Cram them into a shoebox: that’s #Britain’s new #AntiMigrant strategy – and it won’t work

#Refugees are right to protest about a plan that forces them into unsuitable accommodation. It’s more #CrueltyByDesign
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/07/britain-anti-migrant-strategy-refugees-accommodation #ToryPoliciesInAction #ToryInhumanity #Immigration #Asylum

It is instructive (if depressingly predictable) to compare how the same government handled tax debts from multinationals, or sweetheart royalties deals with dirty energy, or inflated pricing from weapons manufacturers, or the misuse of public funds by its own ministers and MPs. The rule: #cruelty is always applied downwards, to demonise the weak, divide the population, deflect criticism from the system, and deter those organising to change it.

Robodebt was not some strange malfunction in the system, nor are its various equivalents and inevitable future manifestations under different guises. Lies, cruelty and unlawfulness will always be deployed tactically in service of a system designed to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

#Auspol #Robodebt #CrueltyByDesign

@nathanaelcbr Yes, that's the point: to make you so frustrated you give up and stop applying.

Cruelty and mismanagement are not bugs, they are features of a system that has been broken by design by those who think poverty ought to be punished, since people get what they deserve and if you are poor then you must deserve it, hence punishment.

The purpose of this belief is revealed by its correlate: I deserve my privilege and comfort and do no need to feel any empathy or pain for those who needlessly suffer on unimaginable scales. I can put them out of my mind, confident that they, like me, are getting what they deserve.

This is the core of #conservative politics, and is known as #JustWorldBelief. It entails #VictimBlaming as a core commitment. And justifies the deliberate infliction of cruelty (even the petty but real bureaucratic cruelty of pointlessly bad design for a welfare system).

#NotABug #CrueltyByDesign