Fit for Purpose

Ten years on, the Modern Slavery Act is functioning much as one would expect of a landmark touted by Theresa May: namely as a major facilitator of the hostile environment for victims of modern slavery. Under Tumbledown Tessie's pet statute, trafficking victims are choosing not to accept the grudging pittance that British decency affords them for fear that British tolerance will deport them back into their traffickers' clutches. Nor do these qualms derive merely from primitive foreign instincts or a reluctance to accept that some cultures are better than others: between the beginning of 2020 and last autumn, two and a half thousand people were deported to Albania and Vietnam after being designated likely or definite victims of trafficking. Perhaps best of all in view of the current economic realignment, these are the kind of exports on which not even the Trumpster and his head-tribble would consider slapping a tariff.