Description
In response to the ongoing crossings of the English Channel by migrants and refugees in small boats and dinghies, the UK government introduced its ‘Stop the Boats’ initiative in March 2023. This call to ‘stop the boats’ has henceforth been adopted as a new refrain in British government and media discourses on the so-called ‘Channel migrant crisis’. Notably, the UK government has drawn inspiration from Australian legislation and narratives relating to the policing of small boat arrivals in the preceding decade which also centred around the slogan ‘stop the boats’.
This paper conducts a comparative examination of the UK and Australian discourses and policing measures in the context of their respective ‘stop the boats’ campaigns. This discussion will allow for an in-depth analysis of the racialised production of the ‘migrant boat’ as a perceived threat warranting stringent and violent policing. In doing so, the paper responds to a gap in the literature on the abstract and purportedly ‘menacing’ figure of the migrant boat in current debates around border and migration security.
