A new influx of refugees?

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There was a story yesterday suggesting that some Americans are so unhappy or even fearful following the election of Trump that they’re planning to emigrate to the UK. It’s a bit like the one about rich people talking about leaving the UK because Starmer is going to make them pay taxes – overblown, based on a small number of anecdotal instances. No doubt there will be a few, but the extent to which people root up their lives and move elsewhere as a result of a particular election result, or tax change, is greatly exaggerated. The objective of such stories is to try and pressurise governments into giving them special treatment. I can’t see it working in the case of Trump; a few discontented individuals leaving the US won’t make him change course. Sadly, however, it seems that Starmer and Reeves are much more susceptible to such pressures and will bow down to the over-privileged wanting to protect their privileges, as we also saw yesterday.

Leaving aside the fact that such migratory responses are actually much rarer than reports-with-an-agenda might suggest, it’s interesting to consider what treatment such refugees (which is surely what they should be called) from the US will receive. The probability that they will be detained on arrival, or at the expiry of their visitors’ visas, awaiting deportation is close to zero. It’s tempting to suggest that being white and English-speaking might be behind the difference in attitude, but I suspect that it’s more to do with money. They have some, whereas other refugees don’t. There is nothing in any of the relevant international laws which suggests that granting refugee status to someone should depend on how wealthy they are; indeed, the expectation is, rather, that it should be about assessing how much danger they are in. That isn’t, though, the way the UK government operates. And it doesn’t matter which party forms that government.