1. 1
The following text contains a chapter from my recent Master Thesis and is intended to provide
an example of my writing and interpretative text analysis skills.
The thesis is exploring the tragic situation of undocumented migrants in the EU and the
conditions framing it. The empirical part of my research consists of two case studies considering
the subject of refugees’ situation through different approaches: critical-political discourse
analysis and historical analysis of a feature film.
The Case Study 1 presented below was written in June-July of 2015. Since then, the situation
around the migration crisis has changed and is certainly rather different now.

2. 2
CASE STUDY 1. CRITICAL-POLITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
[G]overnments have some duties (which might be
quite extensive) towards their own citizens that
they do not owe to citizens of other countries. . . .
But this does not entail that anything goes.
Generally speaking, my special obligation to my
family does not legitimate lying, stealing, cheating
or killing on their behalf.
B. Barry (Barry, 1986)
Introduction
This section presents a case study analysis dealing with the reaction of the UK government to
the emergency plan proposed by the EU Commission in connection with the escalation of the
Mediterranean migrant boat crisis in April-May, 2015. I have chosen to research this particular
question because the emergency of the situation and the necessity to unequivocally state one’s
position have crystallized and brought to the surface the quintessential truth about the British
government’s motivation behind the asylum policies it has been implementing for decades. The
proclaimed allegiance to the founding principles of the European Union1
and the cherished
values of respect for human dignity, liberty, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for
human rights has become clearly reduced to the preference of “respecting human rights” of
asylum seekers elsewhere but not on the British soil.
The United Kingdom, which has only opted-in to some parts of the Common European
Asylum System (the Dublin III Regulation and the recast EURODAC Regulation)2
, is a good
example to use in researching the human situation of forced migrants in the EU. It is my
presumption that the inhumane situation of asylum seekers is the consequence of the power
domination the politicians achieve by means of their political actions, political discourse being
one of them. The aim of this analysis, thus, is to check this presumption.
1
The founding principles of the European Union:
http://europa.eu/scadplus/constitution/objectives_en.htm
2
Please see the details in the Background Information on the EU Asylum policy below.

3. 3
Background information on the EU Asylum Policy
During the last two decades of the 20th
century, asylum policy was largely an individual matter
of each European country to decide upon. In the late 1990s, the EU embarked on a process to
build a Common European Asylum System (CEAS), envisioned to be an important step towards
deeper integration of the European countries. The idea behind the CEAS was that its
procedures had to take into consideration varying asylum burden pressure and reception
capacities of the Member States, making the system both fair and effective throughout the EU
and, importantly, impenetrable for abuse.
The legal foundation for the CEAS is the so-called Dublin System, which consists of
three parts: first, the recast Dublin Regulation (aka Dublin III Regulation), which establishes a
hierarchy of criteria3
for identifying the Member State responsible for the examination of an
asylum claim in Europe (“Recast Dublin III Regulation,” 2013). The second part of the Dublin
System is the Regulation (EU) No. 603/2013 concerning the establishment of the ‘EURODAC’
database (an EU asylum fingerprint database) for the comparison of fingerprints for the
effective application of the recast Dublin Regulation (“EURODAC,” 2013). The third part of the
Dublin System is Regulation (EU) No. 118/2014 of 30 January 2014, which amends Regulation
(EC) No. 1560/2003 and lays down detailed rules for the application of the recast Dublin
Regulation4
.
The major goals of the Dublin System are, first, to ensure that only one Member State is
responsible for the examination of an asylum application; second, to deter multiple asylum
3
Based on fact finding of the way the applicant has entered the EU (regularly or irregularly),
family considerations, recent possession of visa or residence permit in a Member State, etc.
4
“Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 118/2014 of 30 January 2014 amending
Regulation (EC) No 1560/2003 laying down detailed rules for the application of Council
Regulation (EC) No 343/2003 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the
Member State responsible for examining an asylum application lodged in one of the Member
States by a third-country national,” 2014. Please also see (Pollet, Soupios-David, & Teffera,
2012)

4. 4
claims and, finally, to determine as quickly as possible the responsible Member State to ensure
effective access to an asylum procedure.
As the recast Dublin Regulation only became applicable from January 1, 2014, it is still
early to judge the degree of its success or failure. The benefits of the new regulation totally
depend on how the European governments apply it at the national level. Besides, there are
some inherent weaknesses in the Dublin System, which have not been effectively taken care of
in the recast Regulation, namely, the responsibility of examining the refugee status is still tied
to the initial point of entry into the EU. This deficiency of the System certainly does not help
solving the issue of burden-sharing, especially relevant for the EU Border States (most
prominently, Greece, Italy, Malta and Bulgaria), whose reception capacities have become
severely overburdened during the last five years in connection with the disproportionate influx
of migrants seeking asylum across their borders.
True enough, the recast Dublin Regulation presumes that the fundamental rights of an
asylum seeker in each Member State will be observed. In particular, asylum seekers must not
be transferred to a Member State where there is a risk of a violation of their fundamental
rights. However, what we have observed until now is that the EU country where an asylum
seeker first sets foot in is still responsible for examining an application for asylum. Should the
refugee move to another EU country, that nation can send him or her back to the original
country of arrival, regardless of the human consequences for this person. Not much has
changed in the current situation from what was described in the report of the Dublin
Transnational Network, Dublin II Regulation: Lives on Hold (Ngalikpima & Hennessy, 2013). The
report demonstrated that the operation of the Dublin Regulation often acted to the detriment
of refugees. Despite the objective of the Regulation, access to an asylum procedure is still not
always guaranteed.
Although the new Regulation postulates that “the entire Dublin procedure cannot last
longer than 11 months to take charge of a person, or 9 months to take him/her back (except for

5. 5
absconding or where the person is imprisoned)”5
, the real-life situation is often quite different.
The application of the Regulation has been seen causing serious delays in the examination of
asylum claims, and cases have been reported about asylum seekers’ claims never being heard.
A large body of research conducted by the NGOs concerned with the violation of human rights
of asylum seekers6
, points to the excessive use of detention to enforce transfers of asylum
seekers, separation of families, and lack of effective opportunities to appeal against transfers,
among other problems. Asylum seekers in the Dublin procedure are frequently criminalized and
treated as persons of a secondary category.
The most recent escalation of the migrant boat crisis in the Mediterranean has claimed
more than 1,800 migrant deaths at sea only this year. This unprecedented development has
urged the EU politicians to come forward with some radical proposals aimed at curbing the flow
of migrants across the Mediterranean to Europe. In this connection, on May 15, 2015, the EU
Commission adopted a controversial plan called European Agenda on Migration, in which it
proposed common policy goals for the EU states, which must be then adopted by each of the
28 nations of the Union. The online magazine POLITICO Europe has summarized the key
elements of the plan as follows:
• A quota system: The Commission wants binding quotas for taking in refugees across all
28 EU member countries. Under the proposal, the distribution of migrants among EU
states would use a formula that takes into account the strength of the economy and
unemployment rates in each country, the size of the population as well as the number
of refugees they have taken in so far7
.
• A resettlement program: An EU-wide resettlement program would take refugees from
camps outside the Union. The Commission has set an overall figure of 20,000 asylum
seekers over two years and the plan will be funded with €50 million in 2015 and 2016.
• A Blue Card: For highly skilled migrants, a Blue Card would be available similar to the US
Green Card program. The Blue Card Directive already provides such a scheme, but in its
5
See (“DGs - Migration and Home Affairs - What we do - ...Asylum - Examination of
applications,” 2015)
6
See, e.g., (Bendixen & Komitéen Flygtninge Under Jorden, 2011); (Networks Migreurop &
European Alternatives, 2014); (Migreurop, 2010)
7
Using this measure, the UK would take about 2,300 refugees.

6. 6
first two years, only 16,000 were issued. By the end of May, the Commission will launch
a public consultation on the Blue Card Directive.
• Tripling the capacities and assets for the Frontex joint operations Triton and Poseidon
in 2015 and 2016: The Commission adopted an amended budget for 2015 to secure
more funds, for a total of €89 million. The new Triton plan will be presented by the end
of May.
• Launching a joint military operation in the Mediterranean to halt traffickers’ networks
and smuggling.
• Using emergency procedure: The Commission also plans to use Article 78.3 of the
Treaty of the Functioning of the EU8
to establish the quota system as an “emergency”
measure with accelerated legal ratification, bypassing the Parliament. This would also
mean that only a qualified majority in the Council (i.e. the votes of at least 15 out of the
28 member states) would be needed. In this way it could pass without unanimous
approval of the whole Council (Barigazzi & Burcchard, 2015).
The plan will be made law if it is agreed by a majority of Member States, which is highly
contentious given the current fierce political debate around the proposed policy components.
Whether this plan is destined to be the next step in the development of the CEAS will become
clear after the EU summit at the end of June this year.
The clashing reactions to the above mentioned plan from the side of the EU
leaders, and particularly the proposal for mandatory quotas, add even more dimension to the
heated as it is political discourse on the topic of asylum policies. According to the UN Geneva
Convention, refugees fleeing from persecution or life-threatening violence have a right to claim
asylum in Europe. More than that, massive deaths of migrants at sea this year make this right a
moral imperative for the EU, albeit complicated by legal difficulties. Namely, the proposed
quota system, if adopted, is likely to affect the application of the Dublin Regulation described
earlier in the text.
8
Article 78.3: ”In the event of one or more Member States being confronted with an
emergency situation characterised by a sudden inflow of nationals of third countries, the
Council, on a proposal from the Commission, may adopt provisional measures for the benefit of
the Member State(s) concerned. It shall act after consulting the European Parliament”. Cited
from http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on-the-functioning-of-the-
european-union-and-comments/part-3-union-policies-and-internal-actions/title-v-area-of-
freedom-security-and-justice/chapter-2-policies-on-border-checks-asylum-and-
immigration/346-article-78.html

7. 7
Laurence Peter from the BBC News explains that the “UK and some other European
countries use the regulation as a legal basis for deporting illegal migrants and failed asylum
seekers. But a quota system might put a limit on such expulsions”(Peter, 2015). Perhaps, that’s
what, in part, lies behind the reaction of a UK Home Office spokesman in Brussels, who was
quoted by the BBC saying, “we will oppose any EU Commission proposals to introduce a non-
voluntary quota”.
The outcome of the current asylum crisis in connection with the mass migration across
the Mediterranean from Libya remains to be seen. In the meantime, the frustrated Italian
government is threatening the Member States not willing to share the burden that “if no
equitable deal is struck, Rome would start issuing migrants with temporary visas allowing them
to travel elsewhere in Europe; stop receiving the hundreds of boats arriving from Libya and
refuse docking for foreign ships rescuing those stranded at sea”(Traynor, 2015b).
Analysis setup
As mentioned in the description of the theoretical framework of this thesis, I will draw in my
analysis on the theoretical model of critical-political discourse analysis formulated by Teun van
Dijk (Van Dijk, 1997); (Van Dijk, 2003). The aim of the analysis is to research the relations
between the articulated political positions of the UK government on the issues of asylum and
illegal migration and how these positions lead to power domination and control through
political discourse, the consequences of such domination being the abuse of human rights and
social and political inequality of forced migrants and asylum seekers in the UK.
The specific research question of this discourse analysis project can be formulated as
follows: what position did the British government voice in response to the emergency plan
European Agenda on Migration9
published by the EU Commission on May 13, 2015, in
connection with the Mediterranean migrant boat crisis? Some other relevant questions to ask
in this respect would be: what arguments informed this position of the British government?
What statements did various political actors in Great Britain make on issues related to the
9
See (European Commission, 2015)

8. 8
Mediterranean migrant boat crisis before and after the publication of the European Agenda on
Migration? How do these statements draw from assumptions, beliefs and arguments that have
their roots in the discourse on welfare protection, control and national security? As was
explained in the description of van Dijk’s model of critical-political discourse analysis, the power
of political discourse lies in “naturalizing” the statements made by political actors who enjoy
social power, which makes these statements appear as self-evident.
Political discourse, similar to any other type of discourse, extends over time. Just like a
thick power cord, consisting of a maze of intertwined multicolored wires as they stretch out, so
does discourse, in its entirety, consist of a vast number of individual discourse topics, or
strands, twisting and crossing each other, as discourse progresses in time. If we cut the power
cord at a particular spot, we can see each specific wire at this incision spot, and what other
wires it touches and crosses (Schneider, 2013). I want to do in my analysis something similar;
namely, to look at the political discourse on illegal immigration and asylum at the specific spot
of time, May 13, 2015, when the EU Commission made public its emergency plan, and to see
the reaction of the British government and other discourse strands related to this discursive
event.
In other words, the main research object of the analysis is the position of the UK
government to the emergency plan of the EU Commission. The related topics, or discourse
strands, which have been identified as important for this discourse, would be (1) control,
security and terror threat; (2) abuse of the UK asylum system by bogus asylum seekers; (3)
asylum system overburden; and (4) criminalization of persons seeking asylum (illegal border
crossing and detention). The selection of topics is by no means complete, but rather considered
for the contribution to the analysis.
The context of the analysis is the online versions of major British newspapers, such as
The Guardian10
, The Observer11
, The Daily Telegraph12
, The Independent13
and some others. The
10
Center-left political orientation
11
Social-liberal political orientation
12
Right-conservative political orientation

9. 9
online versions of the news media are certainly different from those in print edition. First, the
layout of articles in the respective versions is different, which gives the editors an opportunity
to emphasize certain elements of the actual text and, thus, frame its meaning; second, the
content is usually enhanced by multi-media features (e.g., video, images, etc.) and interactive
elements (an opportunity to leave comments; links to related materials, etc.).
Given the temporal and structural limitations of this analytical exercise, I will use the
interpretative approach applied to the selected samples with the “text and talk” of the UK
political actors. In particular, I will look at the topics, or semantic macrostructures identified in
the political discourse as it plays out in selected British newspaper articles and suggest what
arguments informed the above political statements, and how this discourse constructs certain
perceptions in the public’s imagination.
Analysis
The Position of the UK government voiced in response to the EU Commission plan European
Agenda on Migration of May, 2015 can be briefly summarized as follows below.
The majority of the top British politicians, as quoted in a host of this country’s news
sources, expressed their “aversion” to the proposed quota system and the closely related to it
resettlement program. Both propositions were described as “unacceptable for the UK” (a)
because of their “non-voluntary” character and (b) as dealing with the “symptoms and not the
cause of the humanitarian disaster”, the latter being “the human trafficking networks” that
deliver migrants to the EU’s southern gates. Logically enough, the only part of the EU
Commission’s plan that enjoyed support of the Great Britain’s government was the proposed
“joint military operation in the Mediterranean to halt traffickers’ networks and smuggling”.
In view of the above, the UK would continue to provide assistance in search-and-rescue
operations14
but otherwise would use its right to opt-out on issues of justice and home affairs
13
Economically liberal, politically center-left
14
The UK has deployed the Royal Navy’s flagship, HMS Bulwark, along with three Merlin
helicopters and two border patrol ships to address the immediate crisis situation in the
Mediterranean.

10. 10
(under Article 78(3) of the Amsterdam Treaty of 1997) and reject the proposals of the
mandatory refugee quotas and resettlement across Europe.
There are numerous examples of how this position and the rationale behind it were
articulated in the news media after the EU Commission’s plan was made public on May 13,
2015.
With respect to the rejection of the mandatory quotas and resettlement program to
share the burden of the mass migrant influx, the Brussels based European editor of the
Guardian, Ian Traynor, quoted a government spokesman, who said:
The UK has a proud history of offering asylum to those who need it most, but
we do not believe that a mandatory system of resettlement is the answer.
We will oppose any EU commission proposals to introduce a non-voluntary
quota15
(Traynor, 2015a).
He went on to add,
We do not oppose resettlement in principle, but we believe such schemes are
best decided at national level16
.
Thus, one reason for rejecting the EU Commission proposals is the perceived intention
of the EU to dictate to Britain what to do about the immigration and asylum policy, especially
since the UK already “has a proud history” in this respect. The importance of deciding
immigration issues at “national level” was unambiguously explained by Timothy Kirkhope, a
British Member of the European Parliament, who said, according to POLITICO Europe17
, that
15
Emphasis in bold type in the newspaper citations are mine.
16
Cf. the alternative view held by the French Prime Minister Manuel Valls: "I am against the
introduction of quotas for migrants. … Asylum is a right, attributed according to international
criteria. ... That is why the number of its beneficiaries cannot be subject to quotas, one is an
asylum seeker or not. (“France calls for fairer asylum seeker distribution within EU,” Reuters,
May 16, 2015: Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/16/us-france-
immigration-idUSKBN0O10PV20150516)"
17
POLITICO is a political journalism organization based in Virginia, USA, producing a non-
partisan magazine, published daily on the web and bimonthly in print. Its European edition,

11. 11
The people of the UK have just elected a government which has promised to
control immigration; and not to hand over more powers in this area to the EU
(Barigazzi & Burcchard, 2015).
Apart from the above, there is another important reason for rejecting the Commission’s
proposals, as follows from the below statement of the UK Home Secretary, Theresa May (cited
by the Westminster correspondent of the Guardian, Frances Parraudin):
We must distinguish between those genuinely fleeing persecution and
economic migrants crossing the Mediterranean in the hope of a better life.
While the UK has a proud tradition of providing refuge for those who need it,
we must not provide new incentives for those simply seeking to come for
economic reasons. … These are very often economic migrants, people who
have paid criminal gangs to transport them across Africa, to put them into
vessels which those criminal gangs know are not seaworthy, where they know
there is a risk of people dying (Perraudin, 2015).
The final reason why, in Home Secretary’s opinion, her country “must resist calls for the
mandatory relocation or resettlement of migrants across Europe” is that
[s]uch an approach would only strengthen the incentives for criminal gangs to
keep plying their evil trade — and reduce the incentive of member states to
develop their own effective asylum systems.
To put it in other words, Mrs. May, articulating the position of the British government,
argues that the majority of those desperate people trying to flee from Libya and reach the
European coast, are “simply … economic migrants” pulled by the “hope of a better life” in the
West. Moreover, these economic migrants engage in the thriving criminal business of the
people-traffickers and smugglers by paying to them for the transportation services to Europe.
Thus, to participate in a mandatory system of resettlement or relocation would mean to
“encourage more people to make these perilous journeys” and, consequently, to boost the
based in Brussels, covers the issues, ideas and personalities behind politics and policy in Europe
and in the global arena. The executive editor of POLITICO Europe is Matthew Kaminsky, the
former editor of Wall Street Journal editorial board.

12. 12
criminal activities of the smugglers. Besides, as one may infer from the above quoted statement
of the UK Home Secretary, (some of?) the EU Member States are not particularly motivated “to
develop their own effective asylum systems” and, therefore, aspire to spread the share of their
asylum burden across the Union.
In her article published in The Times on May 13, 2015, Theresa May further elaborated
the UK government’s position:
[W]e must adopt the right approach [and] … make sure we are not doing
anything to make the problem worse. … This means, firstly, separating the
current essential search and rescue work from the process of gaining
permission to stay in the EU. The EU should work to establish safe landing sites
in North Africa, underpinned by an active programme of returns. And we
should use military, intelligence and crime-fighting assets not only to deliver
search and rescue mechanisms, but also to crack down on the traffickers who
are putting people at risk (May, 2015).
What obviously follows from the above statement is that the whole idea behind the
emergency plan proposed by the EU Commission is wrong because it is based on the false
assumption that Europe is dealing with the asylum crisis, i.e. all those migrants who risk their
lives using the smugglers’ boats are people trying to find international protection from life-
threatening circumstances (e.g., the civil war in Syria). To counter the above “false
assumption”, the British government argues that these are trivial “economic migrants” tainted
by their association with the criminal gangs of human traffickers, and, as such, not entitled to
seek asylum in Europe. Thus, the cause of the humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean is the
activity of the criminal human smugglers’ gangs.
The “right” approach, therefore, is to intercept the economic migrants on their way to
the European shores and “return” them (forcibly, if need be) to their country of origin, or help
them “build a better life in other countries rather than trying to make the dangerous journey
onward to Europe”. For that purpose, rather than bring the boat migrants ashore to Italy or

13. 13
elsewhere in southern Europe, the EU should set up in North Africa (e.g., Tunisia, Morocco,
Niger, Nigeria or other African countries) “safe landing zones”18
.
Since the UK government is convinced that the majority of the boat migrants are
“simply” people who are striving to get a better life in Europe, there is no talk about asylum as a
fundamental human right (apart from a very general statement that Britain has a “proud
history” of providing protection to those who “need it most”). What lies at the heart of the
current Mediterranean boat migrant crisis, as perceived by the British government, is the
unprecedented scope of criminal activity of human smugglers gangs. Once this activity has been
stopped and the potential migrants halted at the “place of origin” or in the nearby regions, the
crisis will be, obviously, overcome. With this in view, Theresa May outlines in her article the
following directions for the UK governmental policy:
We need a vigorous crime-fighting programme to identify and take down the
criminal networks which are driving this perilous trade. The UK has already
seconded expert staff to Europol, and our National Crime Agency is working
closely with its European counterparts. They are drawing together and acting
on intelligence to help us beat these callous gangs.
18
i.e., transit camps, for those rescued in the course of search-and-rescue operations. While
living at those camps in Africa, the migrants would be screened and the “genuine” refugees
would submit their asylum claims. Those found eligible to receive the refugee status, would
be brought to Europe, while the rest would be encouraged to return to their countries of
origin. The potential host countries in Africa “would have to meet minimum standards of
democracy, rule of law, good governance and human rights laws” (Pancevski, 2015). Britain,
though, as have been mentioned above, would not participate in the mandatory
resettlement or relocation plans. According to Pancevski, the inspiration for the proposed
system of “safe landing zones” has been derived from the hard-line policy adopted by
Australia, which signed deals with Cambodia and Papua New Guinea to take migrants
rescued or apprehended on the seas by its navy. The policy has, however, been severely
criticized by the UN as well as migration and human rights groups, who claimed that
conditions in the camps are often poor, and people are denied the right to seek asylum.

14. 14
Chris Huges, editor-in-chief of The Guardian confirms the above perception and quotes the
British Prime Minister, David Cameron, who articulated the priority of the “attempts to
dismantle the human trafficking networks”, which should “remain the focus” and encourages
the other Member States to follow suit:
We are doing our bit with Bulwark and the helicopters, obviously we want
other European countries to do more as well (Huges, 2015).
In his latest (as of the moment of writing this section) speech at 2015 Global Security Forum
(GLOBSEC 2015) in Bratislava on June 19, 2015, David Cameron has summed up the position of
the British government on the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean:
[W]e need to be optimistic and ambitious. This is particularly the case when it
comes to our ability to address failed states. We are currently seeing
unprecedented migration from troubled states in Africa and the Middle East
on Europe’s southern flank. …
It is a tide of humanity desperately seeking a better life. We must of course do
what we can to help those in danger of losing their lives at sea – and we are.
Britain will always meet its obligations to provide refuge for the most
vulnerable. … But we won’t resolve this crisis unless we do more to stop these
people leaving their countries in the first place; until we break the link
between boarding a boat and settling in Europe. This is where we need to
work together as European nations, to tackle the root of the problem, not
merely alleviate its symptoms.
Again, clear thinking is needed. All the evidence shows that the most
important factor in someone’s decision to make this journey is how they will
be treated in terms of being allowed to stay in Europe. So schemes of
relocation don’t solve this problem (Cameron, 2015).
Thus, the line of argumentation is as follows: the migration crisis in the Mediterranean has
emerged because people living in “failed” of “troubled” states in Africa and Middle East are
“desperately seeking a better life” and make their decision to take the journey across the
Mediterranean because they believe they will be “allowed to stay in Europe”. Following the

15. 15
logic of this argumentation, “the root of the problem” is of economic character and, therefore,
resettlement or relocation of migrants saved from drowning in the sea will not “solve this
problem”. The solution is to “stop these people leaving their countries” and to make them
comprehend that they should “seek a better life” somewhere else but Europe. The only
deviation of David Cameron’s speech from the official British position outlined earlier by
Theresa May is that he announced, ever so carefully,
We also set up our own scheme for particularly vulnerable people fleeing the
conflict in Syria, including women and children at risk who couldn’t be
protected in the region. And today I can announce that we will work with the
United Nations to modestly expand this national scheme so that we provide
resettlement to the most vulnerable fleeing Syria – those who cannot be
adequately protected in neighbouring countries.
The practical implementation of the British “national scheme” and how “modest” its scope
becomes remains to be seen.
Now that I have outlined the current position of the UK government in connection with
the Mediterranean migrant boat crisis and attempted to follow the arguments informing this
position, it would be interesting to look at what statements the British politicians made before
this year’s spike in the number of people trying to cross from Libya to southern shores of
Europe.
Less than a year ago, on October 27, 2014, when the influx of migrants across the
Mediterranean was steadily growing and migrants drowning en masse on Europe’s doorstep,
Allan Travis, the home affairs editor of the Guardian, commented on the new developments of
the British policy. The UK Foreign Office minister, Lady Anelay, announced in the written House
of Lords answer:
We do not support planned search and rescue operations in the
Mediterranean. … The government believes the most effective way to prevent
refugees and migrants attempting this dangerous crossing is to focus our
attention on countries of origin and transit, as well as taking steps to fight the

16. 16
people smugglers who willfully put lives at risk by packing migrants into
unseaworthy boats (Travis, 2014).
Lady Anelay argued that saving the migrants from drowning was creating “an unintended ‘pull
factor’, encouraging more migrants to attempt the dangerous sea crossing and thereby leading
to more tragic and unnecessary deaths”. Her position was backed up by James Brokenshire, the
minister of immigration and security, who said that the change would "save lives rather than
putting them in peril" (Travis, 2014).
Could that mean that the government callously believed the more migrants drown, the
fewer would dare to board smugglers’ boats, and that would cause this criminal business to
wither? What would be the measure of success of this deterrence strategy, and what could be
used as point of reference for measurement? Or, perhaps, (if we keep in mind the current shift
in the politics of mobility19
, where “migration management” has become a dominant paradigm
in migration policy, and pragmatic economic logic has replaced the moral urgency of refugee
protection) the real argument was the absence of economic and political expediency either in
saving drowning migrants or giving them protection on the British soil? Obviously, there is no
direct economic profit from accepting penniless refugees (whose life is worthless in this
worldview), and no political gain in terms of generating more votes and ensuring political
power and control.
If we compare the positions of the British government in October 2014 and May 2015,
there is a striking similarity in argumentation and rhetoric of the top British politicians, as they
try to substantiate their denial of the true character and cause of the migrant boat crisis in the
Mediterranean. Their political priority is not to save lives and offer protection to the refugees;
instead, the focus is on crushing the networks of criminal people smugglers, who bring this
“nuisance” to the shores of Europe and, eventually, to the doorstep of the UK. In both cases, it
is firmly presumed that the majority of the people boarding the smugglers’ boats are economic
migrants seeking the better life in the West; therefore, their lives are in threat not because of
19
Please see Section 1 on the theoretical foundations of this thesis, where I describe the current
debate about the labels of “forced” and “illegal” migrants.

17. 17
war and persecution but because they resort to criminal services of people traffickers. With this
in view, all efforts should be made to stop the traffic and to contain the migrants in their
countries of origin or in the nearby regions. The only difference is that the sheer magnitude of
the human tragedy in the Mediterranean in the spring of 2015 has forced the British
government to resume the country’s participation in the joint European seek-and-search
operations.
As I mentioned above in the Analysis Setup part of this case study, my intention was to
look at the political discourse in the UK on illegal immigration and asylum at the specific spot of
time (May 13, 2015, when the EU Commission made public its emergency plan), and to
investigate a number of other discourse strands, or topics, related to this discursive event;
namely, (1) control, security and terror threat; (2) abuse of the UK asylum system by bogus
asylum seekers; (3) asylum system overburden; and (4) criminalization of persons seeking
asylum (illegal border crossing and detention). All of these topics are closely related,
intertwined and build upon each other.
Topic 1. Control, security and terror threat
The issues of control and security are the first themes to come up when one thinks about
immigration debates in Europe in general and in the UK, in particular. The importance of these
concerns for the British government is exemplified by the fact that since February 2014, it has
created a single ministerial portfolio of “immigration and security” currently held by James
Brokenshire. The persistent centrality of the control and security topic in relation to the
immigration debate is largely sustained by media coverage, which eagerly portrays crimes
committed by migrants (both legal and illegal) belonging to certain diaspora communities, or
engagement of these groups in acts of terrorism.
Since this case study is concerned with political discourse as it plays out in the press,
let’s look at some examples of statements on control and security made by the British political
players in the press in connection with the EU Commission emergency plan on asylum policy.
Jon Stone, a political reporter for The Independent, quoted the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage (also

18. 18
sitting as MEP in Strasbourg), who claimed that the asylum policy proposed by the EU was “a
direct threat to our civilisation”:
The clear demand for the rapid implementation of a common EU migration
and asylum policy, to be confirmed in a vote in the European parliament,
would be wholly unacceptable to a United Kingdom that already has levels of
immigration that are too high, and as Isis have previously threatened, could
lead to half a million Islamic extremists coming to our countries and posing a
direct threat to our civilisation (Stone, 2015).
Half a million Islamic extremists rushing into the EU to terrorize its population is clearly a
scary perspective that would make the proposed asylum policy prohibitive. However, the more
likely argument for claiming the policy unacceptable can be found in the same sentence;
namely, that the UK “already has levels of immigration that are too high”. Still, whatever is true,
Farage’s statement creates a mental link between potential refugees and terrorists.
Other politicians expressed their concern about immigration and security in a less
dramatic way. For example, The Guardian reports on the speech about immigration, given by
the Labour party leader, Ed Miliband, in Cardiff on April 28, 2015:
The Conservatives have a plan to control immigration and build a system that
puts the British people first. We will regain control of EU migration by
reforming welfare rules, tackle criminality and abuse of free movement and cut
immigration from outside the EU (“Labour has changed on immigration, says
Ed Miliband,” 2015).
Miliband argued that if EU migration could be controlled by economic measures (e.g.,
reforming welfare rules, halting the exploitation of migrant labour, which “undercuts wages of
British born workers”), the immigration from outside the EU must be simply “cut” by
strengthening UK borders, because it is this kind of immigration that breeds criminality and
abuses free movement. Here there is a direct connection to the topic of criminalization of
immigrants and illegal migrants, which will be discussed later.

19. 19
David Cameron, the newly reelected UK Prime Minister, has also talked at length
throughout his political career about the issues of immigration control. For example, in his
speech on immigration in October 2011, he promised to do better at “finding these people
[illegal immigrants] and getting them out of our country”:
… We are working to remove more people more quickly to more countries
(“David Cameron speech on immigration,” 2011).
The right way to go in order to control immigration, according to Cameron, was to establish
[r]eal limits. Proper enforcement. Real control over how many people come
here. … How do we know when we are getting immigration right? It’s when
we are getting the right people we need for our economy.
Thus, the priority of asylum and immigration policy is control. Protection of human
rights of the refugees is not even mentioned, and immigrants are only considered favorably,
when they bring economic profit for the country.
David Cameron’s rhetoric about immigration has not changed much over time. In his
speech on March 25, 2013 he said:
… I’ve also always believed that immigration has to be properly controlled.
Without proper controls, community confidence is sapped, resources are
stretched and the benefits that immigration can bring are lost or forgotten
(“David Cameron’s immigration speech - Speeches - GOV.UK,” 2013).
Cameron’s rhetoric in the above quoted statements constructs an association of asylum seekers
and immigrants at large as a threat both to security and economy.
Topic 2. Abuse of the British asylum system by “bogus” asylum seekers
Asylum policy and the asylum system of the United Kingdom is an important topic in the
national political discourse on the issues of immigration. The general governmental position is

20. 20
that the existing asylum system is “properly functioning”; however, the benefits20
incorporated
in the system act as a "magnet" and make it an easy prey for abuse from the side of “bogus
asylum seekers”, to the detriment of “genuine” refugees. The choice of words (“bogus asylum
seekers”, “lawful migrants”, “abuse of the system”, etc.), in combination with the line of
reasoning that the majority of those seeking asylum are not eligible for protection, cannot but
shape an understanding that these people are involved in something that is not allowed.
Let’s look at some examples from the British news coverage of this political discourse.
The Daily Mail21
Online reported on a speech given by William Hague, a Conservative politician,
while he was on a campaign visit to Scotland on June 15, 2015:
Conservative leader William Hague today said he did not want the UK to
become a "soft touch" for bogus asylum seekers22
. He said the trouble with
the current system was that genuine asylum seekers were elbowed aside. ‘I
simply want this country to be a safe haven for the genuine refugee, but not a
soft touch for abuse of the system and I think that is what most people in
Britain want’ (“Tories ‘will be tough on bogus asylum seekers,’” 2015).
20
“The majority of asylum seekers do not have the right to work in the United Kingdom and so
must rely on state support. Housing is provided, but asylum seekers cannot choose where it is,
and it is often ‘hard to let’ properties which Council tenants do not want to live in. Cash support
is available, and is currently set at £36.62 per person, per week, which makes it £5.23 a day for
food, sanitation and clothing. (Source: Home Office)” – cited from
http://www.unhcr.org.uk/about-us/the-uk-and-asylum.html
21
The Daily Mail is a British daily tabloid newspaper with middleclass market and right-
conservative political orientation, owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. It is the only
British newspaper with female readers comprising more than half of its readership.
22
“There is no such thing as a bogus asylum seeker or an illegal asylum seeker. As an asylum
seeker, a person has entered into a legal process of refugee status determination. Everybody
has a right to seek asylum in another country. People who don't qualify for protection as
refugees will not receive refugee status and may be deported, but just because someone
doesn't receive refugee status doesn't mean they are a bogus asylum seeker. Kofi Annan, the
seventh Secretary General of the United Nations (1997 – 2006), once said, “Let us remember
that a bogus asylum-seeker is not equivalent to a criminal; and that an unsuccessful asylum
application is not equivalent to a bogus one” (cited from http://www.unhcr.org.uk/about-
us/the-uk-and-asylum.html).

21. 21
The problem, obviously, is not new at all. As far back as in 2004, the BBC News offered to
readers’ attention the full text of Tony Blair’s speech to the Labour Party conference in Brighton
on September 28. In this speech, the Labour leader expressed his indignation at the position of
the British Liberal Democrats, who voted “against withdrawing benefits from failed asylum
seekers even when all their appeals were finished”, while the Labour accomplishments were:
… We have cut radically the numbers of failed asylum seekers. … By the end of
2005, and for the first time in Britain, we will remove more each month than
apply and so restore faith in a system that we know has been abused (“Full
text of Blair’s speech to the Labour Party conference in Brighton,” 2004).
The above quotation clearly implies that migrants whose asylum claim was rejected are not
“genuine” refugees but instead aim to “abuse” the asylum system. With this in view, they must
be “removed”. To counter the “removal” statement (which makes me think of “removal of
garbage”, or removal of something utterly undesirable and unworthy), Tony Blair went on with
the following statement:
“But we will welcome lawful migrants to this country; we will praise, not
apologise, for our multi-cultural society and we will never play politics with the
issue of race.”
The argument here, again, contains this legally ambiguous term “lawful”, obviously referring to
“genuine” refugees, while all other migrants, then, must be “unlawful” and not welcome in the
country. David Cameron, in his immigration speech of March 25, 2013, clarified the definition of
“genuine” refugees and claimed that his government’s humanitarian efforts had produced an
“improved” and “properly functioning” asylum system”:
Let me be clear, Britain will always offer a welcome to people fleeing
persecution, as we’ve done throughout our history (“David Cameron’s
immigration speech - Speeches - GOV.UK,” 2013).
The words “always” and “throughout our history” make it a very general statement. The
discussion of related discourse strands following below casts a shadow of doubt on how
heartfelt this “welcome” really is.

22. 22
Topic 3. Asylum system overburden
Declarations about the “proud history” of the UK in offering protection to people “fleeing
persecution” sound as an overstatement, when counterbalanced with reports on huge backlogs
of asylum cases. People caught in the system live for years “in limbo”, without their cases
moving in any direction. No wonder that the asylum system turns the refugees into “illegal
migrants”, whom the government is so eager to “remove”.
On October 28, 2014, the BBC News presented a commentary by Vicki Young, BBC chief
political correspondent, who reflected on the report of the Home Office with the latest figures
on its handling of asylum applications. The report, produced by the Public Accounts Committee,
stated that as of April 2014, there were 29,000 unresolved asylum applications dating back at
least seven years. More than a third of applicants had not received even an initial decision
indicating whether they could remain in the country. The report also came up with an
indication that, at the end of 2013-14, there were over 175,000 people whose application to
stay in the UK had been rejected, and they were placed in a migration refusal pool to await
removal. The whereabouts of roughly 50,000 of the rejected applicants were unknown to the
authorities (Young, 2014).
The BBC’s commentary recounts the politicians’ bickering around the report. For
example, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said:
This report lays bare how David Cameron's government is presiding over one
failure after another in our immigration system.
David Cameron countered this accusation with the remark that the Tories were "clearing up a
shocking shambles and mess left by the last Labour government". Indeed, the latter was
confronted with problems very similar to those haunting the Conservatives in 2014. Vicki Young
recalls in her commentary that John Reid, who was Home Secretary at that time, described the
immigration and asylum system as “unfit for purpose”.

23. 23
Reading through the figures of the Home Office report and the reactions of the
politicians to what stands behind these numbers, it is odd to notice that no worries are
expressed from the government’s side about the human situation of asylum applicants still
awaiting the decision of their fate, especially so in a country that always “offers a welcome to
people fleeing persecution”. Instead, the labour MP chairing the Public Accounts Committee,
Margaret Hodge, voiced her concern that
[i]t is deeply worrying that the Home Office is not tracking those people whose
applications have been rejected to ensure they are removed from the UK. …
The number of such cases has not been reduced over time. Some may have left
the UK voluntarily but without exit checks it is almost impossible to know
(Young, 2014).
As we see again, the same old issues of border control and “removal” of unwanted human
material. Still, some voices of dissent come from other than professional political actors in the
political discourse on the asylum matters. For example, Lisa Doyle, head of advocacy of the
British Refugee Council23
, talking about the findings of the government report, pointed out that
people caught up in the asylum system were “living in limbo”:
Behind these statistics are individuals, many of whom will have suffered
extreme trauma, forced to live day to day in uncertainty while they await the
outcome of what could be a life or death decision. … It is very important that
the Home Office makes decisions in a timely manner, but it's even more
important that it gets its decisions right first time (Young, 2014).
23
Refugee Council is one of the leading charities in the UK working directly with refugees, and
supporting them to rebuild their lives. The charity was founded in 1951 in response to the UN
Convention for Refugees, which was created after World War II to ensure refugees were able to
find safety in other countries. The Refugee Council receives funding from local, central and
European Government to deliver some services, however it is reliant upon voluntary income –
including grants from trusts and foundations, corporate support and donations from
individuals. (See https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/about_refugee_council)

24. 24
Here we have quite a different perspective, giving us a clue about the actual human situation of
people seeking protection, and about how the asylum system itself “actively produces” illegal
migrants24
.
Topic 4. Criminalization of asylum seekers / illegal border crossing / detention
The prevailing political discourse on the topic of asylum policy constructs the potential asylum
seekers as “economic migrants” tainted by criminal intentions, finding ways to “evade border
checks” and sneak into the country, which they see as “El Dorado of highly paid work and easy
benefits by migrants”. Calais, the jumping pad for crossing the Channel, “faces crime and
harassment from the migrants, with mothers afraid to let their children out into the streets”.
Politicians are blaming each other for failing to “process and deport illegal immigrants”.
This kind of discourse constructs a conceptual framework for implicit understanding of
what is considered criminal, and helps to establish a link between criminality and asylum
seekers. Given that the “text and talk” of professional politicians takes place in the realm of
public sphere, it cannot but influence public opinion and imagination about the very act of
seeking asylum and establishes further associations to criminality.
Many of the “lucky” migrants who managed to enter the UK and file for asylum are
contained in detentions centers resembling high-security prisons, with no limit on the length of
detention set by the law. A common sense tells a law-abiding citizen that only criminals are
being held in prisons, even though the purpose of detention is “administrative convenience”
and preventing asylum seekers to abscond in case their case is rejected.
The examples of the political discourse criminalizing the asylum seekers abound in the
press. With reference to the illegal crossing across the Channel, Ben Riley-Smith (a political
correspondent for The Telegraph) recounted in his article of May 11, 2015 the details of the
Home Affairs Committee’s report on vast expenditures by the Border Force on
24
Please see the theoretical section of this thesis explaining this postulate.

25. 25
thermodetection security cameras, extra perimeter fencing, and vehicle-
scanning equipment to detect people hiding in lorries, tankers and
refrigeration vehicles. … Around £3 million has already been invested to
upgrade vehicle scanning equipment and increasing the use of search dogs
(Riley-Smith, 2015).
According to Riley-Smith, these extraordinary security measures made a Home Office
spokesman proudly announce:
Using some of the best technology in the world and working closely with the
French authorities, we prevented 30,000 attempts to cross the Channel
illegally since March 2014 — a rise of more than 60 per cent on the previous
year.
However, to the utter frustration of Keith Vaz, chair of the Home Affairs Committee,
When Border Force staff catch migrants at the border, they do not process
them or take steps to establish identity, they hand them over to the French
authorities, who then release them (Riley-Smith, 2015).
The Committee’s findings conclude that the situation is “bizarre” because it allows
migrants to try “again and again” to enter the UK illegally knowing “there is little punishment if
caught”. The choice of words used by the politicians in the above examples - “people hiding”,
“perimeter fencing”, ”search dogs”, “prevent illegal crossing”, “catch migrants”, “punishment if
caught” – creates a “truth” that the potential asylum seekers trying to enter Britain are not
refugees but, rather, closer to criminals; they are not eligible for protection and must be
thrown out of the country.
Alan Travis, home affairs editor of The Guardian, quotes in his article Calais migrants
‘willing to die’ to come to Britain a statement of a Downing Street spokeswoman, which claims
a priori the non-refugee status of the migrants in question:

26. 26
Clearly, one of this government’s focuses in this area is to look at what are the
pull factors around immigration and how we can address them (Travis &
Editor, 2014).
The practice of indefinite detention of potential refugees in detention facilities like, for
example, the Yarl’s Wood Centre25
is another example of criminalizing asylum seekers by the
UK government. Political discourse around the issue of detaining asylum seekers is quite
polarized, involving different actors with opposing arguments. To illustrate this particular
discourse strand, I have chosen to look at the scandalous findings of the report produced by the
joint inquiry by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Refugees, Into the use of
Immigration Detention, which was debated in the House of Lords on March 26, 2015.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick, who served on the inquiry panel, said:
We are the only country in Europe which allows indefinite detention of this
kind. In France, the maximum period is 45 days. In Spain, it is two months and
in Italy it is three months, so we are way out of line with these countries. In the
end, the group came to the view that we should have a maximum limit of 28
days. In coming to that view, we were much influenced by the corrosive effect
which prolonged uncertainty has on the detainees themselves. There was
much evidence to that effect, both from the detainees and the experts (APPG,
2015).
Another member of the inquiry panel, Baroness Ruth, added that:
What became clear during the inquiry was the disconnect between official
policy and what actually happens. The current Home Office guidance that
detention should be used sparingly and for the shortest possible period is
rendered ineffective by working practices and culture.
25
Radhika Sanghani, a writer for The Telegraph, describes the Yarl’s Wood Centre as follows:
“The centre, which can accommodate 405 detainees, is in Bedfordshire, oddly placed in the
middle of a business park. From the outside it looks like a Travelodge, but when you walk
around the side, you see high gates with razor wire, surveillance cameras and a police officer
standing guard. Inside, the security is just as extreme. I had to give fingerprints, have a full-body
search, walk through metal detectors, and answer endless questions about my visit before I was
allowed in to the visitor’s room” (“Inside Britain’s ‘worst’ immigration center at Christmas”,
December 24, 2014).

27. 27
Baroness Sally Hamwee, who also served on the inquiry panel, noted that in comparison
with the international evidence submitted during the inquiry, it became obvious that the British
system is “unfair”, and “one of the things that is most lacking is dignity”. Sarah Teather, a
Liberal Democrat MP and chair of the inquiry panel, remarked that people who spent years in
detention under the conditions of uncertainty and total powerlessness suffered “intense
psychological damage” and were hardly likely to integrate back into society.
In short, the APPG has found that “the current system [of immigration detention] is
expensive, ineffective and unjust”, and in need of total overhaul.
The Independent commented on the above report and came up with views on the issue
of immigration detention from different actors in the political debate. In particular, the article
cited a strongly critical statement of Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty26
, who said:
The scandal of limitless detention, unashamedly for administrative
convenience, is one of the greatest stains on the UK’s human rights record in
recent decades – a colossal and pointless waste of both public funds and
human life (Green & Owen, 2015).
Both the results of the APPG inquiry and the above opinion of Shami Chakrabarti are
supported by the numerous stories of detainees, interviewed by the members of the APPG in
the process of their inquiry. The Independent provides some of these stories:
Some [detainees] lose hope and they try to kill themselves,” one detainee told
the inquiry. “Some try burning themselves with whatever they can get. Some
try hanging themselves in the shower. They think it’s the only way out. I’ve
seen this with my own eyes. Detention is a way to destroy people: they do not
kill you directly, but instead you kill yourself.
26
Liberty is both a non-profit company that employs staff and runs campaigns, and a
democratically-run membership association. The company also works closely with a charity
called the Civil Liberties Trust (see https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/who-we-
are/structure)

28. 28
The whole world knows the UK for advocating human rights, so I knew I was in
the right place. But when I asked for protection, my rights were confiscated
and I lost my freedom. I found myself in detention and had to really fight with
the Home Office before I was given leave to remain27
.
I was in Yarl’s Wood for 90 days. It was worse than prison, I would prefer to be
in prison than in detention. I thought: am I living in Britain or a Third World
country? There was no cause for hope, you are on tenterhooks wondering
when they are going to remove you, any time of the day or night. You are
deprived of all your independence, you don’t control your life.
The staff in Yarl’s Wood were unsympathetic. You are just a number to them,
you are nothing. They forget they are dealing with a human being who is
psychologically depressed. I attempted suicide twice, I thought it was my only
way out. It’s been a long time since I’ve been out of detention, but I still have
not healed (Green & Owen, 2015).
The above accounts of asylum seekers who experienced first-hand the conditions of
immigration detention in the UK, give us a glimpse into the human situation of people seeking
refuge in the UK. They also clearly demonstrate the logic behind the position of the government
exposed in the political discourse; namely, it is generally presumed that people entering the
country and filing for asylum are, in fact, socio-economic migrants using the pretext of asylum
to get to the UK and its welfare benefits. If they fail to get the protected status, they just go
underground and stay in the country illegally, which makes it difficult for the government to
“remove “them. The burden of refuting this disbelief falls on the detained migrants, who are
27
Home Office statistics (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-
january-to-march-2014) show that, in the year ending March 2014, while 61 per cent of
detainees had been in detention for less than 29 days, 6 per cent had been detained for more
than 4 months with 175 individuals held for between one and two years and 39 for two years or
longer. Further, as Detention Action analysis (see: Charity organisation “Detention Action,”
2014) demonstrates, about 62 per cent of migrants leaving detention after more than a year
are released into the community while a minority of 38 per cent is removed from the country.
As such, government wastes around £75 million per year by detaining migrants who are
ultimately released” (cited from http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/uk-immigration-
detention-what-sort-of-reform-and-when/).

29. 29
“guilty until proven innocent” but not on the authorities that took away their freedom.
Therefore, it is only “common sense” to put them into a detention centre with “conditions
tantamount to high security prison settings”(APPG, 2015).
Diane Taylor of the Guardian quoted on May 20, 2014 a statement of a Home Office
spokesman, who expressed the government’s commitment to immigration detention:
Detention is a vital tool that helps us remove those with no right to be in the
country28
(Taylor, 2014).
Another government official said a year later to The Independent:
People are only detained for the shortest period necessary and all detention is
reviewed on a regular basis to ensure it remains justified and reasonable. …
Parliament demonstrated its support for our policy when it rejected a proposal
to limit the length of detention during the passage of the Immigration Act last
year. Repeated failure to comply with the removals process, often along with
serious criminal offending histories, are key factors in lengthy detention
(Green & Owen, 2015).
The arguments informing this position have just been described above. The wording of the
statements indicates the attempts of the government to assure the public in its ability to
control immigration, while at the same time it stigmatizes asylum seekers and robs them of the
confidence in the asylum process.
To summarize the discussion of this criminalization discourse strand, it is obvious that
the existing restrictive legal framework in itself helps establish a perception of asylum seekers
as criminals. Both the language and the logic of the criminal punishment practice transform
those seeking asylum into a threat rather that people in need, and create a firm link between
criminality and immigration.
28
Statistics: In 2013, the United Kingdom detained more than 30,000 people – seven times as
many as the 4,309 detained by Germany (source: Green & Owen, 2015).

30. 30
Conclusions
The political discourse around the position of the UK government in response to the EU
Commission plan in connection with the escalation of the Mediterranean migrant boat crisis in
April-May of 2015 and the four closely related to this question discourse strands all have in
common the same function; namely, they help shape and construct the “truths” about the
object the Government strives to control, i.e. the influx of asylum seekers and illegal
immigrants. The topics of the discourse justify the British government’s position about rejecting
the proposals of the EU commission about the mandatory quota system and resettlement
programme. They create mental links between asylum seekers and “economic migrants”
tainted by the association with criminal gangs of people traffickers, and due to this, the position
of the government becomes logic and acquires an aura of legitimacy, objectivity and common
sense.
The emphasis on the abuse of the asylum system by “economic” (i.e., “bogus”) asylum
seekers - who, if rejected, have a tendency to abscond, - makes the indefinite immigration
detention a justified response and acceptable measure to control immigration. The politicians
shift the blame for the dysfunctional border control and deficient asylum system to the ever
growing numbers and the inherent criminality of migrants trying to sneak illegally into the
country. Carefully constructed political discourse helps alleviate the government’s responsibility
and explains poor results of the immigration / asylum policies.
The position of the government has not been unchallenged. As it was shown, both
opposition MPs and NGOs questioned the “text and talk” of the government, but their position
as topical participants in the discourse is weaker than that of the government. It is the
government that controls the topics of the political discourse and, consequently, influences
what people see as the most important and trustworthy information being communicated29
.
29
Please see my overview of political discourse in the section about theoretical framework of
this thesis.

31. 31
As I understand the purpose of the political discourse analyzed in this case study, it is,
on the one hand, to convince the audience in the legitimacy of the government’s position; and
on the other hand, to construct an amiable understanding that supports measures and
techniques employed by the government for controlling immigration. For example, combating
illegality could justify further restrictions in immigration law. Curbing the further influx of
asylum seekers to the country could legitimize the decision of not participating in the joint EU
search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean or to reject sharing the asylum burden with
other Member States. Defining countries of origins supplying steady streams of potential
refugees as safe could provide grounds for dismissing asylum claims. Apart from the above, the
pronounced mistrust for the genuineness of the majority of asylum seekers and the ensuing
categorization of them as, for example, “economic migrants” or “bogus asylum seekers”,
strengthens the rationale behind the position of the UK government to the emergency plan of
the EU Commission.
The interpretative analysis of the political discourse around the above mentioned topics
sheds light on the discursive techniques the Government uses to legitimize its asylum policy. It
also supports my presumption that the precarious situation asylum seekers in the UK find
themselves in is the consequence of the power domination achieved by the government by
means of its political actions, which allows it to divide and rule.
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