If you think the UK government has only now started to castigate refugees – stripping them of their rights and protections – you’ve not been paying attention.
The UK government’s Illegal Migration Bill (the caricatured “Small Boats Bill”), in addition to the already passed Nationality and Borders Act, is the end game. Now some of our poorest, most vulnerable and desperate will pay the price.
Just to recap: these are people who, through desperation, are clinging to the sides of boats – sometimes to the sides of planes – just to try and find the opportunity of a better life. Fleeing famine, war, and persecution, only to be othered by an uncaring and uncaring government.
We have to pay attention.
The Bill places a virtual ban on asylum claims, no matter how valid. That’s not just my view, it’s the view of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). It said: “The legislation, if passed, would amount to an asylum ban – extinguishing the right to seek refugee protection in the United Kingdom for those who arrive irregularly, no matter how genuine and compelling their claim may be, and with no consideration of their individual circumstances.”
In the pyre of its Brexit bonfire, the UK government is quite content to ignore international and domestic rights laws. On the face of the Bill itself, the Home Secretary admits that the Illegal Migration Bill may not be compatible with the Human Rights Act (1998) and the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).
There is a profound impact on the rights of children and families too. The Bill has a plethora of unchecked consequences that, if implemented, are not only likely to breach the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child but will undermine the rights of children within the Refugee Convention.
We now face an unprecedented power grab by the Home Secretary, allowing for separated children to be detained with no access to bail before 28 days. We are now so far down the path of this government’s demonisation of asylum seekers that the detention of separated children in hotel and reception centres is a possibility.
Not stopping there, the Bill also removes protections for modern slavery victims. The UK government will now be returning children who have been trafficked to the UK back into the arms of the criminal and often violent gangs who sent them here. If the Nationality and Borders Act didn’t already make it hard to seek asylum in the UK, the Illegal Migration Bill has made it impossible.
The families and children being demonised by this UK government don’t seek asylum lightly. They’re often fleeing the most unimaginable horrors. This Migration Bill criminalises them for doing so. These are children.
Their existence, or legality, is not up for debate. Regardless of where they were born, or where they had come from, they are now members of our community. Under this new Bill, when they turn 18, they face being deported to a country they don’t know, where they can’t be cared for, and where they could be placed in immediate danger.
The most egregious part of this? The UK Government simply doesn’t care. Whether it’s migrants, refugees, those seeking asylum, workers, or those on welfare, the government has systematically and deliberately dismantled the rights and protections of all those they ideologically oppose.
The crackdown on civil liberties, the removal of protections, and the restriction of hard-won freedoms are just as applicable to the Illegal Migration Bill as they are to the Nationality and Borders Bill and to the Minimum Level (Strikes) Bill. #
If you’re on the wrong side of this government, you’re being made to pay with your rights.
We made them pay attention.
The Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), in partnership with TUC colleagues, led the charge in opposing the UK Government’s Strikes Bill.
Workers, including young workers in some of the most exploitative workplaces across the country, face more barriers when seeking to take strike action against rogue employers. It’s abundantly clear that, as workers grow stronger, Tories grow more scared. We’ve had the Trade Union Act (2015). We’ve now got the Strikes Bill. True to form, when something challenges the hegemony of the UK Government – unions standing up for ordinary workers – they try to strike us down. The linkages to the government’s demonisation of migrants are unspeakably clear. Those who take action and try to seek a better life for themselves are met with resistance and hostility.
Led by Stand Up to Racism and supported by the STUC and a whole host of civic Scotland organisations, we will not stay silent in the face of injustice. We cannot sit idly by whilst those at their most vulnerable – those seeking asylum – are routinely denigrated by the UK government. Last month, as we marched through the streets of Glasgow in defiance of the Illegal Migration Bill in solidarity with refugees the length and breadth of Scotland, we saw our movement at our best. Plural. Collective. United. Strong.
We won’t allow those seeking sanctuary in Scotland to walk alone. They have the weight of our movement behind them, which is exactly why we have grabbed the attention of the UK government.
Raza Sadiq is Co-Chair of STUC Black Workers and Chair and founder of the Active Life Club in Glasgow, which promotes inclusion and diversity in sports for young people.
This article was originally published in the Spring/Summer issue of Insight magazine, the membership magazine of national charity Children in Scotland. Find out more about Insight at https://childreninscotland.org.uk/insight-landing-page-public
