Labour in race to the bottom over immigration

Ed Miliband says he wants to halt the “race to the bottom” in wages, jobs and employment rights. Fine sentiments, except that when it comes down to policies, Labour is in its very own race to the bottom over immigration.

On Friday, Nigel Farage, the leader of the nationalist-populist Ukip, blamed migrant workers from Eastern Europe for many of Britain’s woes. He ludicrously claimed that “Romanian crime gangs” were at the centre of a London crime wave. Farage demanded action to prevent the free movement of Romanian workers into Britain from January 1 under European Union rules.

Less than 48 hours later, Miliband and his immigrant spokesperson Chris Bryant were at it. Trailed in the media as a policy that offered “a Brit job for each foreign worker hired”, Miliband was quoted as saying: “Any firm that wants to bring in a foreign worker from outside the EU will also have to train up someone who is a local worker."

In a rambling interview with Andrew Marr, the Labour leader added: "I do want to get low skill immigration down and therefore overall immigration down, yes. In our first year in office we will legislate for an immigration bill which has secure control of our borders, cracks down on exploitation of workers coming here undercutting workers already here.” For good measure, Bryant in an article for the Huffington Post, warned about the dangers of a “growing reliance on overseas workers”.

All this is pandering to the most reactionary point of view, that workers’ wages have been driven down by cheap labour from other countries. This is nationalism pure and simple, looking for a scapegoat when the causes are to be found in the economic system itself.

Miliband – first generation British, by the way from a family that fled Nazi persecution – implies that if low skilled workers are blocked off, wages would rise in proportion. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. How, for example, does Labour explain that in earlier periods of mass immigration to Britain, in the 1950s and 60s, wages did not fall and unemployment was relatively low?

The movement of workers is an expression of the globalisation of the capitalist economy that has happened largely at the expense of wages, conditions and jobs in every country, including the United States. Here, average weekly earnings are still 14% below their peak achieved in 1972, having fallen 40 years in a row.

In Britain, as the power of globalised capital to dictate to governments and trade unions grew, so the share of wealth going to workers actually fell. The wage share of annual national income (GDP) reached a high of 64.5% in 1975, falling to a record post-war low of 51.7% in 1996 and was 53.2% in 2008 – close to where it was more than a decade before

As the 2009 TUC report Unfair to Middling explained: “The declining wage share has been driven by the introduction of flexible labour markets since the 1980s (with the paring back of employment protection rules); economic liberalisation (including privatisation); the increasing constraints on collective bargaining; a reduction in the demand for unskilled labour resulting from technical change; and the global transfer of jobs triggered by globalisation.”

And in another report, The Great Wages Grab, the TUC found that by 2010 the average full time person in work would be paid £7,000 more than they actually were if wages had kept up with economic growth and “if the best paid had not increased their wages at the expense of everyone else”.

And this was after 13 years of New Labour governments!

Miliband’s shameful race to the bottom over race and immigration is already suffering internal contradictions. The original policy of getting employers to offer an apprenticeship to a local person for every “foreign worker” hired has fallen foul of the requirement to make jobs available to workers from all European Union member states.

With living standards for most falling away rapidly – a situation certain to worsen when fuel and transport costs rise sharply in the next few months – Miliband and Labour are looking for anyone but capitalism to blame. One Nation Labour is as reactionary as its new name would suggest.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

   

Miliband joins race to the bottom after Eastleigh

Earlier in the week,  the key message from the Italian elections was that support for traditional politics was in free-fall. Yesterday, the point was reinforced in the Hampshire town of Eastleigh where the by-election result is likely to kick-start a political crisis at Westminster.

Although the Lib Dems held on to the seat – despite its former MP Chris Huhne awaiting a probable jail sentence and sex allegations surrounding former party chief executive Lord Rennard – the junior partner in the Coalition government lost 14% of its vote.

With the Tories coming third and Labour a distant fourth, the only winner was Ukip – the party of Little Englanders and populist reactionaries. They picked up votes from the right-wing of the other two front-runners and but for entrenched Lib Dem organisation on the ground, would have captured the seat.

Ukip ran with on an anti-EU bureaucracy and anti-immigration platform – hardly issues that affect most people in this relatively wealthy town in southern England. But their appeal also reached out to those whose disgust at Westminster politics has built over the last decades.

Voters like that are to be found in all social classes who, for a variety of reasons, feel betrayed, abandoned or simply used by the major parties at election time. That’s why no party was able to secure enthusiastic let alone overwhelming support at the 2010 general election.

Come 2015, the scheduled date of the next election, neither the Tories, Lib Dems nor Labour will find the position has improved. In fact, Ukip is capable of taking votes off all of them and another hung parliament seems the outcome. Viewing Ukip’s performance as a one-off protest vote would be a mistake.

We should not underestimate the crisis surrounding the leadership of David Cameron following the Eastleigh result. His project to remake the Tory party in a modern image lies in ruins. As Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, noted after the result: “The Conservatives failed here because traditional Tory voters look at Cameron and they ask themselves ‘Is he a Conservative?’ and they conclude ‘No, he’s not’. He’s talking about gay marriage, wind turbines, unlimited immigration from India. He wants Turkey to join the European Union. The Conservatives’ problems are not because of Ukip, it’s because of their leader.”

A coup against Cameron is entirely possible, replacing him with a figure from the right of the party. This would almost certainly lead to a swift end to the Coalition with the Lib Dems and precipitate an early election, at which the Tories could well get hammered. With Britain losing its AAA credit rating, a political crisis of this magnitude would shake the markets. Just look at Italy’s perilous position since the election.

Which leaves with Ed Miliband’s party, New Labour Mark II, the champions of responsible capitalism, and whose policies are barely distinguishable from those of the government parties. The lesson Labour is apparently drawing is that – wait for it – they have to appear tougher on immigration than they have done thus far.

So come next Wednesday, Miliband is to devote an entire party political broadcast to address “voters’ concerns” on immigration (which, by the way, is falling rapidly). He will tell them that Labour should have done more to address the issue when in office for 13 years.

Making this a key issue when austerity driven by the crisis of global capitalism is wrecking people’s lives is entirely reactionary. This is Labour’s appeal to backwardness, narrow nationalism and prejudiced voters who hold immigrants and foreigners responsible for every problem.

Ukip is leading a race to the bottom in British politics and Labour is desperately trying to get in amongst the front-runners. It makes you want to throw up.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Ukip leads the race to the bottom of politics

The apparent rise in support for the right-wing, populist Ukip in the polls is further evidence of the break-up of traditional party alignments which we saw at the 2010 general election and the break-down of Westminster parliamentary politics.

Once written off by David Cameron as a party of “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists”, Ukip is a clear and present danger not just to the Tories but to Labour as well, as Ed Miliband’s party might discover in the Rotherham by-election later this week.

The couple at the centre of the fostering row in Rotherham, where children were removed from their home because they are members of Ukip, were previously Labour voters.

The background to the by-election might help to explain their defection. In this former heavy industry town, unemployment at 10% is far higher than the national average. While the total has been falling, in Rotherham it has actually increased in the last year. During this period, youth unemployment has tripled.

Then there is the town’s council, which Labour has controlled since the metropolitan borough was first created in 1973. A record of bureaucratic incompetence, combined with the implementation of Tory cuts, has eaten away at Labour’s image in Rotherham, leaving it something of a rotten borough.

It wasn’t helped by the sense that Labour – and the notorious South Yorkshire police force of Hillsborough and Orgreave infamy – did little to tackle rampant sexual exploitation of young girls in Rotherham.

Add to this the woeful story of Denis MacShane, whose resignation triggered the by-election, and you can see why Ukip is making hay in the town. The Labour MP was forced to quit parliament after falsifying a number of expenses claims.  

Into this political morass steps Ukip, hard on the heels of extreme right-wing and neo-fascist thugs who have descended on the town twice in recent months. They feed on the contempt many people have for parliament, which MacShane’s activities only helped to reinforce.

In an economic and political crisis like we have today, the search for scapegoats is always a priority. For Ukip it is the European Union (although Ukip is content to rake in the salaries and expenses from its 12 MEPs), immigrant workers from Eastern Europe who allegedly take the jobs destined for British workers at lower wages and the “political elite” who champion such mad ideas as “climate targets”, leading to higher energy prices. So says Ukip leader Nigel Farage, given space in the Daily Telegraph to launch his very British brand of simplistic, reactionary populism.

And he has Cameron and Labour leader Ed Miliband trying to play catch up, especially on Europe. Both parties are edging towards a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union, although they know it would make not one jot of difference to economic prospects.

Miliband is toughening up Labour’s policy on immigration, welfare benefits, crime and just about everything else in a bid to prevent Ukip from winning over disillusioned supporters like the couple in Rotherham.

It’s a race to the bottom of politics, with Ukip leading the field. It could also conceivably result in the ousting of Cameron in favour of a more right-wing Tory. Certainly, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail would support that if it helped Tory prospects at the next election which are looking bleak.

Scapegoating minorities, immigrant workers or “Europe” itself expresses the bankruptcy of the major parties who have opened the door to Ukip. More than that, the rise of Ukip is a backlash against a political system that ostensibly favours the rich and the powerful.

These are indeed dangerous, unstable, turbulent times. The right-wing historically has played on prejudice to shut down enfeebled democracies. Our response should be to develop strategies and proposals to extend democracy in new ways that transfers economic and political power to the people, away from the bureaucracies, the corporations and the banks.

In other words, our fight for democracy also has to be the struggle against capitalism as a defective, unsustainable social system. Anything less will serve to reinforce parties like Ukip.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Miliband plays the race card

The euro is heading for collapse, major banks were downgraded overnight, the global economy is plunging into depression and Ed Miliband chooses this very moment to play the reactionary race card.

Pandering to prejudice, the right-wing press and voters looking for scapegoats for social problems is what Labour leader Miliband is doing today, however much he dresses it up as a “policy rethink”.

In his Guardian interview, Miliband claims that workers from countries like Poland have driven down wages while denying British citizens jobs. Of course, he produces no evidence whatsoever to substantiate this.

Britain was one of three countries that allowed workers from new European Union member states to enter the country without restrictions after May 2004. But research in 2008 concluded: “Despite anecdotal evidence, we found little hard evidence that the inflow of accession migrants contributed to a fall in wages or a rise in claimant unemployment in the UK between 2004 and 2006.”

But Miliband is basing his new hard-line on the very same “anecdotal evidence”, including the amazing statement that people “in every kitchen” up and down the country are discussing what to do about immigration. 

And no doubt Miliband was inspired by recent findings from the right-wing Policy Exchange think-tank that a harder line on immigration would help Labour win back swing voters, as well as the views of Jon Cruddas, his new policy adviser.

By referring to sectors of the economy “where there is a problem”, Miliband immediately drags the issue of the numbers of migrant workers into the limelight. But having raised the hopes of racists that the numbers could be reduced somehow, Miliband only proposes that new vacancies should be notified to Jobcentre Plus!

Saying he will review immigrants access to benefits – all the statistics show EU workers claim less than the average UK citizen – and routes to local social housing is something you would expect from the right of the Tory Party. In his rush to reject New Labour’s relative open door policy, Miliband has found himself in the company of UKIP and other nationalist outfits.

His late Marxist father Ralph (a refugee from Nazi persecution) will no doubt be turning in his grave to hear son Ed argue that immigration should be seen as a “class issue” because “evidence” showed lower-paid workers and the unskilled suffer from cheap East European labour.

A genuine class-based approach would, however, be to insist that there is a divide and rule strategy to hand and that workers have to find ways to stick together against a common enemy or face joint immiseration.

Instead, Miliband said he was entering the debate on immigration in the context of his call for a more “responsible capitalism”. He wants the employers to pay better wages and treat everyone more fairly and end the “nasty, brutish and short-term” nature of the labour market.

That’s really going to happen!

Corporate-driven globalisation, which the New Labour governments endorsed 100%, benefited big business and the banks at the expense of working conditions and wages. Now that the global economy is in its worst-ever crisis, many people regard the system of capitalism as the problem and not the solution.

At this point, Miliband steps in to deflect people’s attention away from the incompetent ruling elites, the bloated bankers and the corporations whose obsession with profit has produced a catastrophe.

The present Labour leader, like those before him, is just what the system needs at this point. Instead of confronting those responsible for low wages, unemployment, poor housing and run-down services, let’s just fight amongst ourselves for the scraps. Miliband confirms that there is no point in Labour, none whatsoever.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

Revealed: the secret debate rules

There were apparently about 80 rules agreed between the major parties about how last night’s TV debate should be conducted. We can reveal some of the rules for the first time – and they go a long to explaining why those viewers who didn’t switch channels had to endure what they did.

1. All the leaders will be pompous white males in shiny suits with ludicrous ties that relate to their party’s colours.
2. All the questions will be so anodyne that they wouldn’t frighten a pussycat.
3. The Big Three will decline to inform viewers about the scale of the cuts in public spending they would make if in government.
4. All three leaders will pledge to protect front-line services, while knowing that the budget deficit makes this impossible.
5. Each leader will have a go at immigration levels, trying to steal votes from those thinking about voting for the neo-fascist BNP.
6. No one will mention the word capitalism or criticise the system in any way that links it to the economic and financial crisis.
7. No one will acknowledge that that the British state’s debts are larger in proportion to gross domestic product than Greece’s.
8. Tory leader David (call me Dave) Cameron will talk about creating a “Bigger Society” when he actually wanted to say a “Big Society”.
9. He will bang on about “efficiency savings” when he means cuts.
10. New Labour leader Gordon Brown will speak like a programmed robot and wear a stupid grin from time to time.
11. He will hector Cameron and viewers whenever he gets the chance.
12. Brown will accept no responsibility for anything New Labour has done in 13 years in office.
13. Cameron will sometimes look bewildered, wondering what he was doing in Manchester for the debate and thinking about the playing fields of Eton.
14. Cameron will talk about “change” in such a vague way that he could be talking about what you get back after going to the local shop.
15. Nick Clegg will boast that his party is different from the two “old parties” because it is new.
16. Clegg will omit to say that the Lib Dems come out of the Liberal Party, which was one of the two major British parties from the mid-19^th century until the rise of the Labour Party in the 1920s.
17. He will also refer to the number of admirals there are relative to each warship (as if anyone cared) and the cost of a new police car.
18. From time to time, the three leaders will agree with each other totally to show that when it comes down to it, there’s not much between them on policies.
19. None will give a hint that behind the scenes they are secretly negotiating the terms of a coalition/national government that could well prove necessary after May 6.
20. At the end of the 90 minutes (thank goodness there’s no rule about playing extra time), all three will shake hands.
21. Cameron and Clegg will wander off the platform together, while Brown approaches frightened members of the audience.

For the masochists amongst you, there are two more of these events to come before polling day. Now you can see that our policy of hanging on to your votes is the only one guaranteed to keep you sane.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

A future unfair for most

Once upon a time in the 18^th century, a Frenchman wrote “the style is the man”. Studying New Labour’s election manifesto published yesterday, it is wise to keep this in mind.

The garish-kitsch-retro design of the manifesto cover is a ham-fisted attempt to refer backwards to Old Labour with lashings of Stalinist Socialist Realism. The “vision” it presents is of a white family looking out over green fields towards a radiant sun emblazoned with the words “a future fair for all” (whatever that means).

From where most of us live in large or small cities and towns, this is not a Britain we would recognise, except when we might be on holiday. Likewise the bizarre fake cornfield projected behind Gordon Brown at the launch – has Britain suddenly turned into a rural idyll?

The appeal is directly to the middle classes, as confirmed by Brown: “We are the party of everybody of middle income and modest incomes in this country. We are the party appealing to middle class voters in every constituency.”

New Labour’s hope is that it can keep the real issues and its real plans in the shadows. Behind all the tinsel and promises of crumbs, the real strategy is “to encourage a culture of long-term commitment to company growth”. There is not an instant’s reflection on what has taken place since 2007, when the financial meltdown got under way.

New Labour’s corporate-friendly “high growth” policy of the last 13 years will continue if it is re-elected – as if there has been no evidence that the financial and economic crash was the direct result of giving free sway to the interests of the banks and global corporate capitalism.

That’s why Lord Mandelson said that “the spirit of Tony Blair smiles down on New Labour today” and described the manifesto as “Blair plus”. Helping the corporations to maintain their growth and profits will remain at the heart of New Labour, however great the suffering this will wreak on all but the super-rich.

New Labour intends to recover the staggering £900 billion national debt by huge cuts in public spending, including £20 billion-worth in the National Health Service and attacks on public sector pensions – punishing the very people who keep the country going – fire-fighters, NHS and council workers.

The manifesto boasts: “We will take a tough stance on public-sector pay, saving over £3 billion by capping public-sector pay rises at one per cent in 2011-12 and 2012-13. We have agreed tough reforms to public-sector pensions.”

Meanwhile, immigrant workers, young people and “problem families” are effectively blamed for social problems and crime. The manifesto proudly announces its primitive attitude: more punishment and medieval-style “shaming”: “We will ensure a total of 96,000 prison places by 2014. More EU and other foreign prisoners will be transferred abroad….For offenders not sentenced to prison we have brought in tough new ‘Community Payback’: hard work in public, wearing orange jackets.”

The database surveillance state will be breathing down our necks and prying into our lives. CCTV, DNA profiling and databases, biometric ID schemes (i.e. passports) will be “offered” at high prices. DNA data will be kept for six years for “serious” offenders.

A vision? New ideas? Quite the opposite. The manifesto is a tawdry and shameful attempt is to hoodwink the middle classes and whip up anti-immigration sentiments. Meanwhile, the need to pour money into the black hole of debt to pay for the banking bail-outs will consign lower-paid and public sector workers, the poor, the young, the disabled and pensioners to an impoverished and insecure fate.

And yet, you still meet people who tell us that you have to vote New Labour to keep the Tories out. Surely they are just joking?

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary

Don't let New Labour divide and rule

If you can’t beat them, you can always imitate them. That was the message yesterday from prime minister Gordon Brown when he returned to his “British Jobs for British workers” theme in a speech on immigration.

New Labour is clearly intending to oppose the neo-fascist British National Party by stealing some of their rhetoric and policies. That’s the only explanation for Brown’s “get tough” speech on immigration– his first on the subject since becoming prime minister – and home secretary Alan Johnson’s “admission” that the government has “got it wrong” on the issue.

Not that New Labour has been soft on asylum seekers, refugees and people wanting to work in Britain. Since 1997 there have been no fewer than seven major pieces of legislation that one way or another target immigrants, legal or otherwise.

Only last month the government implemented significant cuts to the amount of money it currently gives to asylum seekers awaiting a decision on their claim. Rates were set at 70% of income support. But from October 5, single destitute asylum seekers over 25, received even less, with rates falling from £42.16 to £35.13 per week. Asylum seekers are not allowed to work, so are restricted to the amount set by the government.

Yesterday Brown announced that more than 250,000 skilled engineering, care and catering jobs are to be closed to non-European overseas workers next year and that local vacancies should as far as possible go to local recruits. Foreign students will also find it tougher to get into Britain.

A draft immigration bill published after Brown’s speech included proposals to replace the deportation process with a general power to expel failed asylum seekers and illegal migrants. Families who have been told to leave but who are unable to be returned will have cash welfare payments replaced with a plastic pre-paid card while others will lose benefits altogether.

Refuge and Migrant Justice said that buried in the bill was provision to give ministers the power to overrule bail decisions made by judges in immigration and asylum cases.

Donna Covey, Chief Executive of the Refugee Council and Chair of the Asylum Support Partnership said: “We are appalled that the government has moved to cut support to asylum seekers, who are some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Of course, these are hard times for everybody and no-one should receive preferential treatment, but we must remember that many of these people have experienced torture, persecution, war and human rights abuses and most live in already deeply impoverished circumstances.”

Unlike bankers, asylum seekers and refugees have no clout and are easy targets for unscrupulous politicians who are queuing up to play the race card during the run-up to the general election. The money the state will save is miniscule compared to the vast sums spent on bail-outs. Cynically, New Labour is playing to the right-wing press and trying to win voters away from the BNP by showing it can “get tough” on the most vulnerable. This is nothing but scapegoating in search of votes.

Meanwhile, thousands of people continue to lose their jobs in the banking sector while BT is axing 15,000 from its payroll. The merger between British Airways and Iberia will undoubtedly lead to a jobs massacre. Millions have been forced into part-time working or taken pay cuts to avoid joining the dole queue. None of this is to do with immigration and everything to do with the global crisis of capitalism. The old trick of divide and rule is being used by New Labour to divert attention away from our common enemy – the bankers and corporations who between them have produced the greatest economic disaster in history.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

Demand the release of Hicham Yezza!

Hicham Yezza’s real “crime” was to help a student with his research into Al Qaeda and then to campaign against his arbitrary arrest and detention by the police, called in by his employers, Nottingham University. A nine-month jail sentence he is now serving for immigration “irregularities” is nothing less than the state’s revenge for failing to sustain the original ludicrous terrorism arrest.

Hicham was arrested and held last May for a period of six days, alongside student Rizwaan Sabir. Hicham had downloaded an Al Qaeda training manual from the US government's website. It was material for Sabir's MA dissertation, which didn’t prevent university authorities assuming the worst and calling in the police.


Sabir’s home was raided and he was deeply distressed by events. In the end, no charges could be made and the pair were released. But with egg all over their faces, the police tried to justify their actions and held Hicham, an Algerian national, on immigration charges pending fast-track deportation. This failed following a strong campaign and legal challenges and Hicham, who edits the magazine Ceasefire, spoke out at conferences about the attacks on human rights in Britain.

Not giving up, immigration authorities then charged Hicham with "securing avoidance of enforcement action by deceptive means". This, don’t forget, was someone employed by the university, a PhD student and a well-known figure on campus. As his lawyer Caroline Bradley, said: "He did not in any way try to hide his identity and, if he had done things properly, he would have been granted in all likelihood the right to stay in this country." Although we are talking technicalities here, the judge threw the book at Hicham and he is now in prison.

Hicham’s jailing expresses not only how the spurious “war on terror” sweeps up innocent victims on a daily basis – Binyam Mohamed’s “rendition” and torture is just one example – but how this dovetails with New Labour’s racist and inhuman immigration/deportation policies. These are deployed to court the support of right-wing newspapers like the Daily Mail and Daily Express – and to provide business for the private sector.

Since 1993 there has been a 10-fold increase in detention centre places. From a total of 10 immigration detention centres in the UK, seven are managed by private firms. They are beset with welfare problems, social unrest and high rates of suicide. Plans for an 800-place centre near Bullingdon prison in Oxfordshire will make it the largest detention centre of its kind in Europe.

Every year, 2,000 children are detained in contravention of commitments made in Parliament. In a recent case, a court was told that a one-year-old baby and an eight-year-old child from the Democratic Republic of Congo were deeply traumatised after immigration officers twice raided their West Midlands home. They were taken to Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire and held for 57 days. Two months later, the family home was raided for a second time leading to a further three-day unlawful detention at the same centre. The court awarded the former detainees £150,000 in damages.

With even Tory Mayor of London Boris Johnson calling for an "earned" amnesty for migrants without papers – up to 75% of the estimated 725,000 total live in the capital – New Labour’s cynical use of the immigration card is even more despicable. As unemployment mounts and the far-right BNP challenges New Labour for votes, the press hysteria is bound to intensify. That’s why A World to Win demands the release of Hicham Yezza, who is a political prisoner, and supports the employment and human rights of ALL workers in Britain, with or without papers.

You can write to Hicham at:
Hicham Yezza XP266 06.12.1977
Woodhill
Tattenhoe Street
Milton Keynes
Buckinghamshire
MK4 4DA

Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor

Unions should act on asylum rights

The sinister underside of New Labour’s racist, dehumanising immigration policy came to light at a trade union and community conference over the weekend. It is a Kafkaesque world of state-organised disappearances, unlimited detention, rapid expulsions, exploitation and destitution designed to divide communties and win cheap votes at election time.

Real life experiences related to the conference make a mockery of the claim by New Labour’s Border and Immigration Agency chief Lin Homer last week that: "We operate a firm but humane system, supporting those who are vulnerable with accommodation and assistance.” She was responding to the publication of a year-long investigation by the Independent Asylum Commission , led by an ex-senior judge, John Waite which said that “treatment of some asylum seekers was a shameful blemish on the UK’s international reputation”.

Speakers at Saturday’s conference included a representative from the All African Women’s Group based at Crossroads Women’s Centre, and asylum seekers Robinson Baldeon and Alphonsus Okafor-Mefor. They and others from around the country painted a grim picture which backed up the detailed research published by the Asylum Commission, but also documented how asylum seekers are courageously organising, inside and outside detention centres, to defend their rights.

John McDonnell MP, whose constituency includes the Harmondsworth and Colnbrook detention centres, revealed some of the most grotesque aspects of government policy. He believes that more than 800 people are currently being held at these two locations alone, although no one knows the exact figures. Some migrant workers are being picked up by immigration authorities and police and handcuffed while signing on at Job Centres. Some are even taking suitcases with them when they go to sign on in fear of arrest and deportation.

McDonnell denounced the sinister tactics adopted by the immigration authorities, which meant that those he and other MPs were trying to help often simply disappeared off the radar: “Often the only appeals which the authorities recognise at all are from MPs, but people are being shifted around the country. It is extremely difficult to find where they have been taken and MPs like myself are often told that the asylum seeker is no longer in their constituency, so that they cannot represent them.” There was an entire separate population sleeping rough, some in churches, some on friend’s floors or in the open, and a policy of brutality to young people who can now also be deported before they reach the age of 18, McDonnell said. He called on the trade unions to recruit asylum seekers and mount a national campaign on their behalf.

Alphonsus Okafor-Mefor showed the reality of the statistic that four out of every ten asylum seekers are destitute. Thanks to his own determination and community support, Alphonsus managed to receive “leave to remain”, but he said that the life of an asylum seeker was a “life of despair and hopelessness, with no right to work, medical care, good accommodation or education”. The experience of detention debased humanity, he said. “I am one of thousands who don’t have the chance to speak out.”

Robinson Baldeon, a refugee from Ecuador, said that as an “illegal” worker “it is a crime to go sick”. The 90,000 Ecuadorians who live in the UK are “invisible”, he added. Another speaker said that a woman had been held for four days in a police cell near Victoria station, without legal representation, money, adequate food, or chance to shower before being secretly deported. Under the new “fast-track” system, Britain is reportedly deporting one asylum seeker every eight minutes.

And it is not only the government which is denying basic rights to immigrant workers. Chinese workers in central London, who recently held a demonstration against dawn raids, want to hold a rally in Trafalgar Square. Jabez Lam from Chinese Immigration Concern Committee (CICC) said that Greater London Authority officials had told him that it was only possible to hold a rally in the square if there was a “special reason” and if the organisers took out a public liabilities insurance policy of £80,000.

Corinna Lotz
Secretary, A World to Win