Immigration, asylum and anti-deportation

Stop the Tories running amok

The government is under attack from the Tory right wing for being too “soft” on immigration and on Brexit. Probably the critics are setting out their stall for a Tory leadership contest after the next general election. The big fact for the labour movement is that this Tory government is already very right-wing even on the Tory scale, and feels itself under as much pressure from the further-right as from the labour movement and the left. Sunak has always been on the Tory right. The government is pushing back against pay demands harder than private employers, and putting through a concentrated...

Unions: pull Starmer into line!

Through Labour’s National Policy Forum in July and the Labour Party conference, 8-11 October in Liverpool, Solidarity will be pressing for activists to organise in unions and local Labour Parties to call Keir Starmer to account. The Labour leaders’ draft programme, the National Policy Forum report released on 11 May, sets up two barriers against making reality of its bland and blurred talk of social advance. It defines everything as having to be done in concert with or for the benefit of “business”. “We will make Britain the best place in the world to start and grow a business by making the...

Fight for liberty!

Early on 6 May, before the day’s coronation procession, police arrested Graham Smith and other organisers of the republican protest planned around the procession, and confiscated their placards. The cops cited, so the BBC reports, “suspicion of affray, public order offences, breach of the peace and conspiracy to cause a public nuisance”. On 8 May the police told the organisers they would take “no further action”; the organisers are now talking to lawyers about suing the police. Republic is a “moderate” organisation. It discussed its protest plans with the police in advance, and gained approval...

Open safe routes from Sudan!

Despite the civil war in Sudan, the Tories are providing no safe and legal route for Sudanese refugees. The Tories’ response to those fleeing or attempting to flee the civil war between the two right-wing military factions in Sudan has underscored their racist inconsistency, in thick marker pen. 173,000 Ukrainians have come to the UK under special visa schemes , and 25,000 have an extended leave to stay. Solidarity supports Ukraine against Russian imperialism, and supports Ukrainian refugees being welcomed to the UK. The Tory government has not accepted too many Ukrainians, or supported them...

TUC youth conference rejects solidarity

Delegates at the TUC’s Young Workers’ Conference on 2 April narrowly voted down a motion for migrants’ rights and freedom of movement. The defeat reflects the continuing influence in our unions of divisive myths, short-sighted sectionalism, and outright xenophobia. While the labour movement clings to border enforcement policies, it attacks swathes of its own class, and fights with one hand tied behind its back. The motion (text below) opposed the Rwanda deportation plan and its demands included free movement for all; an end to the Hostile Environment, raids and deportations; and safe and legal...

Free Maksym Butkevych

Maksysm Butkevych. His t-shirt says "No one is illegal" Maksym Butkevych, a Ukrainian soldier with a long record as an anti-racist and migrants’ rights activist, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison by the “Supreme Court” of Russia’s puppet “Luhansk People’s Republic”. Ukrainian activists are saying that the case against Butkevych was fabricated and his confessions forced. Butkevych, 45, is an anarchist by political background and a journalist by trade (for some years he studied and worked in the UK). Over decades he has been involved in many anti-racist, anti-fascist, migrants' rights and...

New twists to anti-migrant abuse and exploitation

As well as withdrawing “modern slavery” protections from refugees, the government’s new Anti-Refugee Bill (see "Refugees: stoip the Bill, open the border" ) coincides with two other items of news about immigration policy enabling exploiters and abusers. First, ministers are reportedly considering big capitalists’ calls to add construction, and possibly hospitality and retail, to the "shortage occupation list". This would allow employers in those industries to issue work visas on a lower salary threshold. Solidarity has explained that, by tying immigration status to employers, shifting from...

Refugees: stop the Bill, open the Border

Gary Lineker has been quickly reinstated as a presenter by the BBC after other presenters “struck” in protest against his removal for criticising the government’s asylum policy. But defeating the actual policy remains a battle.

Solidarity to beat Tories!

“Move fast and break things” (Mark Zuckerberg) and “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste” (Rahm Emmanuel) are today’s rules of combat for the ruling class. From their own angle, they’re right. In the class struggle, the side that is quickest on its feet, most agile, most energetic in mobilising and inspiring its supporters, is more likely to win. The Tories are set to lose the next election, and to have difficulty with their MPs even getting through pragmatic adjustments to their Northern Ireland Protocol. They are still setting a fast and determined pace. They want to get through as...

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