OPINION: Overpaid pundit Lineker has debased vital debate
His sympathy for asylum seekers is to be admired. But Gary Lineker's ignorance in comparing events in the UK to 1930s Germany was unconscionable, writes Alex Brummer
Alex Brummer is a Jewish News columnist and the City Editor, Daily Mail
As the son of a refugee from the Czech/Hungarian borderlands who landed here in the teeth of Nazi conquest, I have a very different view of migration from many of my colleagues. My father arrived in the belly of a cargo boat from Belgium and during his lifetime was eternally grateful for Britain’s welcome and the tolerance he was accorded from the day he arrived almost penniless at Victoria Station.
His journey across wartime Europe, with countless borders where inspections of papers had to be evaded or finessed, cannot in my mind be very different from the migrants currently arriving here from across the Channel. Ironically, his journey also began in the Middle East, having been turned back at Haifa with other Zionist-trained future naval officers by British mandate troops.
Anyone who has watched the 2022 film ‘The Swimmers’, directed by Sally El Hosaini, about the struggle of two Syrian sisters to find a new life in the West, cannot but be acutely aware of the privations of such journeys.
The film illustrates the brutality of life in Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, the pure evil of the people traffickers sending people on long journeys on unsafe vessels and the violence and sexual intimidation faced on such journeys. It makes one wish there were better legitimate ways of claiming asylum.
I had no problem with overpaid football pundit Gary Lineker identifying with the migrants. His sympathy for asylum seekers is to be admired. However, his ignorance in comparing events in the UK in 2023 to those in Germany in the 1930s was unconscionable. There is no problem in Lineker being allowed to express his views. The BBC gave him the “oxygen of publicity” as Mrs Thatcher once described it in relation to the IRA by its clumsy response. My only wish is the self-absorbed pundit had the intelligence, wit and knowledge to have recognised the comparison with Nazi-era Germany was wrong.
Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of that era would know Nazi hatred of socialist critics, Catholic priests, Jewish dissidents was already in full swing and people were being dragged off to Dachau from the early 1930s. A walk through the once-Jewish neighbourhood of Berlin would demonstrate to him the appalling restrictions the Nazis were imposing on the Jewish population.
The Germans were not just destroying enterprises, lives, books and places of worship, as on Kristallnacht in 1938, but restricting basic rights to buy petrol, walk in the park and much else. The language of Nazism was brutal and racist and not even a distant cousin to the UK’s language and handling of migrants.
As much as the people trafficking behind the current small-boat crisis is abhorrent, in my view the best approach of government is not to ship people to Rwanda but to change the approach with an all-out effort to speed up processing and arrivals brought into the workforce as soon as possible.
Latest data shows there are as many as 1.3 million vacancies in the UK economy, so the idea of new arrivals detained or locked up in hotels at great public expense is ludicrous. If as much effort was expended on efficient processing – rather than pouring cash into the hands of the French authorities – the outcomes would be very different.
The Tories are the party of entrepreneurship, enterprise and endeavour. One only has to look at the front bench to recognise how in one or two generations people can transform lives. Jews and in more recent times East African Asians are among those groups who are making huge contributions to the UK economy. As ‘The Swimmers’ demonstrates very well, most people do not risk their lives and savings to feed off the welfare state.
In many cases the migrants are driven by fierce ambition and infused with the spirited qualities that should be better embraced. Putting aside the current politics, there are few states which have better demonstrated the value of an immigrant population than Israel. In just 75 years it has overtaken the UK in terms of per-capita income.
Lineker, with his observations, debases a great national political and economic debate which needs to be conducted in a mature balanced way.
- Alex Brummer is a journalist, editor and author.
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.
