Aditya Chakrabortty

So that's telling you that they hate the idea that the borders are breakable and that they don't feel secure in their own country.

They hate the idea that government after government, whether it's Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer, is saying they're going to stop the boats and they can still see lots of pictures of boats.

In fact, the number of people coming over in boats remains very, very high, right?

The small boats thing in particular, I think, is actually emblematic of the political breakdown we're in.

Think about it.

The only reason you got small boats is because essentially the Conservatives stopped nearly all legal means of entering this country and claiming asylum.

So if you want to enter this country, you have to come over illegally on a small boat and claim asylum as soon as you turn up on the beach, right?

Where do you get put if you're an asylum seeker?

You used to get put in an asylum seeker hotel run by one of three main private companies who make their business model out of going to towns which are on the down and buying up a hotel and putting loads of people in there.

And so if you live in these small towns, all of a sudden you're there and it's a British company and

has put next to you an entire bunch of men who just come off a boat and you think, I've got no control over this.

In a way, the small boat scandal, rather than thinking about it just about being race, think of it also, it's about you as a person who's paid in your taxes as a citizen.

You've got no power now over what happens in your town.

In the same way that people get really vexed about their high street, they get really vexed about the pubs closing down.

It's socioeconomic.

It's socioeconomic powerlessness from people who feel like no one warned them their powers were going to be stripped away from them.

And it's not fair they have their powers stripped away from them.

And it goes along also with decade upon decade of rollback in the workplace where, as a worker, we're less powerful than we were 40 years ago.

There is a massive failure if politicians in the mainstream aren't able to talk about it in non-cultural terms.

They're not able to propose policies to do stuff about it.