Moves by Priti Patel to rewrite maritime laws and allow Border Force to turn migrant boats around bear striking resemblance to a noted passage from George Orwell’s 1984.
The home secretary has reportedly sanctioned new tactics to redirect migrant boats in the Channel back to France in moves that have been described as “inhumane” and “massively illegal”.
It comes following a G7 interior minister’s meeting on Wednesday, during which Ms Patel told her French counterpart that the British public “expect to see results” from French efforts to prevent ongoing migrant crossings.
Several newspapers reported that members of Border Force are being given special training to handle migrant boats.
It is believed such tactics could place lives in danger, much to the dismay of people on social media.
The moves also bear striking resemblance to a passage from George Orwell’s 1984, when protagonist Winston Smith makes his first entry into a newly acquired diary.
Here’s what he wrote of life in the dystopian novel, which appears to be increasingly edging towards becoming a work of non-fiction:
April 4th, 1984. Last night to the flicks. All war films. One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him, first you saw him wallowing along in the water like a porpoise, then you saw him through the helicopters gunsights, then he was full of holes and the sea round him turned pink and he sank as suddenly as though the holes had let in the water, audience shouting with laughter when he sank. then you saw a lifeboat full of children with a helicopter hovering over it. there was a middle-aged woman might have been a jewess sitting up in the bow with a little boy about three years old in her arms. little boy screaming with fright and hiding his head between her breasts as if he was trying to burrow right into her and the woman putting her arms round him and comforting him although she was blue with fright herself, all the time covering him up as much as possible as if she thought her arms could keep the bullets off him. then the helicopter planted a 20 kilo bomb in among them terrific flash and the boat went all to matchwood. then there was a wonderful shot of a child’s arm going up up up right up into the air a helicopter with a camera in its nose must have followed it up and there was a lot of applause from the party seats but a woman down in the prole part of the house suddenly started kicking up a fuss and shouting they didnt oughter of showed it not in front of kids they didnt it aint right not in front of kids it aint until the police turned her turned her out i dont suppose anything happened to her nobody cares what the proles say typical prole reaction they never.
1984
Related: UK no longer one of Germany’s top 10 trading partners
