Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats

In her latest book, Maya Goodfellow tracks the historical roots of Theresa May’s ‘hostile environment’ policy to show that distinct forms of racism and dehumanisation have produced a draconian immigration system that disproves the argument that the Windrush scandal is a deviance from the norm.

With the Home Office having committed to implementing all 30 of the recommendations from a damning review into the government’s failure to reform – in the same month that Priti Patel vowed to also reform Britain’s “fundamentally broken” asylum system. Our panel chaired by Guardian columnist Owen Jones, writer and academic Maya Goodfellow and Labour MP and former shadow equalities minister, Dawn Butler will discuss attitudes towards immigration in Britain and will look through the lenses of both legislation and rhetoric to discuss the true sources of the country’s attitudes to immigrants.