The bill was meant to be a triumphant riposte to rightwing critics of the UK Conservative government's perceived failure to stop migrants from crossing the Channel from France to the UK in small boats.
But last week, the introduction of a contentious new law - which would give the government the right to criminalise, detain and deport asylum seekers-had been overshadowed by a row triggered by the suspension from the BBC of the TV sports presenter Gary Lineker, who was accused of breaking BBC guidelines over political impartiality. The sequence of events threatened to bring down the BBC's most senior leaders and even to derail parts of the controversial new asylum policy.
The former footballer was criticised by the home secretary, Suella Braverman, after he compared, in a tweet, the language used by ministers to describe their asylum policies to that used in Germany in the 1930s. He refused to apologise for his tweet, and was asked by the BBC to step back from presenting the much-loved Premier League football highlights show Match of the Day while a resolution was sought.
His suspension meant that the corporation was forced to abandon most of the weekend's football coverage and to air drastically shortened versions of the show for two days running, after other pundits refused to appear on air in solidarity with Lineker.
This story is from the March 17, 2023 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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This story is from the March 17, 2023 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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