents must of felt the same fear we felt. Yet this “son of immigrants” is proudly executing the only legacy he will ever have: sending refugees to Rwanda. As if being “whiter than white” would ever save you, you fool.