Trade Unions Unite in Solidarity With Refugees

Fourteen trade unions have signed a joint statement, slamming government complicity in attacks on refugee hotels. The statement was coordinated by the Fire Brigades Union, and is signed by unions representing workers across the economy. It comes as far-right protesters target hotels accommodating refugees, with Hope Not Hate reporting that far-right protesters visited hotels housing asylum seekers 253 times last year, which is more than double the amount of similar incidents which were recorded in 2021.

Statement reads: “In recent weeks, we have seen an alarming rise in violence and intimidation organised by the far right against refugees and refugee accommodation. The government is complicit in these attacks. The Rwanda policy does not make sense as a means of stopping small boat crossings – and it is failing on its own terms – but it fits with a long-running campaign of rhetoric and demonisation.

Anti-migrant politics are an attempt to divide working class people against each other. In the past decade, the UK has suffered a crisis of living standards – with wages falling and public services left to rot. The people to blame for this are politicians, billionaires and big corporations, not migrant workers or refugees forced to live in temporary accommodation. The anti-refugee campaign offers no solutions to the real problems faced by the deprived communities they are often targeting. The answer is solidarity, not scapegoating. As trade unionists, we know whose side we are on when we see far right mobs attacking refugees and politicians playing the mood music. We send our solidarity to Care4Calais and all groups fighting for refugee rights, and we support the call for safe and legal routes into the UK. We call on workers and trade union members to show their solidarity and to mobilise against the far right.”

Source: Basit Mahmood, Left Foot Forward, https://rb.gy/9oovrn

?Rwanda Flights Put Back Until 2024

The first deportation flights taking asylum seekers to Rwanda may not happen until March 2024, according to the government’s own internal planning. The projections are based on advice provided to the Home Office by the Government Legal Service, which has suggested the “most likely” trajectory is the scheme will be tied up in the courts for more than a year. Even in the best-case scenario, in which the relocation policy is upheld as lawful in the Court of Appeal and there are no further legal challenges, government lawyers believe the flights will not begin until December 2023 at the earliest. It suggests that despite the £120 million agreement with Rwanda being signed in April 2022, the government faces an almost two-year delay before deportations begin.

Britannia Enchained: Policing Workers and Human Rights

As more and more people – nurses, transport workers and other key public sector workers whose jobs can’t be automated (yet) – rediscover the power of collective responses to plummeting real wages, among them many BME workers, hit hardest by the accelerating cost of living crisis, the government is again cracking down.

A string of employment rights, including maternity and holiday pay, will be jeopardised by the revision or removal of EU standards contained in roughly 4,000 incorporated regulations from UK law by the end of the year through the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill.

And in response to the waves of public sector strikes, the government’s rhetoric about protecting the public by ‘crackdowns’ on strikes has turned into action. in July, the maximum amount of damages payable by trades unions in consequence of unlawful strike action was quadrupled to £1 million for large unions (over 100,000 workers), and the ban on using agency workers to cover for striking workers was lifted. In October, the Transport Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill was introduced.

Read more: Frances Webber, IRR, https://rb.gy/f6jvoh

Britannia Enchained: Policing Racialised Communities

As abolitionist ideas spread through communities and movements at the sharp end of policing, the police state is already here in neighbourhoods housing Black and Muslim communities in particular – working-class or inner-city areas: massive and increasingly violent policing on the streets, with Violence Suppression Units working ‘microbeats’ where ‘gangs, drugs and violence have flourished’, according to the logic of spatialised racial profiling; the threat of police violence, perhaps lethal, out of nowhere or as a response to psychological crisis or a domestic row; over-criminalisation of cannabis possession, one of the reasons for the wildly disproportionate stop and searches; electronic surveillance through facial recognition, automated numberplate recognition, fingerprint scanners; police embedded in schools, metal detectors, strip-searches, hair, dress and extremism policing; social media surveillance profiling for gang or protest-related affiliation.

Read more: Frances Webber, IRR, https://rb.gy/mrforb

Britannia Enchained: Policing Protest, Education and Speech

In the government’s list of internal enemies or risks to public order and tranquillity, environmental and climate activists have for some time been up there with Black communities, Muslims, anti-racists and anti-fascists.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was bulldozed through to Royal Assent in April despite the Lords’ tenacity in repeatedly voting against interference with protest and assembly rights. The provisions the Lords managed to block – offences of locking on and going equipped for locking on, interference with transport and key national infrastructure, suspicionless stop and search in an area where a protest is taking place,[i] and serious disruption prevention orders (SDPOs) – were repackaged as the Public Order Bill, introduced in the Commons in May.

It passed its Commons stages in October with the addition of yet more offences, and ministerial powers to obtain injunctions with powers of arrest. A late amendment to the Bill, enabling police to abort a protest before it starts, was voted down by the House of Lords in February 2023.

Read more: Frances Webber, IRR, https://rb.gy/zrasa0

Continuing Conflicts That Create Refugees - March 2023

Improved Situations: None

Deteriorated Situations: Sri Lanka, Democratic Republic of Congo, Moldova, Tunisia, Togo, Somaliland , Burkina Faso, Israel/Palestine

Burkina Faso: Back-to-back jihadist attacks in Burkina Faso left scores of military personnel dead; similar large-scale attacks in the past contributed to the ouster of former Presidents Kaboré and Damiba.

Togo: Al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadists launched their deadliest attack in Togo to date, killing dozens of civilians and indicating that the group has durably implanted itself in the country’s north.

Israel-Palestine: Violence soared in the West Bank as Israeli forces conducted their deadliest raid in years, Israeli settlers rampaged the town of Hawara and Palestinians staged attacks, leaving dozens of Palestinians and seven Israelis dead.

Tunisia: President Saïed’s comments drawing links between migrants and criminality unleashed a wave of violence against sub-Saharan Africans, while authorities carried out the farthest-reaching arrest campaign in decades targeting opposition figures.

Sri Lanka: Tensions spiked after the government claimed a funding shortfall, forcing the election commission to indefinitely postpone local polls scheduled for March. Police cracked down on pro-election protests, killing an opposition politician.

Moldova/Russia: Relations between Moldova and Russia sharply deteriorated amid allegations of Russian plans to topple the pro-European government in Chi?in?u, Russia’s accusations of provocation in the breakaway region Transnistria and its violation of Moldova’s airspace.

Aside from the conflict situations we usually cover, we tracked notable developments in Benin and Indonesia.

Conflict Risk Alerts for March: Somaliland: Deadly clashes erupted between Somaliland forces and local militias in Las Anod, the administrative capital of the contested Sool region. Violence could escalate further if fighting spreads beyond Las Anod or draws in other actors.

CrisisWatch Global Conflict Tracker, a tool designed to help decision-makers prevent deadly violence by keeping them up-to-date with developments in over 70 conflicts and crises, identifying trends and alerting them to risks of escalation and opportunities to advance peace.

Source: International Crisis Group, https://rb.gy/uerrfx

Migrants on UK 10-Year Residency Route Struggle to Afford Food

More than half the people trying to secure permanent residency in the UK through the Home Office’s “devastating and punishing” 10-year route struggle to afford food and pay bills, a survey has indicated. The 10-year route to settling permanently in the UK was one of a series of deliberately tough measures introduced in 2012 by Theresa May when she was home secretary, as part of drive to cut net migration. Researchers say the full effects of the policy are only now starting to be felt.

A survey of more than 300 people currently or recently making this application process found that 62% struggled to meet the cost of electricity, heating, water and internet, and 57% struggled to buy food, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research study.

The route is available to people who have strong ties to the UK, such as having a British child, but who do not earn enough to qualify for faster settlement routes. The cost of settlement has risen dramatically, and fees now exceed £12,800 for each adult, over the course of the decade-long qualification period.

Read more: Amelia Gentleman, https://rb.gy/6qcnee

Britannia Enchained: Policing Migration & Britishness

Unlike the policing of racialised minorities, the war on migrants and asylum seekers has been at the centre of government rhetoric as well as policy, used as an emblem of post-Brexit sovereignty and a reminder of Britain’s imperial heritage.

When net migration statistics rose in the autumn, the government showed it was ‘taking back control’ by announcing a crackdown, this time on foreign students at ‘inadequate institutions’ and their dependants (the Mail obliged by showing how Nigerian students – a perennial bête noire for politicians and the media – brought more family members with them than anyone else). And after another year of insulting treatment for Windrush victims seeking compensation for a scandal ‘caused by 30 years of racist immigration laws’, the government is reportedly abandoning key commitments it made to reform the immigration system and give a voice to its victims.

Read more: Frances Webber, IRR, https://rb.gy/j9sg2h

Institute of Race Relations - Calendar of Racism and Resistance (14 – 28 February 2023)

Employment | Exploitation | Industrial Action
Asylum | Migration | Borders | Citizenship
Electoral Politics | Government Policy
Anti-Fascism And The Far Righ
Policing | Prisons | Criminal Justice System
Human Rights And Discrimination
Education
Housing | Poverty | Welfare

A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe.

Source: IRR, https://rb.gy/sqplxz