Undesirables

It started with the grain of hate that festered in the hearts of both the fearful and the jealous, poisoning both innocent victims and vindictive narcissists. It was the septic toxin that crept through the veins of community and turned neighbour against neighbour based on nothing more than the etymology of a surname or the birth place of a grandparent. It was hateful and uncompromising, and took lives without mercy, just as it had throughout all of human history.

What happened in 2017 wasn't the consequence of Brexit, or 7/7, or even 9/11. It wasn't the consequence of the miner's strikes or the Gulf War. It wasn't a result of the Holocaust, or the Crusades, or the fall of Rome. 2017 came about because people are tribal, and while that can lead to communities holding hands and standing for the greater good, it can also cause them to see people who are 'other' as something 'bad'. As something which needs to be destroyed.

We're considered vermin now; rats to be captured and killed. Undesirables whose heads are covered by red bags marked with the Home Office logo as we're tossed into the back of black vans, never to be seen or heard from again. This is the new order, in the new world. This is 'Great' Britain, the country of my birth where my children, my husband, and I no longer belong.

Welcome to the Disunited Republic of Little England.