The real crisis Britain faces isn't immigration but a profound breakdown in trust

Kenan Malik

- 

"Unlike the hon gentleman," home secretary Shabana Mahmood told Liberal Democrat MP Max Wilkinson during last week's parliamentary debate on her new asylum proposals, “I am the one who is regularly called a ‘fucking Paki’ and told to ‘Go back home.” Her “personal experience” showed “how divisive the issue of asylum has become in our country”.

I, too, am called a “fucking Paki” and told to “Go back home”. There are few Asians, certainly of my generation, who have not faced such abuse, and worse. But unlike Mahmood, I do not believe the best way to tackle the broken asylum system is through her new hardline policies. Yet, so besotted are conservatives with Mahmood, many even praise her use of the “race card”. Experience of racism, though, is no guarantee of wisdom in combating it.

There are many good reasons for reforming asylum procedures. The previous government effectively stopped processing asylum claims, creating the backlog now fouling up the system. The use of hotel accommodation, a policy that elicits such fury, is the result not just of this backlog but also of it being more profitable for the private companies tasked with housing migrants. That is also why so many asylum seekers are placed in some of the poorest areas in the country and in houses in multiple occupation (HMOs). All this needs resolving, not to mention the need to stop small boat journeys.