The Principle of Free Speech

After the recent controversy over Gary Lineker and his distinct political opinions, I feel it is important to show people why he did it, what he actually did, and what people think about the illegal immigrant argument itself, writes J Mcleod.

It all happened quicker than you could process it, seeing articles pop up everywhere; perhaps “BBC is furious over a new tweet posted by Gary Lineker”, or “Will Lineker still present Match of the Day after such a blow up?”

You probably only saw the tweet with no context behind it.

Well, here is the full story, pieced together from resources all over the web.

You may have heard of Suella Braverman, and the trouble she got into back in January; this was with a video of her disclosing plans to prevent migrants crossing the channel. The language she used instantly became controversial, with many contrasting opinions shooting out all over the internet.

Earlier this year, she featured in another video posted by the Home Office, announcing the new policy which aims to stop illegal immigrants from coming to the country completely, by “detaining” them and “swiftly” removing the migrants to their home country if safe, or a third (safe) one if not.

At the beginning of the video, she claimed the UK asylum system to be “overwhelmed.” As one of the major European countries, the UK takes in far fewer immigrants in comparison to the other nations, leading some people to immediately disagree with this comment.

On the other hand, others said that the UK is significantly smaller than other countries, and therefore does not have the room for thousands of illegal migrants attempting to enter the asylum system.

With the knowledge that 45,756 illegal immigrants crossed the channel in 2022, someone on Twitter came up with a worthy point. There are exactly 43,452 towns/villages in the United Kingdom. This comes to each town or village in the UK having approximately one immigrant each.

Since starting this piece, has your opinion stayed consistent with your original one?

The root of the entire problem, however, began with Gary Linekers tweet, in response to the video: “Good heavens, this is beyond awful.”

Many people had something to say about this, and Gary Lineker responded to someone specifically who was disagreeing with him, then said: “There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in a language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?”

With Suella Braverman unveiling her plans whilst using language like “swarms” and “invasion” earlier in January, I just can’t say I agree with the people opposing Lineker. Even after offending a Holocaust survivor, then refusing to apologise for the dehumanising words she used, Braverman just doesn’t seem to give up. Though you might feel frustrated with people cheating the system and the asylum system being fuller than usual, is it really worth cutting off everyone, including the people in need, the opportunity to come here at all? When their reason for crossing illegally may be due to having no other option?

To conclude, I think that people should think of the consequences of these plans before speaking hastily. After making a dangerous journey across the channel and looking forward to being welcomed to our country despite getting there illegally, these migrants will simply be turned away and placed somewhere else, just because England doesn’t want them.

What do you think?