London Socialist Historians Group
14th December
Contact Dr Keith Flett 07803 167266
Historians back Gary Lineker’s comments on Rwanda Bill
The London Socialist Historians Group, which organises the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, has backed Gary Lineker’s comments on the Government’s latest Rwanda Bill.
While Lineker’s opposition along with that of many others has faced criticism from the Tory right, placing the Bill in a historical context is important say the historians.
The criticism has continued with the incoming BBC Chair, Samir Shah- a Tory appointment- opining to a Parliamentary Committee that he thought some of Lineker’s comments had broken the BBC’s latest social media policy. He did however note, a point entirely lost on other critics, that Lineker as a presenter of football programmes has rather more flexibility to remark on issues which he does not cover for the BBC
One of the other critics, inevitably, was the Murdoch owned Times (14th December Editorial) which has remarked that if Lineker won’t stick to its interpetation of the guidelines he should get a job with a ‘private broadcaster’. Mr Murdoch owns several…
The late socialist historian E P Thompson (Peculiarities of the English,1965) made the point about refugees from Nazi Germany and elsewhere and the positive impact they have had on British life
Here is this island, and there, across a few wet miles, are Other Countries. Those waters have, on occasion, been crossed. That city, London, is not in the Antarctic but has been, alongside Paris, Vienna and Prague, a great European capital. In its East End there have been deposit after deposit of refugee and immigrant workers. In the universities there have been deposit after deposit of émigré intellectuals. Across that water there came, in the 1930s, wave after wave of refugees from Fascism; across that water there went, in the early 1940s, wave after wave of troops to assist in the liberation of Southern and Western Europe; and across that water there came, in the later 1940s and 1950s, a further wave of refugees from Eastern Europe.
LSHG Convenor Dr Keith Flett said, Gary Lineker has again put himself on the line to support a sensible and safe policy on refugees We are supporting the central London protest on International Migrants Day on the 18th December because while remembering history is vital so also is taking part in making the future.
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