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Nathan Akehurst is a writer and campaigner working in political communications and advocacy.
The drowning of 27 migrants in the English Channel this Wednesday was a record death count — prompting expressions of regret in both Britain and France. The governments that lamented the tragedy are implementing policies that make sure it’ll happen over and over again.
The occupation of Afghanistan was a disaster — but the US’s failure is already being used to justify even longer “humanitarian interventions.” As after Vietnam, military men are using scenes of disorderly departure to prepare the ground for the next war.
After the Taliban seized Kabul, Emmanuel Macron led EU governments in declaring the need to “protect ourselves” from a fresh wave of refugees. The West’s intervention fueled chaos in Afghanistan. Now, it is punishing the victims.
For a year, centrist pundits scolded the Left for daring to criticize Boris Johnson’s response to COVID-19. This week’s hearing with former aide Dominic Cummings revealed we were right all along.
Scenes of migrants swimming to Spain’s tiny North African enclave show how Europe outsources border control to peripheral countries like Morocco. This practice may shield militarized repression from scrutiny — but it can’t hide a climate crisis forcing millions of people to leave their homes.
Former British prime minister David Cameron has been exposed using his contacts in government to help out his new bosses at finance firm Greensill Capital. The scandal points to the cronyism among Britain’s elites — and how a wider culture of privatization and outsourcing provides a breeding ground for corruption.
Boris Johnson wants the UK to spend more on arms and reassert its “global role.” Along with a government clampdown on anti-racist organizing, his strategy is clear — imperial grandstanding and the crushing of dissent.
A prosecutor in Sicily has charged twenty-one people, including the crew of the Iuventa migrant rescue ship, with aiding illegal immigration. The potential long jail terms show how European countries have criminalized aid for refugees — and how little they care about the thousands who drown in the Mediterranean.
A British government ad campaign targets lockdown rule-breakers, blamed for undermining measures to tackle the pandemic. But the real problem is the government’s failure to set effective rules to start with — scapegoating individual behavior even as it has allowed the virus to let rip in crowded schools and workplaces.
Twitter profited from Donald Trump’s racist outbursts for years, only to delete his account a few days before his departure. A figure with such media platform runs no risk of being “no platformed” — but tech giants still have too much power over what the rest of us say.
The polling industry claims to offer live snapshots of what the public thinks. Yet the obsession with polls is reducing politics to market research.