With hearts running on the last scraps of hope and pockets emptied of the last of the spare change, they boarded the boat. Dingy walls low, low enough for children to peer over the edge were they not cemented to the centre with cold, stark fear. With each pair of run-down feet that step on, the dingy sinks further, weighed down with the burden of its forthcoming impossible journey. People pack together, shoulder to shoulder, shivers running through the group like a dismal Mexican wave. Babies wail, toddlers cry, everyone else is silenced by the insidious sense of dread burrowing through their chests like a starving rodent. Nevertheless, they stay on the boat. Rain pours from every direction, striking the boat and its passengers from all angles, beginning its torment before they’ve left the harbour. The orange of the dingy stands valiantly against the backdrop of murky green water and a smoke-choked sky, a beacon. With the wind still carrying the echos of gunshots, and bombs, and screams, and cries, the boat is pushed away from the harbour, and the voyage begins. The cold-hearted sea beats at the sides of the boat. Wearing down its spirit. In a fairytale or a fantasy movie it would all be ok, the boat could fill with water and sink or spiral out of control and somehow the heroes would still end up washed up on an island, safe and in one piece. No one in the boat thinks that could happen, they dare not even hope it. Water crashes over the edge of the boat, not enough to sink it, just enough for everyone to get sopping wet feet. It freezes their toes, makes them feel as though they could snap each one off. For some time the journey seems steady. Passengers are able to breathe their shallow, breaths. A sense of hope even begins to warm them slightly, but dares not spread further than the tips of their fingers. This hope doesn’t last for long. Soon, the storm worsens. The waves crash over the sides of the dingy. It twists in the waves. People scream. Parents cling on to their children, scrambling for the middle of the boat. In the chaos, a child is knocked to one side. Stumbling, they lose their footing, trip, and crash over the side of the boat into the freezing sea. The cold burns their skin. They try to swim, but their frail arms just flail and splash. They try to cry for help, but waves crash into their open mouth, drowning their lungs with their harsh, salty water. Their mother leaps to the edge of the boat. Screaming into the waters. She leans over the edge. Stretching as far as she can. Her eyes scan the water over and over, but she’s lost sight of her baby. The water has pulled them too far in. Their only child, lost to the cruel depths of the sea. She can do nothing but scream, anguished, curdling cries. The boat becomes quiet once again, but this won’t be the only life lost on this journey. After what seems like an eternity. The boat finds its way to British shores. It’s physically lighter now, but weighed down with the grief of great loss. As the waters become shallow, people begin to scramble from the boat. Running in all directions. Dog-walkers and joggers stop in their tracks, gawking at the beach, pointing. Some bring out phones and record the scene. Nobody comes to greet the crying, running, human people. They run for their lives. * * * It’s been several months. Anita has found herself cash in hand work as a cleaner. She earns less than minimum wage, but can’t complain. There’s no way she can register with an agency or a union without papers. She has to take what she can get. She can’t afford a house or even a flat, but scraping together almost all that she earns, herself and two other from the boat have managed to find themselves a room above a takeaway. They have no beds, but sleep on three mattresses on the floor. The walls are full of holes and the window shakes in the wind. It’s cold, and damp. Anita finds herself ill through the winter. Her fourteen hour shifts didn’t help with that. Every night Anita gets home late. She walks past the rats in the bins outside. They’re better fed than she is. She enters the flat and joins the others in their room. They don’t talk much. Too tired. They just sleep. * * * On the TV there is a woman. She is dressed in a suit jacket and long pencil skirt. Her hair is smooth. Her complexion clear. She has no bags under her eyes, or wrinkled corners, or signs of stress. She says our country must “clamp down on illegal immigrants”. She says people without the “right” to be in the country must be “removed”. Pulled off the sorry soles of our shoes like chewing gum. There’s no mention of people. Or families. Or women. Or children. Or the lives lost when the boat crossed the channel. Oh, and by the way, it’s illegal to save a drowning refugee now, just incase you didn’t know. * * * Journalists are on safe boats out at sea. They’re pointing their cameras at them. Asking them questions. Reaching out an arm get their microphones closer to them. No attempt to reach out and pull these struggling people to safety. To them they’re just alien travellers. The journalists being there is simple voyeuristic. * * * They’re taking to the streets now. They swarm, all dressed in white. They brand their flags, holding them high above their heads, proud to be there, not at all embarrassed of who they are. They chant. Louder and louder. Stamping. Marching. Invading. “Go home.” They shout. “Make Britain Great Again.” They cry, with Trumpian vigour. Children cower, watching from windows far above the street. They can’t understand why these people don’t want them here. It’s all they’ve ever known. It’s their home just as much as the people marching, isn’t it? * * * Sadiq is a doctor on a covid-ward. He’s worked fifteen hours today. His feet ache from standing. His back aches too. His head is pounding. His face is sore, rubbed red with tight PPE. He is tired. His eyes feel like they’re being dragged down his face. After his shift, he gets in the car and drives home. At a set of traffic lights he sees a crowd of people with signs. They’re shouting. Saying people are “taking their jobs”. He’s sure they’d be thrilled to work the shift he has today. Anger bubbles, but he doesn’t react. He doesn’t get out the car, or shout back at them, or throw anything their way, or even do so much as beep his horn at them. He just moves on. As he pulls up to his house, he seems his window has been smashed. Someone has graffitied his front door with the words “Go Home” in rage-filled red paint. Sadiq runs to his door. He calls to his family. They’re safe, but his children are crying in his wife’s arms on the floor. She looks up at him and shakes her head in dismay. He embraces his family on the floor, and cries too. * * * Zuri gets a letter through the post one Monday morning. It’s in a brown envelope. It says it’s from the Home Office. She opens the letter, confused. Zuri sinks into the chair besides her dining room table. “Notice of Removal.” She can’t understand it. She has lived here her whole life. Her grandparents moved here to aid with the Windrush. She works. She’s a baker in a local cafe. Surely there’s no grounds. She’s never even been to Jamaica. She doesn’t know what it’s like. She has no family there anymore. That’s not her home. Britain is her home. It’s always been her home. * * * “The enemies of the working class travel by private jet, not migrant dinghy.” - Zarah Sultana, MP.