The State of Britain: A Socialist’s Lament for a Betrayed Nation

The State of Britain: An Uncomfortable Truth, Billions for Hotels, Cuts for Disabled, Open Doors for Reform

I’ve got a confession to make, and it won’t sit well with the dinner-party left or the careerist Labour hacks in Westminster. It will completely outrage the latte-drinking liberals, but it needs to be said. I am a lifelong socialist. I believe in solidarity, sanctuary, and standing with the oppressed. These are not mere words to me; they are the bedrock upon which my political convictions have been built. But even I’m getting profoundly uncomfortable watching thousands of undocumented young men crossing the Channel every week, while the most vulnerable, the elderly, and families, are nowhere to be seen.

It does feel like an invasion; the optics speak volumes. Where are the refugee processing centres? Why does the EU, after numerous terrorist attacks, still allow unchecked movement across borders? Why does it take years to process asylum claims that could be resolved in months? And why, for all the bleeding-heart liberalism, are the vast majority of those arriving young men, not the elderly, not the widowed, not the children? The most vulnerable are left behind, while the most able-bodied arrive with smartphones and no documentation. We’re not even allowed to ask the question anymore, and that should worry everyone.

Yet here we are, a Labour government that’s slashing welfare, tightening sanctions on disabled people, and refusing to lift the two-child cap or tax the rich, while spending billions housing undocumented arrivals in hotels. We are told the system won’t be fixed until 2029. This isn’t governance; this is managed decline, a deliberate dereliction of duty dressed up as necessity.

Yes, we should protect genuine refugees. That is a fundamental socialist principle, rooted in our shared humanity. But let us be brutally honest: what we are witnessing is not a wave of desperate families fleeing persecution. It is, overwhelmingly, a mass migration of young men, with genuine refugees tragically lost amidst the chaos. This is not a system rooted in compassion and order; it is an exploitative free-for-all, a broken framework that benefits only the unscrupulous people-smugglers and the profiteers lining their pockets from the ensuing disorder.

Accommodation for asylum seekers is expected to cost more than £15bn, three times the amount the Home Office originally estimated, according to the latest figures. The Tory government signed contracts in 2019 that were due to pay £4.5bn of taxpayers’ money to three companies over a decade. However, a report by the National Audit Office, the government spending watchdog, says that number is now estimated to be £15.3bn over the 10-year period. The report was requested by parliament’s cross-party home affairs committee, which is conducting an inquiry into asylum accommodation and was published in May.

There’s absolutely nothing socialist about funnelling £15 billion a year into migrant hotel bills, enriching private contractors and profiteers, while pensioners freeze, the disabled are sanctioned, and working families queue at food banks. That’s not solidarity — that’s state-sponsored greed dressed up in liberal credentials. Public money should serve the public, not line the pockets of a few.

Ask the real question: where are the safe, legal routes for refugees? Where’s the system that allows genuine asylum seekers to apply without risking their lives in the Channel? There’s no money in that…

And here’s the kicker, the gut-wrenching truth that should shock every genuine left-winger’s heart to its core: this isn’t the Tories anymore. This is a Labour government, not merely failing to tackle this unsustainable crisis, but actively handing the Reform Party their most potent recruiting poster on a silver platter.

As a worker, a lifelong Labour supporter, told me in a conversation the other day, “It’s soul-crushing. I leave for my shift in the morning, watching these young men, these ‘supposed’ refugees, lounging outside hotels, smoking, laughing. When I finish, exhausted, they’re still there. I can’t even afford a packet of fags, but my entire shift just paid for their leisure.” This isn’t just an anecdote; it’s the raw, unvarnished resentment brewing in working-class communities, a resentment Labour is wilfully ignoring or actively cultivating. The jury’s out on that one.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer, desperate to appear “tough” in the tabloids, speaks of securing borders while domestically, he betrays every principle the Labour movement ever stood for. This isn’t just a border crisis; it’s a political one, a moral one, a crisis of identity for a Party that claims to represent the working class. A government that can afford billions for hotel bills, enriching a select few, but tells the disabled and the poor to tighten their belts, is not a government for the people. It’s a government for the donor class and the Davos elite, and particularly the ones getting very rich from this so-called migrant crisis.

As Tony Benn, that titan of socialist thought, famously said: “If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.” He also posed questions that cut to the heart of power: “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?”

Applying Benn’s incisive logic to our current predicament, we must ask: In whose interests are these chaotic policies being exercised? It certainly isn’t the interests of the vulnerable British citizens being subjected to welfare cuts. It isn’t in the interests of genuine refugees stuck in limbo. It is in the interests of those who profit from the chaos.

Meanwhile, we’re spending billions more on bombs and military hardware that create the very displacement crises we then claim we can’t afford to manage properly. This isn’t governance, that’s managed decline with a side order of hypocrisy. Here’s what should outrage every genuine socialist: we have a system that creates displacement through military intervention, profits from managing the displacement badly, then uses the resulting chaos to justify attacks on domestic welfare spending.

Tony Benn understood that the true measure of a socialist government lies in its commitment to the welfare of its own people and its unwavering stance against the forces of greed and exploitation. He believed in trust in the people, and the idea that “an educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.” What we see now is a deliberate attempt to demoralise and frighten, to create division and fear, precisely because “people in debt become hopeless and hopeless people don’t vote.”

These aren’t anti-refugee questions…they’re anti-incompetence questions. A properly functioning asylum system would be more humane, more efficient, and far cheaper than the current chaos. But a properly functioning system wouldn’t generate the same profits for the companies running the hotels, the contractors managing the process, and the consultants advising the government.

And to the comfortable liberals with hashtags and no answers, please don’t say: “Blame Brexit.” Let’s be honest… Brexit didn’t create small boats, it cut off the ferry route. That’s the reality.

So yes, this is my “confliction.” I want to help the oppressed. I want this country to be a place of decency and humanity. But I also want answers. I want borders that make sense, policies that serve the people, and a government that’s not afraid to put Britain’s working class first.

If we can’t even talk about this, from the left, without being branded bigots or reactionaries, then what exactly are we defending? Are we defending socialist principles, or merely the fragile egos and comfortable illusions of a political class that has lost its way entirely? The silence from many on the left is deafening, a testament to how far we have fallen from the ideals that once inspired millions.

The time for uncomfortable truths is now…

Paul Knaggs