MIGRANT workers who work illegally in England and Wales are to face up to six months in prison under especially vindictive anti-migrant proposals to be included in the forthcoming Immigration Bill.
The measure will be an Act by the Autumn and will run in parallel with the new Tory anti-union laws under which the trade unions are to be bound and gagged so that the bosses and bankers can make super-profits. The anti-migrant Act will have the effect of winning every racist in the country to the side of the Tory Party.
This will no doubt build up the necessary mood to have a go at trade union ‘troublemakers’, and help assemble the gangs of men and women prepared to act as legal strikebreakers, as provided for under the new anti-union legislation. This is real Tory freedom at work, bashing migrants so as to create the mood that there is an enemy within, that is, the organised working class.
This is why the attacks on migrants cannot be separated from the Tory attack on the working class and its trade unions. A nasty scenario is being built up by the ‘nasty party’. Not only will illegal working migrants be jailed for six months, measures will be taken against takeaway restaurants and off-licences which employ illegal migrants. The penalties will also include an unlimited fine and wages being seized.
Government officials are also considering whether this provision should be extended to cover minicab drivers and operators. Migrant workers are to be treated as criminals – in exactly the same way as the trade unions are to be treated. No mercy is to be shown to an employer who claims that he or she did not know that a particular employee was not allowed to work. To avoid a fine, imprisonment or a loss of their license they will have to show that they carried out proper checks before taking these workers on.
There is to be a maximum prison sentence for an employer found guilty of employing an illegal migrant worker – from three to five years, plus any fines that have accrued. Earlier this month, the government announced that landlords in England will be expected to evict tenants who lose the right to live in the UK – also under the proposed Immigration Bill.
Landlords will be able to end tenancies, sometimes without a court order, when asylum requests fail, and will be required to check a migrant’s status in advance of agreeing a lease. Repeat offenders could face up to five years in prison. Immigration Minister Brokenshire, apeing Cameron, commented: ‘Anyone who thinks the UK is a soft touch should be in no doubt – if you are here illegally, we will take action to stop you from working, renting a flat, opening a bank account or driving a car. As a one nation government we will continue to crack down on abuse and build an immigration system that works in the best interests of the British people and those who play by the rules.’
The Tories will be making the same speech to trade unions and trade unionists found guilty of carrying out an ‘illegal strike’ just before they are sentenced to prison. The truth of the matter is that migrant workers, from the moment that they arrive here, are part of the UK working class as a whole – they are not foreigners as far as the organised working class is concerned, they are comrades.
The vicious attacks just unveiled on migrant workers are to be matched by equally vicious attacks on trade unions and trade unionists. In fact, the job of the trade unions is to defend all workers. The TUC Congress begins on Sunday September 27th in Brighton. The Young Socialists are lobbying the TUC Congress on that date at 1.00pm, to demand that the General Council of the TUC call a general strike to bring down the Tories, as the only possible response to their plan for cruel anti-union and anti migrant laws.
Make sure that you are there and that the huge power of the trade unions is used to defend the working class as a whole by driving out the Tories and bringing in a workers government and socialism.
