The Home Office is to drive billboards warning migrants to “go home or face arrest” around London this week, in the latest attempt to instil fear in the hearts of immigrants. The news follows on from their oppressive Twitter campaign showing pictures of immigrants being bundled into the back of vans with captions like “no hiding place for illegal immigrants”.
The Evening Standard‘s Martin Bentham reports:
The billboards will also display the number of illegal migrants arrested recently in the relevant part of the capital.
Ministers say that the hardline message is intended to encourage visa overstayers or others here unlawfully to return voluntarily.
The vans will be driven around the London boroughs of Ealing, Barnet, Hounslow, Brent, Redbridge and Barking and Dagenham, in an effort to strike fear into the hearts of migrants. The six boroughs have been chosen, according to Bentham, because “they currently have either high or low numbers of voluntary returns”.
The full billboard reads:
In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest. Text HOME to 78070 for free advice, and help with travel documents. We can help you to return home voluntarily without fear of arrest or detention.
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It’s not difficult to draw comparisons with the latest anti-migrant campaign in Australia, where Cameron’s chief political strategist Lynton Crosby cut his teeth. There, the ruling Labour party has started running posters in major newspapers with the slogan “If you come here by boat without a visa you won’t be settled in Australia”. Many have pointed out that the fact that the slogan is aimed at potential migrants but run in Australian newspapers means that the real aim of the campaign is Australian voters, who like hearing that their government is tough on immigration.
Is the same true here? At least the poster due to be driven around outer London has a chance of being seen by its supposed targets, and according to Bentham:
The new advert will also be displayed on posters and on leaflets distributed to money transfer shops, internet cafes and other places where migrants congregate.
Of course, if anyone who isn’t an illegal immigrant should happen to see the poster and decide to vote Tory because of it, well, that would be too bad, wouldn’t it?
Full view of the gov billboard aimed at migrants who might be here illegally. Disgusting. @trillingual @alexhern pic.twitter.com/ypFOmAwX73
— Steve Rose (@steveplrose) July 22, 2013
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