Heather Stewart

So I would say we are taking back control of our borders.

I get frustrated with the idea that the sort of influx, the surge we had in 2022, 23, 24, there's an idea that that was kind of uncontrolled.

It wasn't.

It was a deliberate decision.

The conscious decision made was to let a lot of people in.

I mean, I think it is ironic that we had a campaign that absolutely, as you said, had kind of racist undertones to it.

It wasn't.

It wasn't the only reason.

It's unfair to say it was the only reason people voted Brexit.

There was also a sort of sovereignty argument, wasn't there, about we don't want our rules to be made in Brussels.

We want to make our own decisions, all of that.

But there was that strand of anti-migration feeling.

And so it's ironic that then that handed the reins of government to a bunch of people who decided the right thing for the economy and for the health service was to let a large number of people in.

Well, it's difficult, right, because you can't lay all of it on Brexit.

You know, if you think about J.D.

Vance and Donald Trump and the, you know, Deutschland in Germany and some of these questions about migration and how you deal with it and how you integrate people or don't and what it means culturally.

are very, very strong in lots of countries, unfortunately.

But I do think it was a moment where some of those, thinking about those breaking point posters, which actually would probably look quite tame compared to some of the really toxic stuff that we're drowned in now.

But covering some of that stuff at the time, that felt to me like taboos were being broken in the UK debate and that there was a line in the UK debate that maybe it started to be crossed in Brexit and it continued to be crossed.

Although, as I say, we are far from the only country where there is a very polarised and toxic debate about migration.