THE Fire Brigades Union is justly proud to have coordinated the following statement, which was passed as a resolution at its Executive Council last week:
‘In recent weeks, we have seen an alarming rise in violence and intimidation organised by the far right against refugees and refugee accommodation.
‘The government is complicit in these attacks. The Rwanda policy does not make sense as a means of stopping small boat crossings – and it is failing on its own terms – but it fits with a long-running campaign of rhetoric and demonisation.
‘Anti-migrant politics are an attempt to divide working class people against each other. In the past decade, the UK has suffered a crisis of living standards – with wages falling and public services left to rot.
‘The people to blame for this are politicians, billionaires and big corporations, not migrant workers or refugees forced to live in temporary accommodation. The anti-refugee campaign offers no solutions to the real problems faced by the deprived communities they are often targeting. The answer is solidarity, not scapegoating.
‘As trade unionists, we know whose side we are on when we see far right mobs attacking refugees and politicians playing the mood music.
‘We send our solidarity to Care4Calais and all groups fighting for refugee rights, and we support the call for safe and legal routes into the UK. We call on workers and trade union members to show their solidarity and to mobilise against the far right.’
Signed by Matt Wrack – FBU General Secretary, Gary Smith – GMB General Secretary, Andrea Egan – Unison President, Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney – NEU Joint General Secretaries, Mick Lynch – RMT General Secretary, Jo Grady – UCU General Secretary, Michelle Stanistreet – NUJ General Secretary, Mick Whelan – ASLEF General Secretary, Sarah Woolley – BFAWU General Secretary, Paul W Fleming – Equity General Secretary, Julia Georgiou – NHBC Staff Association General Secretary, Naomi Pohl – Musicians’ Union General Secretary, Steve Gillan – POA General Secretary, Rob Monks – URTU General Secretary.
This much needed statement comes at a time when a senior judge of the capitalist state, Lord Burnett, the Lord Chief Justice, has ruled that Channel migrants who arrive in the UK after being rescued at sea can be prosecuted for illegal entry to the UK under new powers.
Lord Burnett rejected appeals by three Sudanese men who had crossed the Channel in small boats who claimed they could not be prosecuted for ‘knowingly arriving’ in the UK ‘without entry clearance’.
The case had threatened to undermine the government’s 2022 legislation that was designed to close a ‘loophole’ and allow for migrants who were rescued at sea to be prosecuted for ‘illegal entry’.
The judgement by Lord Burnett comes ahead of the Tory government’s unveiling of a new bill this week that will bar any migrants who seek to enter the UK illegally from seeking asylum.
The new laws will mean that anyone entering the UK illegally will be detained and returned either to their home country or to an allegedly ‘safe country’ such as Rwanda, which is to receive millions from the UK government for doing so.
Anyone arriving in the UK on a small boat will be prevented from claiming asylum. Ministers are to have a duty to ‘detain and swiftly remove’ anyone who comes to the UK through that route, said Home Secretary Suella Braverman.
PM Sunak, himself a migrant, has already said that ‘stopping the boats’ is one of his five priorities. The British Red Cross charity called the plans ‘extremely concerning’, while Braverman is expected to introduce the new legislation on Tuesday.
Those who arrive in small boats will be prevented from claiming asylum in the UK, removed to Rwanda and permanently banned from returning.
Sunak told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Make no mistake, if you come here illegally, you will not be able to stay.’
He is expected to travel to Paris for a UK-France summit on Friday. The meeting with President Emmanuel Macron will be the first UK-France summit since 2018.
Sunak has pledged to ‘stop the boats once and for all’. He told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I am determined to deliver on my promise to stop the boats.’
The trade unions must defend the right to asylum and insist that all refugees are welcome in the UK.
In fact, at a time when workers face massive attacks from new anti-union laws that will ban the right to strike in the UK, the union leaders must demand an emergency Congress of the TUC to defend the rights of refugees to come to the UK, and the right to strike of the UK workers, a right which is now under a direct threat.
In fact we are now all in the same trench. Now is the time to unite the entire working class and youth in the UK by calling a general strike to smash the anti-union laws and to defend the right to asylum in the UK. There is not a moment to lose!