By Millie Collins
Over the past several weeks Labour’s messaging has been clear: do not take our election slogan ‘change’ too seriously. Nowhere is this truer than on immigration.
Deportation
While they have revoked the Tories’ Rwanda programme, all those who were to be deported there will now be returned to their home country. Instead of targeting the small boats the rhetoric has now changed to ‘smashing criminal gangs’, the illegal people smugglers who provide passage to the UK. Scandalously the motive remains the same – remove as many asylum seekers as fast as possible.
A new ‘Border Security Command’ has been created. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper recently said the force is ‘already gearing up’ to ‘establish a system that is better controlled and managed’ signalling a return to a more conventional style of cruelty.
Cooper also announced several measures aimed at combating ‘illegal’ immigration and improving border security. She has pledged to return to 2018 levels of deportations, meaning an additional 7,000 forced removals this year.
While waiting for an asylum claim to be processed, asylum seekers are deprived of basic rights. Unable to work, they have to rely on the state’s miserly £49.13 per household member a week.
Detention
If you’re not one of the few lucky enough to be housed in hotels barely fit for human habitation, you are detained at one of several of the UK’s ‘detention estates’, the biggest being near Gatwick. Britain is the only country in Europe with no limit on how long someone can be detained.
Cooper has promised to close the notorious Bibby Stockholm barge in January 2025 after several suicide attempts, a legionella outbreak and dozens of letters and accounts of the inhumane conditions. However, she now plans to reopen two other infamous detention centres, Campsfield in Oxfordshire and Haslar in Gosport, with an increased capacity of 290 beds per centre. These centres are in an appalling condition: damaged and unclean facilities, riddled with damp and black mould.
This move is hugely controversial. It seems Labour has no problem repeating Tory crimes in new settings.
Once again, asylum seekers have become a scapegoat for the government’s unwillingness to solve any of the country’s economic or social issues. It’s easier to pander to the right wing press and give Tommy Robinson and his ilk the material to incite pogroms than it is to try and help those seeking refuge.
The UK economy relies heavily on migrant labour, with a fifth of all employed people in the workforce being migrants. There are major job shortages in key industries and public services, yet the necessary workers are being turned away as a result of racist, reactionary and discriminatory policies.
We demand:
