Politics of Exception and Unease: Immigration, Asylum and Terrorism in Parliamentary Debates in the UK

Abstract

This article analyses how the British political elite has securitised migration and asylum since 9/11 by looking at when and how parliamentary debates linked counter-terrorism to immigration and/or asylum. The findings suggest that there is considerable reluctance within the political elite to introduce or especially sustain the connection between migration and terrorism too intensely in public debate. The parliamentary debates also show that for understanding the securitising of migration and asylum one cannot focus exclusively on the main security framing that is found in counter-terrorism debates, which we name 'the politics of exception'. There is at least one other format, which we call 'the politics of unease', that is central to how the British political elite securitises migration and asylum, and contests it, in the public realm.Since 11 September 2001 terrorism has become a priority for governments around the world. More often than not, this priority has involved rhetoric of exclusion and fear of foreigners combined with a political demand for intensifying control of the cross-border movement of people. Analyses of migration and asylum policy largely affirm this intensified securitisation of migration, especially of asylum seekers, since the autumn of Less clear, however, is how the connection between terrorism and migration or asylum has been politically sustained since 2001 and what this tells us about how the political elite renders insecurities in relation to migration and asylum. This article researches how and in what instancesBritish professional politicians drew on references to migration or asylum and (counter-)terrorism in their strategies of defending and challenging various policy measures. It does so by specifically analysing parliamentary debates in which politicians related migration or asylum to (counter-)terrorism. We are aware of the limitations of using parliamentary debates as the key entry point into the political framing of policy questions in an age of mass media, blogs, focus groups, campaigning and opinion polling. However, parliamentary debates continue to provide a strong institutional locus for researching political positioning among the political elite over time.We are also aware of the limitations of focusing on the political elite in order to grasp fully the institutional and wider societal renditions of a relation between

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