Not up for debate

This weekend I should be speaking at a literary festival, but I decided not to go. There were a few reasons for this, but chief among them was the format. The organisers had pitted me against a right-wing commentator, with me presumably the spokesperson for the left, in a head-to-head debate.

The fault was entirely my own. I should never have agreed to it in the first place. The topic was race relations in Britain and while my book nods to incidents of racism among those I spoke to, I was always uncomfortable about being a white western woman sitting on a stage talking about something I’m fortunate to have never experienced myself. I queried it at the time but was reassured the questions would be specific to my book.

I went ahead, prepared to caveat my comments and to draw answers back to the human stories in my book. Then a friend messaged me out of the blue. Did I know, he wondered, that the person I was up against had written columns for the Daily Mail on immigration issues? That they would likely set up ‘wokerati traps’? Was I ready for this crap?

I should, of course, have done my research before I agreed to it. But in my defence, I was heavily-pregnant and focused on getting the manuscript finalised and other projects wrapped up by the time the baby arrived. Then she was here and I haven't had a moment to stop and think and I definitely haven't had time to read columns in the Mail. Not that I ever would, baby or not.

I thought long and hard about pulling out. Logistics were complicated anyway: I'd have to drag a newborn baby across the country, sort out feeds and naps and haul a load of tiny person paraphernalia with me. And I have had some more targeted attacks from far-right actors recently, presumably because the book is about to be published. It all sounded and felt like a lot.

Those weren't the main reasons, though. Fundamentally, I don't want to be a commentator on this issue. I've been asked countless times to come on TV shows, live radio, event panels and argue in favour of immigration, but I have absolutely no inclination to answer the same inane questions over and over again. Immigration: good or bad for the country? It's obvious what I think, but it's not what matters. My job is to report what I see and to put the voices of those at the sharp end of the government’s failings front and centre, or at least that's how I see it.

Some people view that as a bit of a cop-out. But surely you have an opinion, they'll press. Yes, I do, but I'm a journalist and not an activist. There are plenty of brilliant pundits who do a great job of taking on the right. My role is to gather evidence and speak to as wide a range of people as I can, then form opinions. I don't go on what I read or what other people tell me; I go on my own research, speaking to sources first-hand. Debate isn't my strong suit, and neither is it my job. Reporting is.

I wrote the book because I wanted to move outside the echo chamber I had found myself in. Over the years, friends and colleagues have suggested I should write for the tabloids - maybe the Mail? - or go on radio talk shows and answer caller’s questions about why they can't get a doctor's appointment or a place for their kid at the local school or why immigrants are being given housing when our veterans are sleeping rough. My response to the idea of writing for a tabloid is that, much as I want to reach different audiences, and understand the importance of stating the facts to counteract the alternative narrative, that sounds like a really, really shit way to spend my time.

I don't want to write or go live on air or sit on a stage and argue the same tired arguments. Nobody ever wins. After an hour of tit-for-tat, there's just division and headshakes and tutting and further ridicule. People have their views on this issue and the more you lock horns, the more entrenched they tend to become. Most spokespeople are dismissed as snowflakes, idealists, lefties, with no grounding in reality, no idea what people up and down the country are facing. There is nothing to gain from using up my already depleted energy resources trying to convince someone otherwise. So I withdrew from the event and never have I been more relieved. That, to me, was a bullet dodged.