“All that stands between you and your dreams is this sea,” says Mariam, an asylum seeker from Sudan, as she gazes at the English Channel. By the end of Not Welcome: The Battle to Stop the Boats (Channel 4), a humane but limited documentary following the stories of illegal migrants and the protesters who don’t want them here, Mariam has made it across – a perilous journey during which she feared she was going to die – and reached Shangri-la. Or, to give her new home its actual name, Middlesbrough.
Production company Keo Films was behind the award-winning Once Upon a Time in Iraq and Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland. Its latest film, which begins during Rishi Sunak’s premiership, attempts to take an even-handed look at the small boats crisis.
It introduces us to three asylum seekers: Mariam from Sudan, Mustafa from Syria and Azzar from Saudi Arabia. We also hear from Chloe, a young mum involved in a protest against housing asylum seekers in a hotel near her home in Llanelli; and Sarah, who is leading a campaign against the conversion of RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, the historic Dambusters base, into accommodation for up to 2,000 migrants.
Sudanesse asylum seeker Mariam calls it her ‘dream’ to reach Britain – Channel 4
All are given a sympathetic hearing. Sarah is alarmed that her community of just 700 residents will be bordered by what is “basically a modern version of a concentration camp”, with all the tensions and potential for violence that housing 2,000 men in a confined space will entail. Chloe thinks Llanelli is bad enough already – her estate is plagued by drug dealing and knife crime, and it is not safe for her children to go outside (she is only 24 but a mother of four) – without unvetted men moving into the neighbourhood.
The campaigners are shown to have some different motivations. Chloe was isolated and lonely before finding a sense of community with fellow protesters; she believes that immigrants are getting perks that British people have been denied. Sarah was thinking about the dangers of the migrant camp on a purely practical, rather than a political, level, although a postscript informs us that she is now going to stand as a Reform councillor. She is frustrated at the arrival of far-Right protesters who hurl abuse at anyone arriving on site, led by a racist (his own description) oddball.
The film-makers allow everyone to say their piece, rarely intervening to ask questions or push back. Having so many stories in one hour-long documentary means that we don’t delve deeply into any of them. We begin in Calais, waiting with Mustafa and Mariam as they make repeated attempts to cross the Channel either by boat or in the back of a lorry. Nobody hearing their stories could blame them for wanting to flee their war-torn home countries or to move on from the grim conditions in Calais. Finally, they leave France in overloaded dinghies; being intercepted by the British coastguard is cause for celebration, as they know that they will be escorted to shore.
Are the three people featured a representative sample? Besides anger about asylum seekers receiving accommodation and living expenses, British people’s main opposition to the arrival of undocumented migrants is the fear of violent crime. Yet here we have a woman, an 18-year-old man who talks sweetly about his parents back home, and a transgender man whose excellent English suggests a middle-class background and whom we last saw working happily in a pet shop. The stories are made palatable for a Channel 4 audience but don’t address root concerns.
All three are granted asylum. The producers should go back and film them in five or 10 years’ time to learn how their lives in Britain turn out. The same goes for Chloe, because once the threat of the asylum hotel has disappeared and the politicians have moved on, will anyone care to address the crime and deprivation she described?
Not Welcome: The Battle to Stop the Boats is on channel4.com