PAUL ELLIS / AFP
Priti Patel sent a Christmas card this Monday, December 19th, depicting herself as a fairy in charge of organizing deportations to Rwanda. (Pictured: Conservative MP Priti Patel attends an event on the sidelines of day three of the Conservative Party’s annual conference in Birmingham, central England October 4, 2022.)
UNITED KINGDOM – Lack of “human decency”. Former British Home Secretary Priti Patel has been under heavy criticism since Tuesday December 20 after a Christmas card depicting her as a deportation fairy in Rwanda was sent to her political contacts, the British press reports. Under his tenure, the program to repatriate migrants to sub-Saharan Africa was launched.
On the map she is sitting on a Christmas tree with a magic wand. As you can see in the photo in the tweet below, “National Security” and “Rwanda” are engraved by name on the balls hanging from the tree.
Priti Patel’s Christmas card is something else. “That’s the Christmas card from someone who read the crib shop… https://t.co/DfEs0lsR61
— Carlton Reid (@carltonreid)
The eviction presented as a Christmas present
This cartoon also shows former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, portrayed as a child who “joyfully opens up the political gifts she has created”, analyzes the British daily The Independent.
A second sample card sent by Pitri Patel shows a stack of gifts decorated with tags including: “Increased use of Tasers”, “Brexit ready to cook” and “12,000 foreign nationals detainees deported”.
The controversy generated by these drawings is amplified by the political agenda. The British judiciary on Monday gave the green light for the deportation to Rwanda of asylum seekers who entered the United Kingdom illegally. This highly controversial project has the backing of Conservatives, who have made tackling illegal immigration, one of Brexit’s promises, one of their priorities.
Cartoon denounced by the Liberals and Labour
Labor opposed the policy to prevent Channel crossing and rose after the card was sent. “We’ve seen Priti Patel’s lack of human decency time and time again: why should we expect anything less at Christmas? reacted in particular to Alistair Carmichael, Home Affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, whose comments were reported by British radio LBC.
“If Priti Patel had been there, Mary, Joseph and Jesus would have been on their way to Rwanda before the Three Kings arrived,” she said. A Labor politician also denounced the Mirror: “Given that Priti Patel’s Tories legacy (…) is a record number of dangerous boat crossings, you’d think she wants to hide under the Christmas tree and not pretend the fairy entirely above. »
A Labor source also criticized Pitri Patel’s statement in the Evening Standard, saying that “under Priti Patel, just one in 100 suspected sex offenders has been brought to justice while she completely lost control of the asylum system. »
The deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda was one of the former minister’s key policies, but no deportation has yet taken place. A first flight scheduled for June was canceled after a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) calling for a thorough review of the directive. Now that the judiciary has made its decision, Rishi Sunak’s government wants to hurry up.
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