'The Government's Deportations TikTok Is A New, Deeply Disturbing Low'
There are lots of reasons someone might be in the UK without the right visa or documentation. For many, it’s because they came here on a visa – usually to study or work – but fell behind with the paperwork, or they couldn’t afford to renew it. Some have been brought here against their will or under false pretences, exploited, and forced to work. And some have come fleeing war, persecution, or extreme hardship.
Whatever the case, every single one of those people is human – with a story, a family, with hopes for the future. And none of them deserves to be filmed at what could be one of the lowest moments of their life – being arrested, detained and deported – and broadcast on social media.
That this is happening at all is deeply disturbing. That the perpetrator is the British government is beyond words.
The government has launched a new TikTok account called ‘Secure Borders UK’. It features videos of people being handcuffed, bundled into police cars, frogmarched into detention centres.
Why? To project cruelty, because that’s what they think voters want? Because clicks and shares – whether from outrage or approval – are more important than basic human dignity? To try and get more followers than Farage?
Ultimately, this is a desperate cry for attention from a government that is failing to do the thing it was actually elected to do: to make people’s lives better.
People voted Labour in 2024 hoping that things would get easier. But Keir Starmer and his government have comprehensively failed to get a grip on the crises that are turning every day into a struggle for people across the country.
Rents are still spiralling, leaving young people forced to live with their parents well into their 20s and 30s. Bills keep going up, while water companies pour sewage into our rivers and seas – and leave whole areas without water for days at a time. Food prices have risen by more than a third in the last five years. Parents are being forced to choose between heating their homes and feeding their kids.
But the prime minister is out of answers, and so he is turning to the despicable tactic that right-wing governments throughout history have employed: the dehumanisation and scapegoating of outsiders.
He – and his home secretary Shabana Mahmood – know that the ‘Secure Borders UK’ TikTok won’t make a single person’s life better.
It won’t take the pressure off the single mum wondering how she’ll pay this month’s electricity bill. It won’t heat the home of the pensioner who’s getting sick because he can’t afford to turn the heating on.
Instead, it will encourage the division and hatred already tearing our communities apart – turning people who were born here against those who simply want to make this country their home. It’s a gross dereliction of duty from this government – and simply unforgivable.