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SubscriptionsColumn / Investigation: Identity, Empire & the Culture War
Byline Times explores the weaponisation of Britain’s past as a key tool in a dark project of division and distraction
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From Hostile Environment to Prison Island
Sam Bright exposes the hostile environment hypocrisy of Priti Patel, who has in one week promised to learn from the Windrush scandal and threatened to imprison asylum seekers on a distant island
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Imperial Power & Conservative Taboo: ‘Shutting Down Debate on Empire is Britain’s Ultimate Imperial Legacy’
Following the backlash over a ‘wokeist’ National Trust report on the links of historic buildings to colonialism and slavery, Hardeep Matharu speaks to one of its editors about how the predictable response is itself a hangover from the country’s colonial era
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Johnson’s Suggestion that ‘Freedom-Loving’ Britain has a Death Wish May Be his Greatest Insight
With 60,000 people dead from COVID-19, a failing economy, a trashed international reputation, a ‘no deal’ Brexit looming and a second Coronavirus wave, Hardeep Matharu explores whether the Prime Minister is right in declaring that the British public’s own sense of exceptionalism has put the UK on a unique, sadopopulist path
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Irish Independent Politicians Excuse Kremlin Crimes and Oppose Belarus Sanctions
Sarah Hurst reports on two Irish MEPs who regularly appear on Russian sponsored media to defend Putin’s imperialist policies
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Fact-Free Farage: UK Sees Fall in Asylum Applications
New Government figures show the Brexit Party Leader’s asylum ‘invasion’ for what it is: a myth
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Anti-Immigration Rhetoric Not Only Damages Lives – It Devastates Britain’s Economy
Mike Buckley argues that the toxic migration debate led by the UK Government is blinding us to the long term costs to us all
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OUR LIVES MATTER: When Parents Need Parenting
As part of Byline Times’ series dedicating to giving a platform to new voices of colour, Neha Maqsood shares her experience of being in lockdown with her Mum and Dad during the Coronavirus crisis in Pakistan
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UNCONSCIOUS EMPIRE: Saving ‘Britannia’ and Losing the Plot
Continuing to wage a Steve Bannon-style culture war, Boris Johnson’s Government will do nothing to confront the damaging legacy of our imperial past because its mythologised symbolism is all it has to sell to Brexit Britain, argues Hardeep Matharu
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Salesmen of Misfortune: Farage and Johnson’s Anti-Asylum Plan Relies on EU Membership
Populist Brexiteers are once again engaging in fact-free foreign loathing, reports Sam Bright
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A New Digital ‘Hostile Environment’ – And Cummings’ 10-Year Plan for Another Referendum
David Hencke reports on the Home Office’s plans to change its immigration status system and fresh insights about the ‘Whitehall Revolution’ being masterminded by the Prime Minister’s chief advisor
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Johnson’s Crackdown on ‘Criminal Gangs’ Masks the UK’s Shameful Lack of Civilisation and Humanity
The UK Government is deploying legal dupery to criminalise vulnerable asylum seekers while taking the moral high ground, argues Amina Shareef
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Did Black Lives Matter to the British Empire in World War Two?
The often overlooked story of the African soldiers who risked their lives and left their families to fight for the British must finally be recognised – as the sacrifice of their white counterparts is
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How Did You Earn Your Passport? Asylum Seekers Are Being Denied Human Rights by Narrow-Minded Nationalism
The architects of COVID-19 chaos are sacrificing asylum seekers to cover up their own mistakes, argues Isobel Ingham-Barrow
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The Human and Economic Cost of the UK’s Asylum Animosity
Treating asylum seekers like foreign invaders isn’t about saving money or protecting their wellbeing reports Sam Bright
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Britain Must ‘Execute Its Historical and Moral Duty’ to Hong Kong
As a new parliamentary report accuses the city’s police force of humanitarian and human rights abuses, calls continue for the UK Government to take a tougher stance towards Beijing
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Smoke & Mirrors: The Government is Bashing Migrants to Distract from a Coronavirus Fiasco
Boris Johnson’s administration is using the oldest trick in the book: scapegoating migrants to conceal its mistakes, argues David Barker Flores
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THE UPSIDE DOWN: The Shocking Brutality of Empire was a Scandal In Its Own Time
John Mitchinson considers the relationship British people have with their country’s past and how questions raised by uncomfortable imperial truths remain unanswered
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OUR LIVES MATTER: Eurocentrism & the Privilege of Not Having to Care
Airbrushing the crimes of European history fuels the structural racism and conscious apathy we see in modern Britain, argues Khadija Akhi Uddin
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Government Snubs Windrush Group’s Concerns Over Lack of Caribbean History Teaching
The Government’s inaugural Windrush summit led to a dispute over an absence of Caribbean history on the curriculum, reports Sam Bright
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A British Route to Freedom for the Hong Kongers Left Frozen by Beijing’s Chill
Tommy Walker speaks to pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong about their future in the city, following the imposition of China’s draconian national security law
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A Blindspot in History: The Truth About Churchill
Churchill Fellow Nishtha Chugh argues that Britain will only truly understand its imperial history with a fuller appreciation of its wartime leader’s legacy
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Consulate Cables Leak: Documents Show Chinese Communist Party Justifying Brutality Against Uyghurs
CJ Werleman reveals Beijing’s propaganda efforts to cover-up its repression of millions of Chinese Muslims
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In the COVID-19 Era, the Boomer Generation is Out of Touch
COVID-19 signals the end of Boomer dominance over business, culture and the economy, writes Stephen Colegrave
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Another Controversial Historian Uses Darren Grimes’ Platform to Pursue Right-Wing Culture Wars
After the furore over comments by historian David Starkey, Sam Bright reports on a second attempt to rewrite British imperial history in response to the Black Lives Matter movement
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Prince Harry Calls Time on the System of Secrets and Lies Modern Britain is Built On
Comments by the Queen’s grandson on the need to ‘right those wrongs’ from the past across the Commonwealth reveal why he is rebelling against the system that created him
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The Last Protests? Has Beijing Finally Stifled the Flame of Freedom in Hong Kong?
Tommy Walker reports with eyewitness accounts of this week’s demonstrations in the former British colony and explores what Boris Johnson’s offer of refuge means to the residents of Hong Kong
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Revealed: Boris Johnson’s Hidden History of Islamophobia
Iggy Ostanin unearths troubling new evidence of anti-Muslim racism in a rediscovered personal blog of Britain’s Prime Minister
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To Alabama and Back: The Memorial that Holds Up a Mirror to Racism
Hannah Charlton takes a journey into America’s dark history of segregation and subjugation of black communities and wonders how Britain could do the same
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Rashford and Racism: Not Just A Political Football
Daniel Harris explains why the star footballer’s fight to right injustices provides an example for us all of how to delve into pain and confront the truth
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Johnson & Brexit – Patronising Etonian Alienates the World
The Prime Minister’s attempts to show his understanding of Aussies and New Zealanders fell flat this week – as have his attempts for post-Brexit trade
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OUR LIVES MATTER: “I Can’t Breathe” & the Syrian Living Dead
In the second of Byline Times’ new series dedicated to giving a platform to new voices of colour, Amina Shareef explains how George Floyd’s last words resonate across the world
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Static Statues Can’t Change their Position – But We Can
Beyond offensive memorials being removed, real progress will come when we talk to each other and make it our focus to understand the other side, writes Bonnie Greer
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Statue Battles: The Counter-Protestors at War with Themselves
Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s former producer explains how the hard-right has chosen a fight it cannot win and why Boris Johnson cannot cut it completely loose
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Priti Patel Cannot Make Herself a Poster Girl for a ‘Non-Racist Britain’
By using herself as an example of how Britain is not a racist a country, the Home Secretary is blind to how such thinking keeps structural inequality firmly in place against others from minority communities, writes Hardeep Matharu
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Infection & Revolution: What Can We Learn from the 1918 ‘Spanish Flu’?
From economic aftershocks to social unrest, racial discrimination and healthcare inequality, Otto English predicts a pandemic will transform this century just as it did the last
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Quarantining Travellers Is Too Much Too Late
Dr John Ashton, a former director of public health, warns that the Government must get back on track with its evidence base and messaging around the pandemic if it is to be prepared for a second wave.
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Tear Down the Tyrants, Reappraise the Past
As the Black Lives Matter movement removes a symbol of slavery and Empire from the heart of Bristol, Otto English explains why misplaced reverence for these relics of a shameful past has had its time
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Beyond Exceptional: The Etonian English Imperialism at the Heart of a Deadly COVID-19 Crisis
With one of the highest Coronavirus death rates in the world, the UK has proven itself to be exceptional. But its problems go beyond shallow notions of complacency and are rooted in deep-seated structural and cultural oppression
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The Coronavirus Crisis: The UK’s Forgotten Asylum Seekers
Cut off from public funds, with rising food prices and diminishing charity support, Jonathan Fenton Harvey reveals the plight of refugees during the COVID-19 lockdown.
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The Ungrateful Country
First published in 2016 in The Good Immigrant, a book bringing together writers exploring what it means to be black, Asian and minority ethnic today, in this essay, Musa Okwonga explores his complex relationship with Britain – and himself.
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The Coronavirus Crisis: China Capitalises on COVID-19 By Blaming Foreigners
CJ Werleman looks at the international conspiracy theories being thrown around about the Coronavirus and how the Chinese Communist Party is using the pandemic to further its geopolitical goals.
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Why I Refused to Go to Chatham House and Hear the Polish Katie Hopkins Speak
Rafal Pankowski laments how a great institution seems to be giving a voice to xenophobia.
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‘Downstream of Culture’: How Identity Politics Swept Labour Away
While the right has turned politics into a culture war, the left has yet to tackle the politics of culture, says Hardeep Matharu.
