The rallying cry of the Brexit referendum, “take back control,” will likely be remembered as one of the most effective political slogans in history. It was an emotive refrain, vague enough to allow very different groups to project their visions for a post-Brexit world onto the Leave campaign. For some, “take back control” was a simple demand that the British state control its borders. For others, it meant constraining the power of centralized bureaucracies — whether in Brussels or Westminster. As the referendum was enacted, the phrase came to encompass a number of policy areas: from the fisheries, where Leave voters were promised the U.K. would reassert its dominion over British waters, to the farms, which were promised greater independence, to the factories, where workers were promised the U.K. would no longer be forced to abide by restrictive E.U. rules governing state support for businesses. 

The appeal of the catchphrase was rooted in a specific sort of powerlessness: the Leave campaign succeeded because it encouraged voters to identify their own political agency with that of the British state. If people felt powerless, it was because their state was being rendered powerless in the face of alien encroachment — both by E.U. bureaucrats and by “illegal immigrants.” Rage was sublimated into a desire for a strong, domineering government.

After the Brexit vote, Britain’s reigning Conservative Party became steadily more authoritarian, clamping down on protests and instigating culture wars whenever possible. The party not only looked weak thanks to defections and infighting, but — as the number of people attempting to cross the English Channel in small boats has increased — it also failed to “take back control” of U.K. borders. 

Perhaps this is why Rishi Sunak and the Tories concocted a new immigrant deterrence scheme: in April, the government began detaining asylum seekers and slating them to be sent to Rwanda, regardless of their point of origin. Earlier versions of this deterrence strategy, which Labour politicians called “an expensive gimmick,” were struck down by U.K. and European courts. 

Yet Parliament barrelled forward, passing legislation to designate Rwanda safe for deportations. Rwanda’s neighbor, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is mired in a conflict that has already wreaked horrendous devastation, leaving more than 25 million people in need of humanitarian aid. The United Nations, the U.S., and the D.R.C. have all accused the Rwandan government of inflaming the violence by supporting Congolese rebel groups. The U.K. has already sent Rwanda hundreds of millions of pounds in economic development aid and is promising hundreds of millions more for asylee resettlement. This is what “taking back control” looked like, according to the Conservative Party: rounding up human beings, forcing them onto planes bound for a foreign nation, and sending cash to that nation’s autocratic government to pay for it all. 

The Rwanda policy did not, of course, deter migrants from attempting to enter the U.K. Asylum seekers move because they are forced to move — often as a result of geopolitical strife, environmental breakdown, or economic crises caused by the nations where they seek refuge. Nor did the policy satisfy the demand to “take back control.” The only way to take back control in a capitalist society is to democratize it: picture workers taking control of workplaces, citizens taking control of public services, or communities taking control of local budgets. After the Labour Party swept into power in July, Keir Starmer binned the policy on his first day as prime minister. In a twist of fate, the Tories’ failure to control the borders — an aim no state could, or should, achieve on its own — may well have been their undoing.