The Spectacular Politics of the United Kingdom’s “Small Boats Crisis”

Abstract

The article examines the performance of crisis in the UK Government’s push toward the Illegal Migration Act 2023. It considers political operations underpinning this campaign as “crisis work,” drawing attention to the staging of dangerous, harmful, and tragic subjects in a panoramic space of spectacular visibility. I develop this perspective based on a review of programmatic speeches, parliamentary debate, and the coverage of UK newspapers with emphasis on a single moment: March 2023. The article grapples with the spectacular politics of crisis, whose effects are underexplored in literatures that consider migration crisis primarily for corresponding emergency measures, processes of securitization, or conjunctural openings. The spectacle of crisis requires attention for the layers of social visibility it produces and for its role in the symbolic consolidation of immigration policy.