HOW did we get here? To this terrible place, where refugee campaigners now use the words “concentration camp”; where charity leaders claim “fascism is unfolding”; where the British Government uses the language of the National Front; where a far-right terrorist firebombs refugee facilities, then kills himself.

We’re becoming America … though without the guns, thank God. What’s happening at the Manston refugee detention centre in Kent should terrify us. More than 4,000 people – including families and children, so let’s not swallow wholesale the UK Government rhetoric around "single young men" – are held in disgusting, degrading and, as the Refugee Council says, “inhumane conditions”. There should be no more than 1,600 people in the camp. The maximum stay should be 24 hours. Some have been there more than a month.

Families are sleeping on floors. There are reports of outbreaks of diphtheria, MRSA and scabies. A Chief Inspector of Prisons report spoke of “exhausted detainees”. Hundreds of wet, cold people were forced to spend hours in cramped containers. Detainees are frisked in front of each other “including rub-down searches of woman and children”. One member of Border Force staff was seen “pulling a young child by the arm”.

The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Neal, also visited the site. Conditions left him “speechless”. The detainees include victims of trafficking, people with disabilities and severe mental health problems. There’s concerns over welfare and dignity. Some detainees weren’t allowed to use mobile phones to tell families they were safe. Others were “inexplicably” not allowed to close toilet doors. Children have been shouting for help through the wire, for pity’s sake.

The day after a far-right terrorist firebombed a refugee facility, Home Secretary Suella Braverman spoke of an “invasion” of refugees. It’s the language not just of Enoch Powell, but the National Front in the 1970s. Writer Sam Freedman said that back in 1893 the Tory MP James Lowther “gave a speech saying the country was being ‘overrun’ by ‘destitute foreign migrants’ who should go back to where they came from. He was talking about Jews, including my great-great-grandparents.”

No wonder members of the far-right extremist organisation Britain First have been reportedly flocking to join the Conservatives. The Labour MP Zarah Sultana said Braverman’s language “whips up hate and spreads division”.

Just as sure as Donald Trump’s words led to violence in America, Braverman is creating the circumstances for something terrible happening here.

The SOAS Detainee Support organisation says explicitly: “Manston is a concentration camp. Interning people there illegally is a political decision taken by Suella Braverman and the Home Office. The children’s cries of ‘freedom’ and ‘we need your help’ are a haunting indictment of the barbaric British border regime.”

There have been claims that Braverman refused to sign off on transferring refugees out of Manston, which would have eased overcrowding, allegedly because detainees would have been sent to "Tory voting areas".

Braverman speaks of a "broken" asylum system. Yet her Government has been in power for 12 years, so who broke it? The system can be fixed: identify safe routes into Britain for those seeking asylum and then process claims as quickly as possible. Neither of these two tasks is being done.

I asked Robina Qureshi, head of the refugee charity Positive Action in Housing and Scotland’s most outspoken campaigner for refugee rights, for her take on recent events.

She was scathing. “The Home Secretary has merged into the same jackbooted form as the National Front,” she said. She described Braverman’s words as “the language of the far right” and an “incitement to violence”.

She added: “Multiple reports suggest Braverman had a direct hand in blocking refugee transfers and perpetuating wretched, dangerously overcrowded conditions.”

Qureshi pointed to comments by Conservative MP Lee Anderson in Parliament saying that “if the accommodation is not good enough, they can get on a dinghy and go back to France”. Braverman replied: “My friend is right … any complaints that the accommodation isn’t good enough is absolutely indulgent and ungrateful.”

Qureshi commented: “We’re watching fascism unfolding before our eyes. It is a matter of time before they shoot people in the English Channel. This is the logical conclusion of Braverman’s ideology.

“The global refugee crisis is growing by the tens of millions each year. Sadly, there’s no legal route here for brown and black refugees. Only safe, legal avenues will stop human smuggling and incentivise people to use those routes, the way the Ukrainians do now through visas.”

Dr Sabir Zazai, head of the Scottish Refugee Council, told me he was “horrified” by reports coming out of Manston. “The vast majority of people who come here via a dangerous small boat crossing do so to seek protection. That someone who has fled war, terror or persecution could be met with more violence, or serious health risks, on our shores is shameful.” He noted that “Afghanistan is one of the top countries people making small boat crossings come from. There is no functioning safe and legal route, like a resettlement programme, available to people fleeing the Taliban.”

Madeleine Sumption, director of the Oxford Migration Observatory, dismissed Braverman’s claims: “This is not an invasion – it’s not an army.” Seventeen EU countries receive larger asylum applications per capita. The UK gets eight applications per 10,000 people. Cyprus receives 153, Austria 42, Malta 29, Greece 27, Slovenia 25, Liechtenstein 24, Iceland 24, Germany 23, Luxembourg 22 and Belgium 22. Britain is an outlier with its low numbers.

It may be uncomfortable to discuss, but in light of what’s happening we can no longer pretend there’s no difference in so-called Scottish and English values, at least as far as the treatment of refugees is concerned. What’s happening in England isn’t just morally disgraceful, it’s truly frightening. We’re clearly watching the collapse of decency within a government, and the party in power embarking on a journey that leads god knows where.

As America shows, there’s no way back once politicians start to walk this dreadful path. The Conservative Party is long dead, it’s now the same hollowed out far-right corrupted husk as the Republican Party post-Trump. The only difference is that here in Britain, the extremists are still in power.

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