Ah November. The month when the final leaves of Autumn are swept aside, their crisp exterior resigned to the inevitability of becoming indistinct, sodden mulch awaiting the drain. Culturally, it’s usually uneventful, a sort of month-long holding pattern after Summer and Halloween, but still early enough to make vaguely malicious remarks about the neighbour who’s gone incomprehensibly early with their outward expression of Yuletide joy. Speaking off, have you thought about what you might gift that special someone in your life? Perhaps that holiday you’ve been secretly saving for is on the agenda, or maybe a nice pair of novelty socks that are sure to elicit earnest eye rolls and repressed resentment are part of your festive plan.
Of course, this year, our government has suggested a novel third option: confiscating asylum seekers’ jewellery to pay for processing costs.
The Third Option
You read that correctly. The third option comes just in time for the big C-day and is courtesy of Keir Starmer. You could make that special someone in your life the grateful recipient of seized jewellery, snatched from the helpless and destitute hands of an asylum seeker! Take a moment to imagine this. There is a perfumed smell of mulled wine in the air, the sound of children exchanging stories about what they wished Santa had got them instead, and the decadent sight of an ’80s sitcom ‘special’ playing slightly too loudly in the background whilst grandad nods off. At this magical moment in time, you hand over a meticulously wrapped Afghan family heirloom seized from a shivering widow fresh from a treacherous journey in a dinghy across a raging ocean. Now, if that isn’t Christmas, I don’t know what is!
If this all seems a little inhumane to the gift’s recipient, never fear, for they may wear these jewels proudly in the knowledge that they have, in fact, been stol-, sorry I mean seized, to pay for that asylum seeker’s stay. Why donate to charity when you could simply buy seized goods and help an immigrant family stay warm this Christmas? Explain to your other half that whilst the private corporations who own the hotels are pocketing multi-billion-pound government contracts and raking in hundreds of millions of pounds of profit per annum — while offering services that have been described as ‘terrible’ — this abject cruelty in place of re-examining a for profit system that relies on a steady stream of miserable precariousness is, in fact, a necessary evil for the good of mankind.
Using ‘Discretionary Power’
You may be asking, ‘But what if they still don’t want this on their conscience?’ Fortunately, our Prime Minister has an answer for that, too! Explain to them that men of moral fortitude like Tommy Robinson, who’s only served a meagre five prison terms in the last twenty years, approve of the move, and that this isn’t the only right from the 2005 EU legislation guaranteeing support for asylum seekers that’s being slashed. Rather, it’s one of many as the government seeks to exercise what it calls ‘discretionary power’ in place of said support being a ‘given.’
Also, point out that this will be of absolutely no issue under the current Labour government, as they will be sensibly moderate around the laws they’re augmenting. Indeed, there’s little need to worry about the future as there are no reactionary parties in the UK whose support is swelling amid promises of mass deportations. On an entirely unrelated note, I feel compelled to add here that according to the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society or COMPAS research facility, Reform UK’s latest policy mandate is: ‘fundamentally … a decision to abandon the UK’s decades-long commitment not to send people to places where they may face torture or death.’ Never one to be caught riding a wave, Nigel Farage outlined these plans at the end of August, and it appears that Labour are attempting to copy his homework regarding the rhetoric around migrants.
If your partner is still fraught with moral apprehension, simply open the curtains wide to a street draped in Union Jack bunting and a landscape lined with empty Stella cans, and promise them that they can wear that necklace to the next ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally. Then gather everyone round and saunter towards the dining table, making sure to raise a glass to honour the valiant work of Shabana Mahmood and Sir Keir Starmer for legitimatising this depravity and leaving the door wide open for many more Christmas nightmares ahead — although I doubt Starmer will be celebrating them in Downing Street.
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