Zoe Gardner
Appearances
Pod Save the UK
Can Starmer’s upbeat note drown out the donation scandal? w/ Zoë Grünewald and Simon Kuper
Yeah.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And that reflects a deal that Italy is at the lead of, but is actually an EU-wide deal that has been made with Tunisia, a greater enhanced cooperation between Italy and Libya, and a new deal that's also been signed with Egypt. And these are called migration management deals, which is euphemistic, to put it mildly. Basically, we pay millions and millions of pounds.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And I say we because the UK has in the past been involved with these deals and in the present continues to be involved in various ways, including financially involved. We pay huge amounts of money to governments, and I use that term even quite generously because Libya doesn't essentially, it's a failed state and doesn't have just one government, but we've picked one of them.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And we're giving them a lot of money to contain migrants, to prevent them from leaving. And essentially what happens and what has been happening specifically in Tunisia since this deal was signed is that the government there has been
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
rounding up people, chucking them into vans and driving them out into the Saharan desert and dumping them, men, women and children, in the border region between sort of Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, with no water, no mobile phones, no nothing. And Tens of thousands of people have credibly been reported to be subjected to this treatment. And hundreds and hundreds of people have obviously died.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
That's how she's cut the numbers. Wow.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Albania has been presented in the media as sort of like how she's achieved this. Actually, the Albania deal hasn't started yet. The drop in numbers has entirely been achieved through these horrific deals with Northern African countries. The Albania deal is yet to come into force.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
So the Albania deal is different to the Rwanda deal. The Rwanda deal that we had was essentially that we would send people to Rwanda and regardless of who they were or what circumstances then occurred, they would stay in Rwanda, or at least they wouldn't come back to the UK. This is not the same at all. This is about the Italian administration of their asylum system saying,
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
taking place in detention camps in Albania. So that means that they have built these huge detention facilities in Albania. They have again sent many, many millions of pounds to the Albanian government and Italian civil servants are going to process the asylum claims of a select group of the asylum seekers who are seeking to land in Italy. They're going to do that processing on Albanian soil
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
People will remain detained there until the decision is made on their case. If they are recognized under Italian law as refugees, they will then be returned to Italy. But the intention is that the people sent there will be people that Italy deems unlikely to be refugees. But the intention is that then they will be removed if they are not found to be refugees, but they'll be removed from Albania.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
So they'll be detained in Albania until that removal can be administered by Italy. So it's an enclave. It's a neo-colonial outpost.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Yeah. Yeah, I tend to pride myself on not being shocked by politicians' behaviour towards migrants. But I was shocked when Rishi Sunak hosied up to the extent he did to Georgia Maloney. So... Keir Starmer starting out his tenure as PM by going over there and having the exact same kind of giggly, cute little photo shoots with her. really turned my stomach to a degree I cannot even describe.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
He's going over there ostensibly to learn about, yeah, the offshoring element. So again, the irony is not the part that's actually impacted arrivals because it's not in place yet. So it simply cannot be argued to have done that.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
But Starmer's made it pretty clear that he's not ruling out almost anything and certainly not ruling out the possibility of offshore processing of claims, which is, as I explained, is different to the idea of the Rwanda one.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Yeah, no, I mean, it has a lot of like fundamental elements in common. First and most important being that it is based on the flawed logic that through cruelty we can deter people from seeking safety and opportunity for their lives. And any expert will tell you that there is absolutely no evidence that that can be achieved. So first of all, like the Rwanda plan, this won't work.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Like the Rwanda plan also, it has human rights disaster written all over it. So there are some ways in which it's better. Albania is closer to being a true democracy than Rwanda was. Albania is under the purview of the European Court of Human Rights. So there are mechanisms where migrants will be able to find some level of redress.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
There's also things like pregnant women or children will not be included in the people sent there. So once again, men get a kicking. We don't care about brown men. But yes, there are differences. But ultimately, it comes down to the fact that these will be people locked up in offshore camps and For long, long periods, conditions will be atrocious.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Suicide, self-harm will definitely be a feature of these camps. Abuses, just squalor. It's horrific and everybody should be against it. It's different to Rwanda, but it has a lot of the same problems. And ultimately, of course, it won't work.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Yeah. So, I mean, over the whole of Europe, the number one nationality of people seeking asylum is Syrian and in the UK it's Afghans. So we're talking about people who are leaving from countries where situations are unlivable. It's also important to note we're talking about countries where your passport has the least value. Yeah.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
So UK passport gets you visa-free or visa on arrival entry to almost every country in the world. A Syrian passport, an Afghan passport. There is no way to travel legally out of those countries. Not to the UK, but not to any other European country, not to any safe country where there is real opportunity to rebuild your life. And that is why people do so in such dangerous means.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And you look at that list of the least powerful countries, passports, they are the most dangerous countries and they are the countries where people are taking irregular journeys from. I wonder why.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Okay, so I have three problems with the story. But first of all, I just want to ask, at what number does it become mass? Because mass migration, we've all apparently accepted that we're experiencing mass migration. I don't know when it became mass. And I would really love a definition, just to define the term so that we can talk on an equal playing field. But... Aside from that, yeah.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
First of all, the headline there talks about low-paid migrants and it doesn't talk about the most striking OBR finding, which is that the average migrant actually makes an immense fiscal contribution. as soon as they arrive in the UK, they start contributing economically to the UK. So it's just misleading straight off the bat.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Second problem, talks about low-paid migrants, doesn't talk about the structural issues that create low pay in this country. And spoiler, it's not migration. Disproportionately, migrants are represented in public sector roles, including healthcare and social care. These are areas where the government sets the pay scale. And it is the government's decision to set pay low.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
I've never actually met a worker in any line of work who was the person saying, don't raise my wages. It's not the workers who hold down the wages. It is structures of oppression, greed, and capitalism, and just underfunding from government that hold down wages. So you want to talk about low paid workers, you know, you need to talk about the service they are providing.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And the service they are providing is, frankly, in the case of carers and doctors, priceless, absolutely priceless and necessary for our country. So their calculation in terms of these crude fiscal measures does not take into account that we desperately need these people. And finally, obviously, it just reduces people to just economic units rather than human beings.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And every single migrant is one. They're just a human. They're just a human.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Yeah, I think it's important that I try to go on mainstream media. I would love more opportunities to do that, frankly, but I do find that we're constantly on the back foot there. We're constantly reacting to the framing that is put upon us by, you know, the government's doing something horrific. Is this good? And you get very little space.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And it's always sort of like locking people up in detention centers abroad. Good or bad? Yeah. It's just like, okay. And what it doesn't give us space to do is what I think the majority of the country actually wants. I think the majority of the country doesn't like the fact that if you're born in Sudan, you have such unequal chances in life. And if you want to change that, you risk drowning.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
I don't think people like that. I think people want to see that managed better, but we are not given options to manage it better. We are given options to lock people up and push people away. And people want to understand what the alternatives are. And the only way that I am able to do that is spaces like this, or if I am the one creating the content and creating the
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And just a narrative about the alternatives, because the real big lie about migration is that the choices between having it or not having it. And the real truth is the choices between managing it well in a way that benefits us all or this horrific cruelty and death that we see at the current time.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
What do you think is going to happen? One of the most common comments I get is like, you know what? Why are they, you know, spending £6,000 on a smuggler's boat when it costs £35 to fly here from Paris on EasyJet? And I'm like, mate, yeah, you know what? They're real dumb people. LAUGHTER You should have got a star scan of me. Seriously, let's put up some posters. I don't know. Is it yet?
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
What's your target audience right here? Absolutely insane how little people understand the privilege they have of being British, basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Yeah, I think there's something here, right? One is just the responsibility that we have to be doing what we can to change the narrative because the narrative is bad, but it is getting scary here and across Europe. And I think everybody just has the responsibility to use whatever voice they have to have better conversations. So one is that.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
The other is, I don't know how much good I'm doing because, you know, you remember Trump and they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of hilarious, right? But like, I've been thinking about that a lot. It's really got under my skin. I'm like, what's the purpose of this? This is so clearly a lie.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And then it brings me back to, you know, politicians who respond to humans,
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
drowning in the channel by saying that we need to go and talk to a neo-fascist in Italy about the camp she's setting up in Albania, when we all know, and I'm sorry, we all know that there is one way, if you actually, your one first priority was to save people's lives and stop them drowning, you would create a route for them to cross the channel without taking those boats.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
That is what you would do. We all know that. So what purpose does the lie serve the lie is not to convince somebody that that's the truth right we all know that that's not the truth the lie is to somehow create an alternative world and a justification and narrative where we can pretend we're acting in in in line with morals or or practical reality and It's to create a fiction.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And so the truth, when the purpose of a lie is not to convince somebody of a lie, then the truth loses its power against that. And I really do worry that even though I'm putting out stuff that is factually accurate, I'm not successfully going to challenge that narrative because the point of it isn't, you know, to convince people of a lie. It is to use a lie to justify situations that aren't going.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
No, I mean, they're fundamentally tight. They're fundamentally tight and there's always winners. And I think that... The point I'm trying to make there about what's the purpose of the lie is to justify a status quo. A status quo doesn't work for us. We're pretty sick of it. It's unpleasant. It doesn't work for the people who hate migrants because migrants continue to arrive.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And it doesn't work for migrants pretty bloody obviously. So who is it working for? Because they're still doing it. And what is the lie justifying? And that is exactly what you say. There are people making an absolute killing out of this.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Whether it's the Albanian government, the Tunisian autocratic regime, the Libyan militia, or the Rwandan dictatorship, or whether it's the private firms that sell us drones, that sell us fences, that run the detention centers and the deportation centers. There is an entire ecosystem of massive profit in this country.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
horror show that we call deterrence of migrants you know the graham king he he's just the most recent sunday times rich list concept that freaks me out but whatever he's a new entry to the sunday times rich list one of the richest people in the uk what does he do he runs clear springs which is a housing accommodate they run they run the asylum hotels
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
There's a reason we have left people in asylum hotels is because there are people, and he's a Tory donor, they get very, very rich off this. And those are the real villains here. And they are hoarding wealth that should be distributed among all the vulnerable people in our population. And yeah, so economic inequality is absolutely at the nub of this, but it's tied in.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
There's a reason it continues, even though it's failing.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
So, obviously, that's quite a big question.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
30 seconds is just like being on Good Morning Britain.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Seriously though, there's the immediate term and then there's the longer term, right? So in the immediate term, if I was advising Keir Starmer and I know that he, you know, hangs on my every word.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Oh, yeah. Obviously.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
At my Twitter feed. Why wouldn't he be? Okay. Immediately speaking, you need to decrease the salience of a tiny, small, small proportion of immigration, which is refugees and asylum seekers. 5.5% of the people who came to the UK last year came on a small boat. 5.5%, slightly disproportionate coverage in media and attention from government. Fucking hell. Just calm it, the ever-loving fuck down.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Sorry. But just stop making your policy be driven by those people. Stop performatively trying to detain them and lock them up and work on European-wide solutions to share responsibility for safe routes for people to reach protection. But keep it in its place and then move on the fact that our real, the bulk of immigration is people coming for work.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And our immigration system forces people into exploitation and low pay because of the way it's structured. And I'm not going to get into that whole detail there. But please, guys, follow me on everything and I'll tell you all about it. And then finally, we need to talk about a word that's a little bit uncomfortable in these circles, but I don't know a better word for it. It's integration, right?
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Now, on the left, people get like, why should people have to integrate? Integration goes both ways. Yes, integration goes both ways, right? And some of the least integrated people into British society are the richest, right? All of that is true, but I think we need to talk about integrated communities and
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
and how our immigration system stops migrants from being able to put down roots and become full members of our communities because it keeps people in a temporary status for a really long time. It separates people out from the welfare state. It separates people out from... all sorts of ways in which we become entwined in each other's lives.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Things like the most family-unfriendly immigration system that you could possibly imagine. British people who are married to people who were born abroad. And God forbid you fall in love with a foreigner. You have these insane income requirements and incredibly onerous bureaucratic hoops you have to jump through. That's like... families that we are keeping apart through our immigration system.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
So when I talk about integration, that's the kind of thing I mean. And then just finally, over the longer term, what you really need to look at is changing the face of our immigration system to one that works with the reality of migration. So people will move because they need solutions because they're fleeing from danger. We desperately need people. We have an aging population, you
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Healthcare workers, all of these people, farm workers, we need them. We actually go out and quite aggressively recruit for those people in some countries and at the same time push away other people. We need to recalibrate over time our immigration system to reflect the needs of the people who migrate as well as the needs of the country.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
Yeah, I think it does depend on the context. Probably what most people see of my work is me having horrible arguments in mainstream media about migration. And the framing and the way that debate takes place is horrific. But, you know, a lot of my job is also... talking to ordinary people and coming on lovely podcasts as well.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
But like, yeah, I think the mainstream media framing and political framing of this issue is just so horrific and it doesn't actually reflect the conversations you tend to have with normal people.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
So Georgia Maloney was elected two years ago and she is of the extremely hard right anti-migrant flavour of politician, like much more extreme than anything we have in the UK. Her party is the successor to the fascist movement in Italy. And even if people reject the sort of the label of fascist around her, they would certainly, anybody would call her an extremely authoritarian, hard right figure.
Pod Save the UK
Starmer’s Garm Drama + the Government looks right on immigration w/ Zoe Gardner
And that is driven primarily through migration politics and She has completely failed, as all politicians do, to deliver on her hardline promises to cut immigration and make refugees disappear from Italy over the last two years. However, there has been a drop, as you said in the intro, in the last year and more specifically, actually, in the last six months.