This summer, just like the last, the Tory government and mainstream media have put together a joint effort to generate a moral panic about asylum seekers crossing the channel. Of course, the main victims of this campaign, all based on disinformation. We've talked about that enough on this show are migrants, but of late, there's also been another target coming under attack. The people rescuing them, in particular Nigel Farage, now a host on GB News, has taken aim at the Royal National Lifeboat institution whose job it is to rescue people at sea. He recently tweeted, this is the Ramsgate Lifeboat today, rammed full. Sadly, the wonderful RNLI in Kent has become a taxi service for illegal immigration to the dismay of all involved. What a state of affairs. Unsurprisingly, tweets like these have been followed by abuse, hurled at lifeboat volunteers both online and offline. That included last week when police were called to the charity's tower station at Waterloo Bridge in London, where a crew was verbally assaulted while reporting for duty. In response to this harassment campaign, the RNLI have released a video defending their work. Let's take a look. Baby. Okay, watch your hands. Watch your hands. Children fast. No. No, don't touch. Don't touch. No, no, no. We did not judge what we're doing. We're there to save lives. We're there to help people in distress. And I think when you have witnessed that distress firsthand, it then makes you realize you are doing the right thing. I'm in the train. That's it. That's it. Okay. That's it. Okay, quickly. Okay, I'm going to lift you up. We're going to take you up there. Okay. It's okay. It's okay. Nice and slowly. That's it. Hold on. Careful. The reaction we generally get from the migrants is of relief. It's not duvelation, it's relief. Have them on the lifeboat deck actually praying. It was so thankful. The first job I went to that involved a channel crossing. We rescued this little girl. She was five years old about the same size as my daughter. She was very scared and obviously exhausted, very cold, hungry. I now can't look at my daughter in her life jacket without thinking about that little girl. They've been lives at sea is what the RNI is here to do and we will continue doing it. If we didn't go out to the migrant boats, would there be fatalities? Yes, there would. Without a whole families have drowned in the channel trying to make it from France to England. It's an incredibly dangerous stretch of water and if the RNI was not rescuing people who have made unsuccessful crossings, then many, many more people would have drowned. Alongside that video that RNLI said, we're proud of the lifesaving work our volunteers do in the channel. We make no apology for it. Those we rescue are vulnerable people in danger and distress. Each of them is someone's father, mother, son or daughter. Every life is precious. This is why we launch. The Guardian also report that responding to accusations from Nigel Faraz is facilitating illegal immigration. The volunteer lifeboat charity said it was very proud of its humanitarian work and it would continue to respond to Coast Guard callouts to rescue at risk channel migrants in line with its legal duty under international maritime law. Imagine being out of sight of land, running out of fuel, coming across incredibly busy shipping lanes when you're frightened and you don't know which direction you're going in. That is by anyone's standards distress. Our role in this is incredibly important simply to respond to a need to save lives. That was Mark Dawi, the chief executive of the RNLI. What does it say about our culture that lifeboat volunteers, people go out into the sea to rescue people at risk of drowning, volunteers are having to actively defend themselves against harassment when all they're doing is trying to save lives. What does that tell us about Britain? I mean, it doesn't say anything good. It says that the outcome of decades and decades of dehumanisation of migrants that has been part of the inherent political fabric of this country from, you know, Powell to Patel. It's been a central pillar of how Britain, the British state produces and justifies and asserts its power. So can we be surprised that after decades of that kind of ideological production that it manifests in these ways, right? That the fish rot from the head down and I think that, you know, first there's two things that strike me, you know, the fact that, you know, I think Nigel Farage said something about, you know, that these lifeboats are being used as a taxi service for illegal immigrants. I mean, it's not relevant, but actually like there's no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker that, you know, is, but also like being an undocumented person also doesn't mean that you shouldn't be cared for and shouldn't be looked after. That's so I don't think that that's, but it's just a kind of functional point there. But it's just, you know, their job is to save lives, but what happens when those lives are not seen as lives worth saving. And I think that that is why we get from this point, get to this point. And you know, that let's, the idea is that if you are, let's face it, a black or brown person, because you know, we aren't seeing this happening to white Australians or white Canadians, if you are black or brown and you're seeing to be from outside of Britain, your life is expendable, it's to be used as a scapegoat or as cheap labour. And you know, your assertion of your right to things like family life, like healthcare, like safe housing, it's not seen as an inalienable right, it's seen as a burden and a nuisance that we want to get rid of. And, you know, that logic is literally coded into our immigration system. Like our legislation is literally called a hostile environment. Like you can't promote an immigration system that is called an immigration policy that is called a hostile environment. And then be surprised when your citizens create a hostile environment for the people that you've told them is an enemy of your way of life. And I think that the, the fact that, you know, obviously we know that people who come to this country, who are racialized outside of Britishness, we know that they receive abuse. The, the abuse of people who are seen to be helping them is also part and parcel of the far right ideology, the far right ideology that is bleeding into mainstream right wing, sort of mainstream right and centre right discourses. You know, let's not forget Theresa May sort of having that suspicion of people who, who aren't deeply invested in bordering around, you know, Britain's resources, saying that, you know, if you're not a citizen of some way or a citizen of nowhere, which is, you know, a dog whistle that's kind of the actually a claxon basically. Let's not forget why Jo Cox was killed. It was because she was seen to care too much for refugees. And in a context where migrants and refugees are being conceptualized as enemies of the nation, then caring for those people, being sympathetic towards those people, being generous and inclusive and welcoming to those people is seen as aiding and abetting an enemy of the nation. So I think obviously, you know, it's easy to look at Nigel Farage and to look at these tweets and think, oh my goodness, like, isn't it so bad that some people are so unsympathetic? But when you put it in context, you realise that this is the logical outcome of the ideological work that has been done from the top level of the British state, from the top levels of our media for decades now. It's simply just unraveling. And I think that we need to confront it head on.