the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Repulsion has been oddly quiet of late. By that I mean that his Twitter account has been its usual mix of pseudo gravitas and performative virtue, but odd in the sense that what normally irks him no end, so, he’s been uneasily reticent about. No posts, no press releases, just nothing. Given his fondness for using social media to use to highlight just how much the Greens differ from the other mainstream political parties, and no other issue differentiates them quite as much as their approach to asylum seekers and refugees. 

So one might be forgiven then for thinking that he’d have strong opinions about 50,000 or so of them crossing over from Morocco to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. Of the ‘treat them with respect’ variety. ‘Give them safety’, ‘give them shelter’ – basically just give. One might expect him to have equally forthright views about the response of the Spanish authorities, who have already deported most of them back to Morocco. 

Because whatever he posted would be the wrong thing. Far better for him to post nothing, to portray his unusual reticence as ‘an unnecessary distraction from the awful situation currently unfolding in Ceuta.’ Something that reframed his silence as the act of a dignified statesman, rather than the altogether more correct interpretation of him fervently hoping that no-one was able to spot the various hypocrisy’s he was avoiding.

First off, the most obvious one. The Greens have no problem whatsoever with plunging into complicated international situations by providing asininely simplistic solutions. By either issuing statements, demanding actions be taken by for the UK and other governments or calling for a plethora of highly unlikely happenings to happen, their performative outrage is manufactured for one purpose. To better embolden their own sense of moral superiority and, if possible, lambasts Israel.

Because Israel is the gift that keeps on giving so far as the Greens are concerned. If one were so minded, one could chart the surge in membership of the Greens directly with its pivot away from traditional Green issues – global warming and the environment – to focus instead on Israel and the war in Gaza. It has served them well. The more that they criticise Israel for the appalling crime of defending themselves against the fanatical death cult that is Hamas, the more the media love them. The more that they peddle the nonsense of there being a genocide in Gaza, the more that their credulous membership grows.  

Secondly, the sight of wave upon wave of people emerging from the sea before clambering up the beaches in Ceuta should cause the scales from the eyes of those who believe in open borders to finally fall. Aside from the fact that almost all of them were men, it was like time-lapse footage of what’s going on with the small boats. I imagined that each of the figures in Ceuta had a number; the one-time only cost involved in policing them prior to their deportation. I don’t feel bad for thinking this way. Our welfare state is near collapse. We can’t afford to be profligate. But our costs is on-going. We can’t deport the people arriving in small boats.  

Quite how any why Spain was able to do this matters less than the fact we can’t. Even though we voted to leave the EU over 10 years ago, inexplicably, we’re still beholden to their laws. I know I’m brain damaged and everything but this seems utter madness. Morocco isn’t in the EU either, yet Spain can somehow deport them back? Make the pain in my head stop! 

These offer a far more plausible explanation of his unusual reticence than anything Repulsion might claim. But he knows that most of the membership don’t really care, so why should he?