‘No One Likes us, We Don’t Care’ – source: a former Home Office Official
We commence our information page about the Home Office, appropriately, where the Hostile Environment is concerned, with some details about its doubtless subsequently much regretted, but highly revealing as to its core values, ‘Operation Vathek – Go Home Vans Campaign.’
The former Home Secretary and Prime Minister Theresa May’s Hostile Environment, Home Office ‘Go Home Vans “Operation Vaken” campaign*’ ( a mobile billboard vans UK taxpayer funded campaign that toured just six, carefully selected London boroughs between 22 July and 22 August in 2013) of 2013 sets the scene for the Home Office in terms of its values and vision where the Hostile Environment implementation is concerned.
* NOT repeated to date, it must be mentioned, as it was a great racism / ASB catalyst, but very ineffectual in causing genuine or ‘illegal’ immigrants to quite the ‘Go Home, we don’t want you here, UK.
The Go Home ‘Operation Vaken*’ campaign targeted London boroughs with particularly high Black & Minority Ethnic (BAME) community populations, confirming through this very selective locations that the Home Office is irrevocably (as long as the Hostile Environment endures) tarnished as institutionally predisposed/compromised as racist (because of the Go Home Vans / Operation Valak selective target areas).
The choice to give the formal title ‘Operation’ unfortunately, in the Home Office context ties the initiative in to UK police constabularies association, which particularly use the term ‘operation.’ The name ‘Vaken’ (not an English language term: and exceptional for that), which must have been carefully chosen and approved at very high levels in the Home Office/Whitehall, has been researched and the findings indicate only ‘you are Not Welcome’ and Nazi regime [particularly antisemitic] direct connotations/associations. Please visit the links below:
Why was the scheme behind May’s ‘Go Home’ vans called Operation Vaken? The name is a departure from Home Office protocol, and has some distinctly unsavoury associations:
Excerpts:
… the word vaken in Swedish (from the old Norse) equates to awake or awaken in English and erwache or erwachen in modern German. It also has symbolic resonance in many languages – not least German. Dietrich Eckart,who has been labelled “the spiritual father of national socialism [NAZISM]”, wrote a famous poem in 1922 called Deutschland Erwache (Germany Awake).
… In 2016, in the London Review of Books, the political economist William Davies wrote that he had taken part in a project prompted by Operation Vaken to try to understand how the billboard had come about. He spoke to Home Office civil servants off the record, and revealed that “one former official compared the ethos of the Home Office to that of Millwall football fans: ‘No one likes us, we don’t care.’”
Related ‘Operation Valak / Go Home Vans’ article:
Go home’ vans resulted in 11 people leaving Britain, says report (October 2013)
Only 11 people have left the country as a direct result of Theresa May’s “go home or face arrest” van advertisements, the scheme’s official evaluation report has revealed.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/26/theresa-may-go-home-vans-operation-vaken-ukip Article published April 2018.
Also useful to study: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/31/go-home-vans-11-leave-britain
COMMENT: damningly for the Home Office, revealed as having double standards (an important often overlooked characteristic of the Whitehall implemented, directed, and protected Hostile Environment), to date there has been no comparable go home vans campaign aimed against those the Home Office has mistakenly given British passports to under its Golden Visas policy (many have been revealed to be former despots, or very successful businesspeople who have made their money through crime.
More on the Home Office in the context of the Hostile Environment:
The Windrush Scandal, the Gurkha DNA Scandal and other race and nationality (Commonwealth nations from New Zealand to India and the Caribbean states, in particular targeted, clearly NOT accidentally, compared to [NOTE: this prior to Brexit!] EU states nationals) populations make it very clear that the Home Office in regard to its closely interconnected Hostile Environment implementing agencies, is in this part of its operations at least, institutionally racist & racist in the most violence and bullying inciting kinds.
However, it is clear the Home Office, Hostile Environment most senior level Whitehall implementers of the Hostile Environment at strategic and operational levels are more than perceived to be influenced by and may – this on the basis of their clear disinterest in challenging target/minority communities by the Hostile Environment in some of the most brutal, inhumane ways possible – even, it can reasonably argued [on the basis of the Home Office Hostile Environment directing record] hold extreme racist perspectives, but also extreme homophobic & anti-LGBT perspectives of comparably – or, if possible – even more brutal kinds than the ‘Go Home Vans / Operation Valak’ scheme that commenced.
LGBT parallel experience:
Data searches and other forms of research, and increasingly common LGBT community news items on the Home Office’ unstated but brutally real Hostile Environment homophobic anti- LGBT community, work indicate, that there is a non-publicly stated very clear anti-LGBT refusals of genuine applicants (particularly directed against those LGBT asylum seekers that Home Office/UKVI caseworkers and senior strategic, executive level officers of the Home Office Hostile Environment implementing agencies officers, are aware at clearly proven risk of murder and torture if returned to their home countries) policy.
The following Gay Star News link highlights the Home Office institutional at LGBT service users of their immigration services level extreme nature of what has understandably been called the ‘Rainbow Rush Scandal’: https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/read-this-open-letter-demanding-uk-to-stop-sending-lgbti-asylum-seekers-to-their-deaths/
There is a dedicated LGBT section – LINK — of this website that provides essential ‘need to know’ information for LGBT community members caught/trapped in the anti-LGBT, major dimension of the Hostile Environment, and for community members that may need to us UK immigration services.
Home Office statements (that Never provide OPERATIONAL LEVEL credible, substantial compliance evidence to accompany the latter) note that the department and its multiple agencies enthusiastically comply with the Equality Act 2010. To date such disingenuous statements by officials – many of whom, as stated by a former Home Office official have ‘No One Likes us, We Don’t Care,’ attitudes – have been poorly or ineffectively challenged in Parliament and the British Law Courts (operational level facts conflicting unambiguously with such statements).
The Home Office covers multiple interconnected agencies and activity areas crucial to delivery of the Hostile Environment, including in particular the UKVI and IE, some related ombudsman entities, the secret services and other intelligence gathering entities, and at operational level partnering its IE ‘ICE’ teams work closely in a number of areas and levels with relevant sections of UK police constabularies.
It holds records crucial to correct determination of nationality, leave to remain and other important forms of immigration status: the shredding of thousands of crucial documents [which proved legitimate settlement and LTR status] in the period of the former Prime Minister, Theresa May, becoming Home Secretary in 2010 in the key pre formal launch of the Hostile Environment in the 2012 – 2013 period.
This is just one of the malpractices, more than calling into question the professionalism of Home Office immigration related services: it is certainly impossible to envisage that it was ‘an accident’ and not – evidence to the contrary remaining completely lacking — anything but a premeditated action, whose consequences for its victims was known, and taken a very senior operational strategy planning level, in Whitehall. Read more at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/17/home-office-destroyed-windrush-landing-cards-says-ex-staffer
It has a particularly close Hostile Environment operational delivery relationship with the Immigration Tribunal (more details of this relationship, and its activities are detailed in the relevant sections of this website, including on the appeal making and appeal processes ones.
The Home Office and its different agencies, including the UKVI and IE, on the .gov.uk website and in their respective different documents, state compliance with Best Practice and quality assurance at frontline operational level services delivery, and good customer care of which they are proud. Such statements are controversial in the extreme, on the basis of countless and ever-growing numbers of revelations of operational level abuses of process and power.
These quality assurance statements are consequently regarded by the victims of both the latter and independent observers and investigators, as well as independent ‘watchdog’ and human rights organisations, as, as disingenuous as they are distasteful. There are many instances of this, for example the recent UK Black Pride decision to not allow a Home Office presence at its UK Black Pride 2019 Pride Festival — https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/black-pride-home-office-stall-pink-washing-windrush-hostile-environment-a8989671.html
It should go without saying that the Home Office represents everything that Black Pride does not. As Home Secretary, Theresa May can be credited for devising the brutal and inhumane Hostile Environment, whose “Go Home Vans” paved the way for Brexit. Racially motivated hate crimes, forced deportations and the Windrush Scandal followed soon after.
Wikipedia provides the following description of the Home Office:
The Home Office is a ministerial department of Her Majesty’s Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for immigration, security and law and order. As such it is responsible for policing in England and Wales, fire and rescue services in England, and visas and immigration and the Security Service. Source: Wikipedia
We provide below some information about the Home Office on the .gov.uk website:
The most important information about the scale and breadth of Home Office outreach is provided particularly in the ‘Who we are’ section at the end of the information below.
NOTE: However in addition in regard to Hostile Environment at operational level there are other facets — including inter-departmental ones such as Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, Home Office and the FCO that anyone interested in the key multiagency dimension [which gives it such power and makes so difficult, without careful and comprehensive research in multiple sectors, to have its veils of non-transparency of ‘who how where’ interconnections between different agencies/entities] of the Hostile Environment, which is one of its most important characteristics and dynamics.
The first duty of the government is to keep citizens safe and the country secure. The Home Office has been at the front line of this endeavour since 1782. As such, the Home Office plays a fundamental role in the security and economic prosperity of the United Kingdom.
The Home Office is the lead government department for immigration and passports, drugs policy, crime, fire, counter-terrorism and police.
Responsibilities
We are responsible for:
- working on the problems caused by illegal drug use
- shaping the alcohol strategy, policy and licensing conditions
- keeping the United Kingdom safe from the threat of terrorism
- reducing and preventing crime, and ensuring people feel safe in their homes and communities
- securing the UK border and controlling immigration
- considering applications to enter and stay in the UK
- issuing passports and visas
- supporting visible, responsible and accountable policing by empowering the public and freeing up the police to fight crime
- fire prevention and rescue
Priorities
Our goals are to:
- cut crime and the harm it causes, including cyber-crime and serious and organised crime
- manage civil emergencies within the remit of the Home Office
- protect vulnerable people and communities
- reduce terrorism
- control migration
- provide world-class public services and contribute to prosperity
- maximise the benefits of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union
Read our single departmental plan to find out more about how we are performing against our objectives.
Who we are:
Our main offices are based in London, but we also have staff based around the country. We are supported by a number of agencies and public bodies including:
The first duty of the government is to keep citizens safe and the country secure. The Home Office has been at the front line of this endeavour since 1782. As such, the Home Office plays a fundamental role in the security and economic prosperity of the United Kingdom. Home Office is a ministerial department, supported by 31 agencies and public bodies (examples below)
Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration
Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/809830/OISC_Sample_Competence_Assessment_Paper_November_2018.pdf
Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/home-office/about