‘Bringing order to the border’: liberal and illiberal fantasies of border control in the English channel

Mayblin, Lucy; Turner, Joe; Davies, Thom; Yemane, Tesfalem; Isakjee, Arshad

Abstract

This article focuses on the advancement of fantasy policy solutions to irregular migration, drawing on the case study of the UK/French border. In 2018 people began to cross the English Channel in significant numbers to seek asylum. This led to much commentary and a raft of new legislation seeking to criminalise people crossing the Channel and end rights to seek asylum in the UK. In this article, we explore the interaction between two sets of fantasies that are advanced by politicians and mainstream political parties in the UK. That is: the liberal technocratic fantasy–that this phenomenon can be efficiently ‘fixed’ through interventions in policing and multilateral cooperation with neighbouring EU states; and the illiberal fantasy that extreme and performative punishments can solve it. These fantasies intersect and break at different points in time, and involve many of the same policy solutions which are represented in different terms. Importantly, both of these fantasies reproduce racialised and colonial logics and ultimately serve border imperialism.

Citation

Mayblin, L., Turner, J., Davies, T., Yemane, T., & Isakjee, A. (2024). ‘Bringing order to the border’: liberal and illiberal fantasies of border control in the English channel. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2024.2349691

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 26, 2024
• Online Publication Date: May 10, 2024
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2024
• Deposit Date: Aug 29, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 13, 2024
• Journal: Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
• Print ISSN: 1369-183X
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-9451
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 1-19
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2024.2349691
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/35426143
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2024.2349691