Immigration, asylum and anti-deportation

Border regime empowers abusers

New data has exposed how police continue to report domestic abuse survivors and victims to immigration enforcement. The government’s independent Domestic Abuse Commissioner (DAC) obtained figures showing that, between April 2020 and March 2023, police reported 537 victims and survivors to the Home Office after they came forward for help. The DAC shared the story of L, who sought help from the Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS) after three years of abusive treatment in and after ending a relationship. Her ex-partner was sending threats and stalking her. A LAWRS caseworker helped L...

All the Rage 2023: A socialist feminist dayschool

Internationally the right's culture war is gaining ground, attacking LGBTQ people, in particular the trans community, rallying against immigration, and restricting reproductive freedoms. Working class women are at the sharp end of this assault and at the forefront of fighting back. Join us at for a day of workshops and talks to discuss where we stand and build a movement that can turn the tide. 10am-6pm + after-party until late. Pelican House, 144 Cambridge Heath Road London E1 5QJ Free childcare & London crash space on request SESSIONS (click on links for session details): • Opening Plenary...

Asylum: Starmer panders to Tories

Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s xenophobic rhetoric and anti-refugee policies escalate. Braverman’s latest claim is that suffering from anti-gay or anti-women discrimination is no valid reason for seeking asylum. We urgently need firm political opposition, fighting for an alternative based on sanctuary, free movement and working-class solidarity. Instead, the Labour leadership continues to pander to the panic manufactured by the racist right. Starmer’s team repeatedly claims that the government has allowed migration to get out of control, and promise they would more competently...

Refugees under attack in Turkey

The three to four million Syrian refugees in Turkey face increasing racist attacks and exploitative bosses. More and more refugees have been dying while trying to cross to Greece, and many fear forced repatriation to Syria. In Turkey, a campaign on social media has offered bounties for maimed or killed Syrians, and there is a constant stream of videos of Syrians and Afghans being harassed and attacked in public. Last year a more consciously neo-Nazi group gained some attention, the Ataman Brotherhood (ATK). Their aesthetic borrows heavily from European and American neo-Nazi terrorist groups...

Protest against the barge

On Saturday 16 September 200 demonstrated against the Bibby Stockholm migrant barge in Portland, Dorset. The protest was called by the local “Portland Global Friendship Group” and Stand Up to Racism (SUTR) and was supported by people from across the South West and unions including Unite, Unison, PCS, NEU, and Dorset Trades Council. The rally and demonstration through Portland demanded scrapping the migrant barge and providing safe accommodation for migrants. The rally included speeches from local organisers and union members, officials from the South West TUC, Unite, Bridgwater TUC, Dorset...

Behind the Bibby Stockholm scandal

The government has botched the roll-out of its scheme to warehouse asylum seekers on cramped ships while they await decisions on their applications. But there is little to celebrate in the Tories’ incompetence. The Illegal Migration Act is now law. British and European border regimes have drowned yet more people attempting sea crossings. Despite significant public revulsion at the Conservative’s anti-migrant agenda, the Labour frontbench continues to endorse its basic principles, offering little better than more efficient implementation. Extra-parliamentary opposition remains on the back foot...

Labour must repeal anti-asylum laws

On 29 June, the Court of Appeal reversed a High Court decision and ruled against the government’s plan to deport refugees to Rwanda rather than let them apply for asylum in the UK. The government is already planning a Supreme Court appeal. It could also pursue the scheme with an alternative country. Or the government could finesse the issue by quitting the European Convention on Human Rights, as the Tory hard-right has long demanded. The battle for migrant rights remains an uphill one. The judges said there was a real risk Rwanda would send refugees with valid asylum claims back to their...

No more refugee shipwrecks! Open the borders!

With deaths of likely more than 600 refugees off the coast of Greece on 14 June, we are seeing the consequences of the policy that the Tories are introducing to the UK. The closing of almost all legal routes for refugees. The arrest of any refugee getting through and their incarceration in camps with conditions even worse than the worst prison. All of these are planned for by the UK government. They have now been in place for nearly seven years in Greece. The boat that sank 50 miles off the Greek coast, the Andrianna, had, by the testimony of survivors who heard them being being counted on...

No to detention ships and camps

The Conservatives’ torrent of anti-migrant measures continues, with the Illegal Migration Bill (IMB) progressing through Parliament. The IMB virtually abolishes the right to claim asylum, and other protections, for anyone arriving via small boats and other irregular routes. There are few safe, regularised options, so most refugees will be expelled, imprisoned, or permanently trapped on the margins of society, in destitution and at risk of deportation. Even expanded safe routes and humanitarian visas could never cover all the desperate situations in which people are forced to flee their homes...

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