If he says he is anti-racist, why is Cameron guilty of ‘othering’ refugees?

Private individuals are stepping in where governments refuse to tread

I was on BBC Question Time with the forthright Jess Phillips last week. Since then, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley has become the most reviled woman in the Midlands and beyond. She is accused of betraying Brummies; on planet Twitter mad men rip and maul her. So what did Phillips say to provoke such ire?

We were in Stamford, Lincolnshire – a place, I thought, that would be ferociously anti-immigration. But, on the migrant crisis in Europe, the audience was largely sympathetic to the wretched men, women and children who take to the seas because they want to live, to get a better life. Then a young chap brought up the sexual assaults on women in Cologne by some asylum-seekers and asked if there was a danger that hideous, unreconstructed behaviours would be imported into Europe. Phillips accepted his concerns and then went on to remind him and the audience that British men also groped, fondled, baited and molested women in the streets of our cities, naming as an example Birmingham’s Broad Street. That led to the witch-hunt.

She is absolutely right, of course. Some honest people in Birmingham have come out to confirm that the harassment of females is a “massive problem”, and that British men can be and are predatory and sexually incontinent.

This row encapsulated both the new misogyny that is sweeping across Britain and a resurgent, 21st-century xenophobia. Prominent women in public spaces must, it seems, be punished. Freedom of expression is a restricted right, available only to powerful men.

Phillips is not only a mouthy woman, but she daringly pointed out the hypocrisy and bigotry of some in our society for whom there is one rule for them – the “others” – and one for true Brits. Their kids can perish, their benefits be slashed, their human rights crushed, their stories disbelieved, all so that “we” can carry on living the good life.

David Cameron, allegedly a caring Tory, shows no compassion or even basic concern for fleeing families on wrecked boats, calls them “swarms” and “a bunch of migrants” – the last demeaning phrase repeated on Question Time by Patrick McLoughlin, the loyalist Tory Transport minister. They do not mention the wars they made or backed in Iraq or Libya which created the outflow of people, or mention the arms we sell to tyrants. Such small details are easily forgotten by these busy, busy men.

On Saturday night in Stockholm, once a city of humanitarian and civil values, a gang of up to 100 men in black masks went marauding and beat up refugee children. Children. Did that create the shock and horror of the Cologne attacks? Did Cameron get up to condemn these violent fascists who betray European values? What would he have said if these had been Muslim extremists or angry asylum-seekers? This happened just days after Holocaust Memorial Day, about which our leader moralises a great deal.

More seriously, the Government and its coterie are now also successfully pitting settled “good” immigrants and their families against troublesome Muslims and those who are trying to claim asylum. Yesterday, we were presented with yet another Cameron avatar: the adamant anti-racist who is determined to get men and women of colour into and up the ladders of state institutions, the private sector, the Establishment. Britain should be mortified, sayeth he, that a “young black man is more likely to be in prison than studying at a top university”.

Trevor Phillips is impressed by Cameron’s “astonishing declaration”. I am not, not at all. Maybe that’s to be expected: Phillips is in with the powerful; he thinks Muslims are not “like us” and that asking them to integrate is “disrespectful”. I think that, thereby, he endorses cultural apartheid. He garlands the Prime Minister while I am revolted by insincere, scheming gesture politics. If Cameron continues to show callous indifference to and contempt for those seeking refuge, his avowed anti-racism is a sham and a displacement tactic.

This is the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War. Private individuals are stepping in where governments refuse to tread, while EU leaders are criminalising doctors, volunteers and food suppliers. Eric Kempson has lived on Lesbos for 16 years. After he saw a child’s life jacket on a beach, he started a humanitarian initiative to help the thousands of refugees arriving on the 10km of beach in front of his home. He is sickened by official deterrence policies: “They are following the logic of fascism by telling us to let people drown on our doorstep. And the way Greece is being victimised is disgusting. We are not going to stop helping. We will keep on going and we need the world’s help to do it. They will not stop us acting with humanity.”

In Calais, volunteers report cold and sick children, some needing to be resuscitated. In Italy, asylum-seeking children have gone missing and are thought to be with sex traffickers.

Mothers are so terrified that they send their kids into the unknown. And our government takes in a derisory number of the most vulnerable, makes vague promises and robotically talks about funding refugee camps in Syria – camps that cannot save people from daily bomb attacks.

Faced with this epic tragedy, our leaders are dismal, divisive and callous. History will judge them harshly for failing to save lives, for “othering”, for demonising the displaced. You want to be anti-racist, Mr Cameron? Start with the boat people. Build some moral capital so that we can trust you and your commitment.