CORRUPTION, greed and a lack of humanity. This is how the latter years of the 21st century’s second decade will be remembered, as certain politicians in the Western world turn their back on human rights and the rule of law. Meanwhile, a small, borderless elite, who have spotted an opportunity to benefit from deregulation and the loosening of societal norms, use their influence and bank balances to line their already bulging pockets at the expense of the vulnerable.
Brexit chaos in Britain, Theresa May’s hostile immigration environment and the Windrush scandal; Italy’s controversial far-right interior minister Matteo Salvini calling for a census of the Roma community; Hungary, where helping refugees is now a criminal act; the Muslim ban from America and now the shocking detention and separation of migrant families at the hands of the Trump administration who regard refugees arriving in their country as an “infestation”. The president is now calling for certain groups to be deported without the involvement of the judiciary. The Trumpian strategy is to keep pushing the boundaries as if to see just how far they can go before human decency cries out, enough.
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Despite some back-pedalling by the White House as a result of international outrage, a spokesperson from the UN has said that reversing Trump’s policy of separating children from parents at border centres doesn’t go far enough, and that the American government’s draconian immigration measures may amount to torture as well as being a clear violation of accepted human rights standards. A question mark now hangs over the administrative nightmare of reuniting children taken by the authorities from parents who’ve already been deported. At present, there are more than 2300 unaccompanied children languishing in often unsavoury conditions in detention centres close to the border, some run by private companies with no legal obligation to reveal what goes on behind closed doors.
Who are these private companies and how much advance notice had they been given of the president’s extreme immigration plans in order to prepare these detention centres and the infrastructure surrounding them such as transportation? This is a question Professor Robert Reich, political commentator, author and former US secretary of labour under Bill Clinton, has been asking, defining Trump’s immigration stance as “a toxic mix of senseless cruelty and corporate greed”. Well said, sir.
Professor Reich has described how defence contractors and the private prison industry in America are making millions of dollars out of immigration detention. In the past two years, the federal government has ploughed over $2 billion dollars into the private prison industry to build these centres, with one corporation having already made $43 million out of a contract to transport immigrant minors. Child detention is big business in Trump’s America.
I guess it’s the oldest story in the book, but nonetheless shocking – where some people see racism and a lack of humanity, others see a chance to make a quick buck. For most decent people, it’s hard to imagine sitting down in cold blood, planning out the practicalities of child separation from parents while keeping a greedy eye on profit margins. But there are obviously plenty who will do just this and more.
Meanwhile back in Blighty, corporate greed is also making headlines.
An exclusive report in Bloomberg has described the referendum as “the Brexit short”, allowing hedge funds to make eye-watering amounts of money from colluding with pollsters on the supposed result. Anyone remember a sober-looking Farage announcing a slim defeat for Brexit on Sky News as the polls closed? Moments later the value of the pound soared only to plummet a few hours later when the real result came through. Somebody, somewhere, made a lot of money during this time, caring little for the destruction to come from a catastrophic Brexit.
Bloomberg reporters allege that Farage might have suspected that Leave was likely to win thanks to inside information from polling company Survation, even as he made that announcement. But Farage told Bloomberg he only knew the results of the poll carried out by the Survation boss and his friend Damian Lyons Lowe after 10pm and denies purposely misleading the country.
A spokesperson for Farage has said he “had no financial interest in currency movements on the night of Brexit”.
Interestingly, Bloomberg also suggest that financiers first got the idea to profit from polls at the Scottish independence referendum. When YouGov published a poll a few days before the vote in 2014 that showed Yes inching ahead of No, it prompted the panicked response of “the Vow” from Gordon Brown and David Cameron and the downward spiral of the pound. Certain hedge fund managers and polling agencies spotted an opportunity to make money through election uncertainty. It looks as if, by the time the EU referendum came around, they had a plan and they knew how to action it.
The Bloomberg exclusive makes for depressing reading. The photographs and audio of children weeping in American detention centres are too much to bear.
Democracy is being mocked and manipulated by exploitative right-wing populists with their individualistic agenda. No government, no corporation, no individual and certainly no small elite should be allowed to profit from hate or ignorance or misery. We need to take a stand, and we need to take it now.
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