ONCE again yesterday morning, Campsfield detention camp was on fire, with coachloads of prison officers, the ‘tornado team’ armed with riot shields, arriving and entering the camp to restore order among the asylum seekers who are being held there.
Seven staff and two inmates were injured in the fire and in the clashes after fighting broke out at the immigration removal centre.
A Home Office spokesman said that its ‘riot teams’ were working to get the centre completely under control as soon as possible.
We were told that we could all breathe easier since the perimeter had not been breached and that all of the detainees had been accounted for while a helicopter was hovering overhead and police dog units and mounted police were patrolling the perimeter of the centre.
The men and women who are detained at Campsfield want to be allowed to stay in Britain, so as to be able to work, to keep themselves and their families. For this crime they are being treated like dangerous criminals, despite the fact that they have committed no crime.
Many of them have fled to the UK to get away from repressive regimes, and fear that when they are returned they and their families will be subjected to more torture.
However, the problem that the British government has with them is that they originate from Africa and Asia in the main, and are brown or black skinned.
At the same time as they are being kept in camps and subjected to repressions that have become routine, a record immigration into Britain is taking place, without the slightest barrier being placed in its way, or any official worry about criminal elements amongst the immigrants, or the numbers involved.
Hundreds of thousands of eastern Europeans are being encouraged to enter Britain, without any restrictions at all.
These Eastern Europeans, are members of states that have recently joined the EU. Unlike a lot of asylum seekers and immigrants from Africa or Asia many do not speak a word of English, but they are all white and Christians into the bargain.
They are willing to work hard for low wages, but nobody disputes the fact that all of the immigrants that arrive in this country have a desire to work, and do work hard for very little wages in return.
This ‘all-white’ policy of the Labour government is racism in practice, since many black and brown immigrants from Commonwealth countries, or countries associated with them, speak English and are well acquainted with British traditions and history.
Even doctors from the Indian sub-continent who have worked in the NHS for years are now being told that white non-English speaking Eastern Europeans will take priority over them as far as filling vacant NHS posts is concerned.
Meanwhile, equipped with its globalisation policy, the British bourgeoisie insists that the world is its oyster, and that money does not know any nationality or race. It insists that as the possessor of capital it must be allowed full freedom to invest in any part of the world that proves to be suitable for profit making and live there as well.
The bourgeoisie insists that without the right of capital and the capitalist to be a citizen of the world human civilisation will come to an end.
Workers and their trade union organisations and political parties must insist that workers must have the same right to sell their labour power anywhere they wish, and must have the right to organise to increase the price of that labour power through trade union organisation in any country they settle in.
In fact, the racist British and EU immigration laws are part and parcel of the divide and rule racism that the bourgeoisie uses to try and strengthen its rule.
The WRP and News Line calls on the labour movement to shut down Campsfield and all prison camps for immigrants, and to fight for the repeal of all immigration acts, and for trade union rates of pay for all workers in the UK.
We must welcome all workers to Britain and organise them all, both politically and industrially to get rid of capitalism.
