Thérèse Coffey: lone voice against the Wakanda genocide
By David Osland
JANUARY 20, 2024
Brexiteers talk freely of ‘Brussels’ as a shorthand label for unaccountable European Union bureaucracy, while critics of US foreign policy frequently employ ‘Washington’ by way of an easily understandable synonym.
There is even a technical term for such figures of speech. Metonymy is defined as “the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant.” Put more simply, the reference is to the part but implies the whole.
So when Labour’s Yvette Cooper spoke of “the Kigali government” in this week’s Commons debate on the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, she must have had the reasonable expectation that MPs would take that as a reference to the dictatorship of Paul Kagame. What else could she even have meant?
Step forward Thérèse Coffey, a Tory politician whose stint in the cabinet will be long remembered for her failure to tackle water companies dumping sewage in Britain’s rivers.
“I was somewhat astonished by the speech of the shadow home secretary, who cannot even get the name of the country right, talking about the Kigali government when we are talking about Rwanda,” the princess of poo boldly declaimed.
The comment is a strong early contender for the 2024 Failed Attempted Zinger of the Year Award. Unkind observers have even seized on the remark to suggest her grasp of African politics is not all it might be. But I for one will never forget she was often an outspoken lone voice against the Wakanda genocide.
Coffey is the product of a fee-paying school, who secured a place at Oxford University, before she was required to withdraw on academic grounds. But her humiliating display of ignorance raises issues beyond her personal intelligence.
The Rwanda bill comes too late in this parliamentary term to be dubbed flagship legislation, because the Tory Titanic sank some time ago. Think of it as life raft legislation instead.
It is a calculated appeal to the presumed indelible racism of the Conservatives’ target demographic, in the probably forlorn hope of mitigating annihilation at the next general election.
Not only is this rancid attempt to send asylum seekers to deportation camps on another continent in obvious breach of international law, but it has already cost the taxpayer £240m, with another tranche of £40m already lined up. That is far more than the meagre £200m Sunak allocated to fund the NHS winter emergency.
Yet not a single asylum seeker has yet been sent to “the Kigali government” – see what I did there, Thérèse? – and the likelihood that any ever will be is increasingly remote.
Even the very object of the bill is blitheringly incoherent. Westminster – gotta love metonymy, right? – can no more declare that Rwanda is safe than it can rule that black is white or that cats are dogs.
It is true that a thousand years ago, King Cnut placed his throne on the beach and commanded the waves to turn back. But at least he was doing this to teach a lesson to sycophantic courtiers.
Sunak doesn’t even have that excuse. Indeed, this week he has found sycophantic courtiers in short supply.
Worse still, Kagame is getting sniffy about the money and is threatening to send it back. Let no one ever say that African military strongmen do not adhere to basic moral standards. Even if the Tories don’t.
That brings me to Labour’s moral standards on this issue. If you Google hard enough, you can find frontbenchers condemning the Rwanda scheme on ethical grounds. But that critique has rarely been front and centre.
The objections have instead focused on cost and practicality. They are legitimate, as far as they go. But they don’t go far enough. Such is callow electoral expediency.
The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill now goes to the House of Lords, at which stage Green peers will make a doomed attempt to gut it and Labour peers will see it through, in the hope of prolonging Tory agony.
It then returns to the Commons. Any MPs under the misapprehension that “Kigali” is an independent sovereign state should recuse themselves from the vote on grounds of stupidity. They are not sufficiently well informed to offer considered judgement.
David Osland is a member of Hackney North & Stoke Newington CLP and a long-time left wing journalist and author and writes for Labour Research magazine. Follow him on Twitter at @David__Osland
Image: Thérèse Coffey.
Source: https://api20170418155059.azure-api.net/photo/CsHBoP4f.jpeg?crop=MCU_3:2&quality=80&download=true. Author: Chris_McAndrew, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
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