A former footballer and pundit is calling out the anti-asylum policies being pushed through by descendants of immigrants – you couldn’t make this stuff up.

We have sections of the media now vilifying someone for defending the rights of asylum seekers, and instead siding with the descendants of immigrants who want to keep those fleeing war and persecution out.

I must have gone to sleep and awoke in some dystopian future where all the roles have been reversed.

Isn’t this what makes Britain great? We have people defending the rights of minorities no matter how much criticism is levelled at them. 

On Tuesday, Gary Lineker wrote on Twitter about a Home Office video in which Suella Braverman unveiled the Government’s plans to stop migrants crossing the Channel on small boats and said the UK is being “overwhelmed”.

The England legend wrote: “There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries.

“This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the ’30s.”

In response to his comparisons of the current Tory regime to Nazi Germany, Ms Braverman was said to be “very disappointed” by his comments.

But this isn’t the first time Lineker has spoken out these policies and I very much hope it won’t be the last.

Yes, of course his comparisons may be questioned, but his views on the subject can’t be discounted.

His comments came over Illegal Migration Bill, which is designed to stop people claiming asylum in the UK if they arrive through unauthorised means - ie. on small boats run by people smuggling criminal gangs.

The new Bill would allow migrants to be detained without bail or judicial review for 28 days, with the intention that they will be removed within that time.

It has drawn heavy criticism from human rights groups who say it is in breach of international laws on the rights of asylum seekers and that it would be completely unworkable.

So, why does this week's events and those of recent years seem troubling for those whose families came here as immigrants?

You will find some descendants of immigrants have an issue with descendants of other immigrants, who it appears have forgotten in fewer than 40 years what their own parents and grandparents went through.

How quickly we forget, when the trappings of a middle and upper-class lifestyle replaces the back streets and terraced streets where we grew up.

How quick we are to judge the ‘new arrivals’ when they wish only to work hard and make a life for themselves here.

The difference we are told is that we were invited here so that ‘makes us special’. These new immigrants are not like our parents, they are here 'illegally' only here to ‘play the system’.

Strangely enough that is exactly what the other immigrants got told for decades. It made no difference to the press and leading politicians at the time if our grandparents and parents were here legally or not.

Many were seen as ‘sponging off the state’ and were subject a whole list of institutionalised racism.

The fact is this. We are not special. We are not different.

You now have a growing number of people from a minority background who hold views that others may find extremely uncomfortable.

Here is the catch though. Suella Braverman can basically say she wants she wants on race and immigration because she is a descendent of an immigrant herself.

We will hear more of this rhetoric in the coming year as we head into an election.

It is a dream come true for anyone who wants to keep asylum and immigration on the front pages of the newspapers when most of the country can’t afford to pay their bills.

In a week when we had a messages detailing how we have been played for a bunch of mugs by the government during the Covid crisis, we have Asylum and immigration taking centre stage again.

Honestly, we can’t possibly fall for the another scam again can we?