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Category: Home Office

  • Plan to fast-track appeals of some UK asylum seekers could face legal backlash

    Move to speed up appeals of people in government-funded hotels could be challenged on discrimination grounds, officials warn

    A plan to fast-track the appeals of asylum seekers living in government-funded hotels could face multiple legal challenges on the grounds of discrimination, the government has said.

    A 24-week legal deadline on appeal decisions for those staying in hotel rooms is being introduced in an attempt to fulfil a Labour manifesto promise to end a practice that costs the taxpayer billions of pounds a year.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Labour’s hostile environment policies are destroying asylum seekers’ mental health

    A new report has issued a damning assessment of the effect the UK Labour Party government’s hostile environment policies is having on refugees and asylum seekers’ mental health.

    In its latest edition, the Mental Health Foundation has spelled out in no uncertain terms how the UK’s gruelling system is destroying the mental health of people.

    Crucially, off the back of the new report, the non-profit is calling for the government to end its senseless rule denying asylum seekers the right to work. This is because the nonsense policy is a central factor driving their deteriorating wellbeing.

    Report reveals dire mental health for asylum seekers in the UK

    The Mental Health Foundation supports asylum seekers and refugees with their mental health through various programmes across the UK.

    In February 2024, the non-profit previously issued a scathing report. This was on the state of asylum seekers’ and refugees mental health in the UK. Notably, it underscored how:

    The social and economic conditions in which they live post-migration can have an equally powerful influence on their mental health. Experiences of poverty, financial insecurity, unemployment, lack of adequate housing, social isolation, loneliness, prejudice, stigma, and discrimination all carry a higher risk of poor mental health [10],​ and asylum seekers and refugees are at higher risk of experiencing all these inequalities. Asylum seekers will also often be dealing with stress about the status of their claim and challenges in accessing healthcare.

    Moreover, it called for:

    a trauma-informed and person-centred approach to asylum claim processes, housing, education, health and care provision experienced by asylum seekers and refugees.

    Now, the foundation has followed this up – and found the situation for refugees and asylum seekers is no less dire. Crucially, its latest report now covers the new UK Labour government’s actions since the 2024 General Election.

    Give asylum seekers the right to work

    In particular, the report paints a damning picture of the detrimental impacts on asylum seekers of not allowing them to work. This includes a loss of self-esteem, loneliness, and an increased risk of depression. This results in a greater likelihood of people having to use already oversubscribed NHS mental health services in the future.

    So, the foundation is urging the Labour Party government to redress this. Specifically, it is demanding the right to work for asylum seekers waiting longer than six months for the government to process their claim.

    Currently, the government only grants asylum seekers the right to work after 12 months in specific circumstances. And, even then, it limits this to jobs on the Immigration Salary List. In reality, this rarely gives them the ability to work.

    Given the appalling state of people’s mental health, the foundation highlights this as an unconscionable situation to maintain. Moreover, it put the context of this in terms the fiscally conservative Labour government would understand. Notably, it laid out how this would be a no-brainer for the chancellor’s budget savings agenda.

    Changing these rules to allow working after six months, with no restriction on the type of jobs, would bring £4.4bn in government savings. It would generate this by reducing the number of asylum seekers who rely on the state. In addition, this would deliver an estimated £1bn in growth to GDP, and raise £880m in new tax revenue.

    Destroying physical and mental health

    Ishmail Yambasu is a refugee who was a social worker in Sierra Leone before he had to flee the country. He told the Mental Health Foundation about his experiences of the UK’s system. In particular, the UK Home Office denied him permission to work while he was an asylum seeker. Ishmail said:

    I came here with over 10 years’ experience as a social worker. When I arrived, I wanted to work and to contribute, I wanted to help and give back. But instead, I was forced to rely on just £49.18 a week. My hands were tied because I wasn’t allowed to work.

    I struggled for food when I wasn’t working, I had to rely on charities and food banks. I wasn’t able to eat healthily – the doctors told me I wasn’t eating well enough, and my anxiety was getting worse.

    The right to work is not just the right to work. It’s the right to freedom for asylum seekers. It builds community – a social network – and allows asylum seekers to give back to society, so we can contribute to taxes and give back to the country. Everyone in my community wants to contribute.

    While I was an asylum seeker, my dream was to give back to the community as a social worker. Now I’ve been given refugee status, I’m doing my masters in Social Work and Welfare at Strathclyde University, and hope to get involved in the UK social work system in the future.

    A no-brainer to remove the ‘harmful and expensive’ restriction

    Alongside the right to work, the charity is also calling for asylum seekers who are not in work to be given free access to bus travel.

    This is essential to allow them to build and maintain better connections with their communities.  On top of this, it will increase the chance they will be able to find employment. Asylum seekers and refugees also must be supported with improved English language lessons. Doing so will facilitate them to better integrate into society, achieve work, and help them support their wellbeing.

    Chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation Mark Rowland said:

    There is a clear-cut moral, economic, and public health case for giving asylum seekers the right to work after six months on the waiting list. As our latest report into the mental health of asylum seekers and refugees lays out, such a move would bring billions of pounds of economic benefits to the UK, reduce the strain on asylum seekers’ mental health, and build connections between asylum seekers and their new communities. Many of the arguments given in opposition to this change are based on myths and misunderstandings, most notably a non-existent ‘pull-factor’, while the benefits seem to be under appreciated.

    Giving asylum seekers the right to work is a no-brainer. Everyone – from asylum seekers, to businesses, to the government, to the NHS, to our communities – benefits when asylum seekers are given the ability to support themselves. The current system, which is both harmful and expensive, cannot continue as it is.

    Give asylum seekers ‘roots’ in their communities and they will flourish

    Refugees & Asylum Seeker Programme development officer at the Mental Health Foundation Mahdi Saki experienced the system himself after fleeing Iran. He said:

    As someone who waited four years for my asylum claim to be processed without permission to work, I now work alongside incredible asylum seekers and refugees who volunteer their time and effort in civic forums to make Scotland a better place.

    Every day I see the value asylum seekers want to add to our country, and the benefits that their work brings us all. It gives asylum seekers roots in the community and positively impacts their mental health. I’m also keenly aware of how damaging it can be for asylum seekers’ mental health when they’re denied the opportunity to contribute, and how their difficult financial situations can impact them. Giving asylum seekers the right to work after six months would be revolutionary.

    The latest edition of The mental health of asylum seekers and refugees in the UK also contains further recommendations. It set out a roadmap of reforms to the system for the betterment of everyone, including changes to avoid re-traumatisation of people, improving accommodation arrangements, and creating a more inclusive environment.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Labour wants to reopen a controversial refugee detention centre – but people are fighting back

    After 25 years of local and national protests, Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, finally closed its doors in December 2018.

    Opposition to it had been strong, and from the day the detention centre opened in 1993, a monthly demo took place outside its main gates, attracting all types of people, including Jeremy Corbyn and Anneliese Dodds.

    Run for the Home Office by a private company called Mitie, Campsfield was mired in controversy and its closure was a huge victory not only for campaigners, but also for human rights.

    Its closure was hastened by the publication of a report into the welfare in detention of vulnerable persons, known as the Shaw Review, which not only exposed the inhumane treatment taking place in the UK’s immigration system, but also found that detention in itself was harmful.

    The review recommended that immigration detention should be used as a last resort, and the government promised to reduce the number of people held in these centres by up to 40% from 2015 numbers.

    Campsfield House: first the Tories, then Labour make plans to re-open it

    So campaigners, who had spent years fighting alongside Campsfield detainees and witnessed the human cost of the place, were understandably heartbroken when Boris Johnson announced plans, less than four years later, to reopen the immigration detention centre.

    At the time, Campsfield House was very much linked to the Rwanda scheme, so when Labour took office and dropped the scheme, it was hoped the plans to reopen Campsfield would be scrapped. But instead, in August last year, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, announced Labour was not only pressing ahead with reopening the centre, but also had plans to expand it.

    In response to this shocking news, the campaign group Oxford Against Immigration Detention, and Asylum Welcome, also based in Oxford, got together and founded the Coalition to Keep Campsfield Closed:

    Campsfield House

    Asylum Welcome’s Emma Jones said:

    We are trying, through a variety of means – Freedom of Information requests and Parliamentary questions, to find out more, because we are very conscious that they’ve gone very quiet. News isn’t being shared, despite the fact that initially they said there’d be public consultations.

    No planning permission has been submitted- as far as we can see, despite the fact that its been said they’d need it for phase 1 (to refurbish and reopen Campsfield) and phase 2 (to expand its capacity to around 400), but a contract has been awarded to Galliford Try, and work is in progress at the site, so we suspect they’ve found a way to get around the planning.

    Although Galliford Try’s website says it “makes a real difference to people’s lives”, this is obviously not in a positive way, as a large part of the company’s money comes from construction in the custodial and defence sector.

    In addition to the £70m contract to carry out both refurbishment and new-build at the Campsfield site, its other contracts include refurbishing Haslar Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) near Portsmouth, which closed in 2015 after reports of mistreatment and inhumane conditions, but is now set to reopen and expand. Galliford Try has also been awarded a contract to expand RAF Wyton – a top-secret base that plays a critical role in intelligence gathering for UK armed forces on global operations.

    Immigration detention centres: a hotbed of harm and abuse

    The Home Office held almost 19,000 people in immigration detention centres across the UK in the year to March 2024, many of whom had experienced torture, oppression, and trauma, and are extremely vulnerable.

    Research has shown asylum seekers and refugees are at particular risk of mental health problems, compared to the general population, and this is not only linked to their pre-migration experiences, but also those during and post-detention.

    Those who are already experiencing problems with their mental health are likely to see a significant deterioration as a result of being detained, but the necessary care provisions in these detention facilities are much less readily available than in the general community.

    For those who have risked everything hoping to find safety and security in our country, their loss of liberty and the threat of forced return to their country of origin make immigration detention a particularly harrowing experience.

    There is no automatic judicial oversight on decisions to detain, while a lack of knowledge about release dates causes huge amounts of depression and anxiety, because of the inability to think of any kind of future.

    Britain is one of only a handful of countries, and the only one in Europe, to have no upper limit on the time a person can be detained. Research has found all detention to be inherently harmful to people’s physical and mental health, but indefinite detention to be even more so, and these problems are compounded if detainees are threatened with deportation at the same time.

    The ‘ideological infrastructure’ that decides people are ‘illegal’

    Centres like Campsfield House operate with a lack of safeguards and accountability, and detainees do not have an automatic entitlement to legal advice or allocation of legal representation.

    It is extremely difficult for these people to access their rights, especially if they are being moved around the detention system, so when Campsfield was open, Asylum Welcome helped detainees access badly needed legal and medical support.

    Jones explained that:

    There’s a mental health crisis inside detention centres, and self-harm is happening on a daily basis. It’s not remotely surprising really, given that people are detained indefinitely- which is such a shocking abuse in itself. But indefinite detention is permitted in this country, for people who have committed no criminal offence but are just there because of their lack of papers.

    If you don’t have status, meaning your immigration status is not resolved, you are liable to detention at any point in the process, which is very scary and open to all sorts of abuses. And that’s how something like the Windrush Scandal was able to happen…

    The physical infrastructure of places like Campsfield, and also the ideological infrastructure, which says some humans are illegal, or these people are immigration ‘offenders’, leads people to believe some offence has been committed rather than an irregularity in someone’s status, or the fact that someone is going through the process of seeking asylum.

    These places are synonymous with cruelty and, over the years, protests and disturbances were not only limited to outside the gates of Campsfield House. Detainees took part in rooftop protests and hunger strikes, demanding better treatment and trying to draw attention to the inhumane conditions and treatment inside the centre. Tragically, there were also two suicides.

    Many of us are left wondering why immigration detention centres are allowed to continue causing so much misery and harm, indefinitely and for administrative purposes when, in response to the Shaw Review, the government at the time agreed detention should be reduced.

    These centres are also extremely expensive to run, with almost £145 of tax-payer money spent daily on detaining each person, and annual costs of running these facilities rising each year, to more than £117m in 2024.

    Immigration detention is little more than ‘performative cruelty’

    Serious questions are also raised, as to the justification of immigrant detention, as statistics over the last decade show there has been a long-term fall in the numbers of people leaving immigration detention to be returned to their country of nationality or habitual residence.

    According to government figures, in the year ending June 2023, of the more than 20,500 individuals who left immigration detention, 75% were granted bail and therefore re-entered the community. This highlights the fact that many people are unnecessarily enduring the distress of being detained.

    Jones said that:

    Often people are released because there is nowhere else to go. People might be from countries where no one is currently able to return. They might be stateless people. These people need support to regularise their status, and to live their lives and contribute like they wish to do.

    Very often there is no realistic prospect of deportation, even though these people are detained and shopped between detention centres and sometimes kept there for years. It seems very illogical, as well as expensive, and therefore you think ‘Oh, OK, it’s the performative cruelty element. They’re doing this to get favour from certain kinds of voters!

    Several community based alternatives to detention have been piloted by the Home Office, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and independent charities, with caseworkers providing one to one support, including legal counselling.

    UNHCR lauded the pilots as very successful, saying they enhanced the well-being and self-esteem of the participants, while being cheaper and offering better value for money for the taxpayer compared with the costs of detaining asylum seekers, and showing no evidence of a reduction in compliance with UK Home Office directives.

    Jones argued that:

    Although the studies seemed to conclude these alternatives had been very successful, we were very confused as the Home Office dismissed them in a single sentence, when Yvette Cooper announced, last year, that Campsfield would go ahead. We want to know on what basis these pilots are being dismissed.

    Close Campsfield House, close them all

    Asylum Welcome, along with other charities and campaigners, had hoped the election might herald a change in direction, particularly given that the Rwanda scheme has been scrapped, and the Labour-led Oxford City Council, Oxfordshire County Council, Cherwell District Council, and also local MP Calum Miller are all opposed to Campsfield reopening.

    But Jones says they are not going to give up:

    In 2015, plans to expand Campsfield House were halted, so campaigners feel a win is still possible.

    Jones said:

    We hope democracy counts for something, and we remain committed not only to keep Campsfield closed, but to close them all.

    Actions you can take to make a difference:

    • Sign and share the petition to keep Campsfield Closed here. Started by Allan, who was a former Campsfield detainee, in 2015.
    • Go to keepcampsfieldclosed.uk to find out more information.
    • Sign up and join the mailing list here.
    • The Coalition to Keep Campsfield Closed has a monthly online meeting and is interested in hearing people’s ideas and experiences, particularly people with lived experience of detention, and those involved in other campaigns in other localities to shut these places down.

    Featured image and additional images via Coalition to Keep Campsfield Closed

    By Charlie Jaay

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Labour is still spending 20% of the foreign aid budget in the UK – despite all its ‘pledges’

    On Thursday 3 April the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) published its provisional statistics on how UK aid was spent in 2024. It shows that the UK continues to spend 20% of the foreign aid budget on asylum seeker costs in this country – despite the Labour Party government’s planned cuts to the budget.

    Foreign aid budget: still being spent domestically

    This annual publication provides an overview of the provisional UK aid spend in the calendar year 2024 and has revealed that the UK spent £2.8 billion Official Development Assistance (ODA) on costs associated with asylum seekers in the UK in 2024 (20.1% of total ODA), compared with £4.3 billion (27.9% of total ODA) in 2023 and £3.7 billion in 2022.

    The UK’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) dropped from £15.34bn (0.58% of GNI) in 2023 to £14.07bn (0.5% of GNI) in 2024.

    The statistics also reveal that the Home Office spent £2,384million of the UK aid budget in 2024 (17%), £2,954million in 2023 (19.3%), while in 2022 this was at £2,397million (18.7%). This is a decrease of 19.3%. While this is a decrease from the all-time high of 2023, Home Office spending for 2024 is barely a change compared to 2022.

    Bilateral spending saw an increase of 12.6% from £10bn in 2023 to £11.3bn in 2024 – making up 80.1% of total ODA in 2024. Region-specific spending saw a 35% increase from £2.1bn in 2023 to £2.87bn in 2024. This included:

    • Regional-specific bilateral ODA to Africa in 2024 was at £1.48bn, an increase of 41% from £1.05bn in 2023
    • Regional specific bilateral ODA to Americas was £85million – a 14% decrease from £100million in 2023
    • Regional specific bilateral ODA to Asia was £1.04bn in 2024, a 48% increase from £705million in 2023.
    • Regional-specific bilateral ODA to Europe was £217million in 2024, a 15% decrease from £257million in 2023.
    • Regional-specific bilateral ODA to Pacific was £45million, a 844% increase from £5million in 2023.

    “Unsustainable”

    Meanwhile, Humanitarian Assistance was £1.4bn in 2024, a 60.5% increase from £882million in 2023.

    However, multilateral spending has seen a sharp decrease by 47.5%, from £5.3bn in 2023 to £2.8bn in 2024 – its share of total ODA is only 19.9%. The only time since SID data from 2009 that the UK multilateral spending was less than 30% of total ODA was in 2022 (24.6%).

    Gideon Rabinowitz, Director of Policy and Advocacy at Bond, the UK network for organisations working in international development and humanitarian assistance, said:

    We welcome the reduction in the amount of UK aid spent domestically on asylum costs, but this figure remains far too high.

    As the government slashes the UK aid budget, continuing to spend £2.8 billion of UK aid in the UK on escalating asylum accommodation costs is unsustainable, poor value for money and comes at the expense of essential development and humanitarian programmes tackling the root causes of insecurity and displacement. It is vital that we support refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, but this requires its own budget and the ending the use of expensive and inappropriate hotels as accommodation.

    At a time when the world is increasingly unstable, the government is abandoning marginalised communities and damaging its credibility as a reliable global partner. We urge them to rethink the cuts or at the very least ensure that the remaining limited budget is used for its intended purpose, to support communities in lower-income countries who face conflict, climate change, and poverty.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Planned change in British citizenship rules faces first legal challenge

    Young Afghan refugee brings case after move to prevent those who arrived on ‘dangerous journey’ from citizenship

    Plans to prevent refugees who arrive in the UK on a small boat, lorry or via other “irregular” means from becoming a British citizen are facing their first legal challenge.

    The challenge is being brought by a 21-year-old Afghan refugee who arrived in the UK aged 14, after fleeing the Taliban and being smuggled to Britain in the back of a lorry. He was granted refugee status and after five years was granted indefinite leave to remain. He was due to apply for British citizenship on 1 March.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Judge who granted Palestinian family right to live in UK made wrong call, says Keir Starmer

    Family fleeing Gaza were allowed to join brother in UK after applying through scheme meant for Ukrainian refugees

    A judge who granted a Palestinian family the right to live in the UK after they applied through a scheme originally meant for Ukrainian refugees made the wrong decision, Keir Starmer has said.

    A family of six seeking to flee Gaza were allowed to join their brother in the UK after an immigration judge ruled that the Home Office’s rejection of their application breached their human rights, it emerged on Tuesday.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Guardian ignored shocking comments of cop in migrant Channel deaths coroner ruling

    A senior coroner in Kent has found that three men who were killed trying to cross the Channel were unlawfully killed. Mohamed Lamine Toure, Moussa Kouyae, and a third unnamed person were killed when a rubber dinghy holding 39 people “literally fell apart at the seams.”

    The Guardian reported that:

    The survivors were brought to shore in Dover after a UK fishing boat crew came across the sinking dinghy and rescued them, with help from the RNLI, air ambulance and UK Border Force.

    The Guardian also reported that investigating police officer, DI Ross Gurden, said that each of the people on the dinghy were there:

    of their own free will.

    A disgrace in the Channel – and after

    The officer’s comments are a disgrace. Before even examining any further facts of the case, we know that a number of desperate people got into a dilapidated dinghy in an attempt to cross the Channel. Why would someone do that? What must they be running from that is worse than risking an awful death at sea?

    Gurden’s comments went unremarked in the Guardian report, a banal comment on the horror of sea crossings. They show a lack of empathy, but it’s a lack of empathy writ large across borders.

    Ibrahima Bah, who piloted the boat, was sentenced to just under ten years detention “for manslaughter and facilitating illegal entry to the UK.” A fourth person, Hejratullah Ahmadi, also died but he was not included in the coroner’s inquest because he was part of the criminal trial of Bah. However, the Independent did note that:

    Bah was also a migrant but he piloted the boat in lieu of payment to the people smugglers.

    There must be some consideration of how and why Ibrahima had to be on that boat. Last month, a Free Ibrahima campaign statement read:

    We are devastated at the Court of Appeal outcome which leaves Ibrahima imprisoned as a scapegoat for border policies which continue to cause people to die in the Channel. We will keep fighting for Ibrahima and others as they are criminalised for seeking safety and a better life in the UK.

    The criminalisation of Ibrahima is typical of a broken and rotting system that punishes people trying to survive, and ignores the criminals in governments and border forces who view people dying in the sea as disposable non-humans.

    A broken and rotting migrant system

    Gurden’s remark that the people on the boat chose to be there call to mind poet Warsan Shire’s poem Home, and particularly the concluding stanza:

    no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear

    saying-

    leave,

    run away from me now

    i don’t know what i’ve become

    but i know that anywhere

    is safer than here

    Imagine, how hard you would have to run to risk drowning in a freezing cold body of water, knowing that if you somehow survive the plastic boat you’re crammed into with other desperate people, you’ll face border patrol, police officers, and a government who’ll make you pay through the nose for daring to survive on its shores. Imagine that, whether you live or die, you know that the people you encounter along your last ditch journey will claim you had a ‘choice.’

    Is something really a choice if there is no other option?

    If you stay, you’ll die.

    If you go, you’ll die.

    If you die, your memory will be left with the cold words of an officer who insists that you made a ‘choice’ with your “free will.”

    And, the media that reports on your death, if you are even to be named, won’t bother to correct that officer’s callousness, because there are so many of you that have found a grave in the sea.

    Featured image via YouTube screenshot/ITV News

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Revealed: Conservatives spent £134m on never-used IT systems for failed Rwanda scheme

    Home Office official says data protection laws caused the cost of its forced removal programme to increase

    The Conservative government spent more than £130m on IT and data systems for the scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, which will never be used, the Observer can reveal.

    Digital tools needed to put the forced removal programme into effect made up the second-largest chunk of the £715m spent in little over two years, behind only the £290m handed directly to Paul Kagame’s government.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Residents could be barred from UK due to eVisa confusion, say rights groups

    Home Office has postponed transition to digital visas but campaigners fear ongoing technical problems could cause travel chaos

    Migrant rights groups have warned that British residents could still be barred from returning from abroad because of the switch to digital visas, despite the government extending the deadline by three months.

    The Home Office announced last week that the transition to eVisas as the accepted proof of British residency rights would begin at the end of March 2025, ditching the original 31 December deadline with just weeks to go after the transition was dogged by technical problems.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Many unable to access eVisas to prove right to be in UK, Home Office admits

    Campaigners say problems with digital transfer could affect hundreds of thousands of people on ‘10-year route’ visas

    The Home Office has admitted that many people who have the right to live and work in the UK cannot access their eVisas and provide proof that they are allowed to be in the country.

    Human rights campaigners have said problems with accessing eVisas could lead to a scandal involving hundreds of thousands of people. Those affected are allowed to be in the UK but cannot show their right to work or rent a home.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Racial abuse, physical assaults and no beds: asylum seekers tell of brutal conditions at Manston migrant centre

    Asylum seekers who fled to UK to escape persecution said they endured abuse and squalor at centre in Kent

    When David Neal, the former independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, visited the Manston asylum processing centre in Kent at the height of the crisis in October 2022, he said the conditions he found there were so alarming it left him “speechless”.

    People were crammed on the dirty floors of marquees to sleep, toilets overflowed with faeces, there was inadequate access to medical care and new arrivals were referred to by a number on a wristband rather than by their name.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Yvette Cooper says arresting Netanyahu ‘isn’t a matter for her’ as the person IN CHARGE OF POLICE

    Home secretary Yvette Cooper has “overall responsibility for all Home Office business”. And part of the Home Office’s business is policing. Yet Cooper has shamefully sought to avoid saying whether the UK would comply with its obligations over arresting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu now that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued a warrant for his detention over his role in the genocide in Gaza.

    Yvette Cooper: arresting Netanyahu ‘nothing to do with me’

    Speaking to Sky News, she said:

    Well, that’s not a matter for me as home secretary.

    She added:

    there are proper processes that need to be followed, and therefore it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment on those.

    The presenter duly followed up by asking:

    the UK is a signatory of the International Criminal Court – don’t we have to respect its rulings?

    Again failing to answer the question, Cooper simply stated:

    we respect the independence of International Criminal Court… and we’ve always respected the importance of international law.

    And it was pretty clear that Cooper had received orders to deny responsibility and avoid confirming if the UK would arrest Netanyahu, because she gave the same response elsewhere:

    Like Cooper, a government spokesperson simply said “we respect the independence of the International Criminal Court”, while failing to accept the ICC’s ruling.

    Hypocrisy

    Britain’s International Criminal Court Act, Middle East Eye explains, “legally obliges the government to arrest Netanyahu if he sets foot on UK soil”. It adds that “Britain’s independent courts” will make the final decision on endorsing Netanyahu’s arrest warrant “in accordance with the 2001 act”.

    Prime minister Keir Starmer and foreign secretary David Lammy, who both trained as lawyers, know very well that it would be hard to wriggle out of Britain’s responsibility to arrest Netanyahu. But that doesn’t mean they can’t underplay the importance of the ICC ruling. And they’ve been doing this via both genocide denial and silence.

    They both publicly welcomed previous ICC rulings regarding Vladimir Putin, for example, but have so far been silent about accepting the ICC ruling on Netanyahu.

    The world is currently witnessing an existential crisis for US imperialism and its junior partners in Britain and Israel. There has been consistent condemnation of Israeli war crimes from the ICC, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), UN experts, the UN Security Council, the overwhelming majority of UN members, human rights organisations, doctors, and charities.

    Yet the imperialist alliance has dug in. Washington keeps choosing to defend Israel’s genocidal warmongering at all costs. And by continuing to give Israel hundreds of billions of dollars in financial and military aid, it is participating in the genocide, and giving Israel impunity.

    Keir Starmer’s government has a serious dilemma. Does it want to go down along with its senior imperialist partner? Or does it want to step back from the brink and join the overwhelming global consensus that this madness must stop?

    Cooper saying arresting Netanyahu is nothing to do with her gives us an idea of what Labour’s position is.

    Featured image via screengrab

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • ‘Inhumane’ treatment of migrants rounded up in UK’s failed Rwanda plan revealed

    Testimonies from Home Office and security staff show repeated use of force on distressed detainees

    The “inhumane” treatment of migrants rounded up in a “futile” operation for the now scrapped Rwanda scheme, has been laid bare in testimonies from Home Office staff that reveal force was used against distressed detainees.

    Internal documents disclosed to the Observer and Liberty Investigates under the Freedom of Information Act also reveal four recorded instances of migrants attempting to harm themselves after being apprehended.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Home Office ‘mostly consulted Rwandan officials’ in asylum plan safety report

    Review finds research did not meet ‘minimum standards’ for assessing whether Rwanda was safe place to send people

    The last Conservative government relied largely on evidence from Rwandan officials in its assessment of the country as a safe place to send asylum seekers, an official report has found.

    The independent chief inspector of borders and immigration (ICIBI) looked at the Home Office’s assessment of whether or not Rwanda was a safe place to send refused asylum seekers, a document known as “country of origin information”.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • GMB wracks up over 16,000 Ofcom complaints, but ITV refuse to give Balls the boot

    More than 16,000 people have now made complaints to broadcast watchdog Ofcom. It was over one infamous Good Morning Britain (GMB) episode from August. Specifically, this was the show where GMB presenter Ed Balls interviewed whipless Labour Party MP Zarah Sultana over the Islamophobia that fueled the far-right fascist race riots. It just so happened too, that the former Labour right politician was interviewing home secretary Yvette Cooper – his own wife – that very same programme.

    GMB complaints to Ofcom

    In a disgraceful episode on the morning of 5 August, Ed Balls and co-presenter Kate Garraway grilled Sultana over the racist pogroms neo-Nazi groups carried out across the country.

    What ensued was a rancid display of racism and Islamophobia – from none other than the hosts themselves. As the Canary’s Steve Topple described, Sultana was:

    not only shut down by the four white people on the panel, but effectively infantilised and talked over.

    In what was at best deeply uncomfortable viewing, and at worst a politically-motivated assault, Sultana was first subject to several minutes of firstly lies.

    Topple detailed how Balls “dropped any sense of impartiality”. Because while co-host Garraway harshly interrogated Sultana’s use of the term “Islamophobic”, the two presenters did not keep this up with another, notable interviewee to the show that morning. Notably, Topple laid bare this racist journalistic pantomine in action:

    Just to hammer home the point that racist GMB is more interested in clicks and viewer figures than journalism – Ed Balls was then allowed to interview his wife, who for the first time in nearly a week of race rioting used the term Islamophobic

    Naturally, many on X at the time pointed out Balls’ particular conflict of interest too. So, it was off to Ofcom with thousands of complaints over the disgraceful GMB episode. Many particularly railed against home sec hubby Balls interviewing his own wife live on air – probably right after Cooper had texted him that it was taxpayer-subsidised canteen leftovers for dinner tonight…

    ITV gets behind GMB’s Ed Balls-up

    Initially, ITV issued this mealy-mouthed response to the influx of GMB Ofcom complaints against the revolving door politician-come-poor excuse for a journalist:

    Following a weekend of rioting and national unrest, GMB featured a range of interviews and discussion around this national emergency on today’s programme which included James Cleverly, shadow home secretary, and Yvette Cooper, home secretary. We are satisfied that these interviews were balanced, fair and duly impartial.

    Of course, this isn’t how 16,812 people who went out of their way to make a complaint to Ofcom rightly saw it:

    Of course, ITV was massively missing the point.

    People weren’t complaining that the GMB had failed to platform a range of voices from across the political spectrum. Instead, it was the contempt, racism, and bias with which its presenters treated a left-wing Muslim MP. On top of this, Ed Balls’ brazenly obvious conflict of interest interviewing his wife on the same programme stood in stark contrast.

    However, now it has emerged that complaints have doubled has the broadcaster budged even a smidge? Nope. So far, it has been tumbleweed.

    Spineless regulator Ofcom

    But if you thought Ofcom would swoop in to save the day, brace for further disappointment. The spineless regulator hasn’t taken any firm action against ITV over this yet either. Towards the end of August, an Ofcom spokesperson issued the statement that:

    We are assessing the complaints against our broadcasting rules but are yet to decide whether or not to investigate.

    That is, after over 16,000 complaints, it still hadn’t decided whether it was even going to bother investigating. Of course, this is the same Ofcom that let the right-wing propaganda machine masquerading as a news channel GB News off the hook for breaching impartiality rules. Though, not that it was the first or last time it has done this. In this instance, it was over putting two Tory ministers in the host hotseat. They were interviewing – you guessed it – another Tory MP.

    It seems neither ITV nor Ofcom will give Ed Balls the boot for now. However, the next time the washed up politician-turned-torrid-TV presenter bares his racist, chauvinistic ass live on air, he might just set a new record. 16,000 complaints could very well look quite rosy with hindsight.

    Feature image via the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Labour’s plan to reopen immigrant detention centres will be disastrous | Letter

    Gee Manoharan says the government should pivot towards community-based alternatives that uphold British values of humanity and justice

    Your report on the escalating violence and deteriorating conditions at Gatwick immigration removal centre should send shockwaves through anyone with a conscience (Gatwick immigration removal centre getting less safe for detainees, says watchdog, 29 August). The fact that nearly a year after the Brook House inquiry revealed a culture of abuse, the government has allowed these horrors to persist – and worsen – is beyond appalling.

    As someone who has survived the nightmare of immigration detention, I know first-hand the toll that it takes on the human soul. The government’s response? To expand this inhumane system by planning to reopen the Haslar and Campsfield House centres in Hampshire and Oxfordshire respectively, ignoring the mountain of evidence that detention inflicts profound harm. This isn’t just a misstep, it’s a blatant betrayal of human dignity.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Peter Stefanovic has just exposed a shocking bit of news about Labour

    Lawyer and social justice campaigner Peter Stefanovic has just published one video that won’t be making it into the hallowed early hour TV showings of Good Morning Britain (GMB). That’s because, the days of Boris Johnson and his merry band of serial lying hard-right Tory successors have lost the keys to number 10. In their place? Labour continuing their work. And Stefanovic exposed one new-blue establishment stooge in particular. None other than GMB Ed Balls-up’s dear Westminster wife – home secretary Yvette Cooper.

    Peter Stefanovic pulling no punches on anti-protest law appeal

    It was for her shameless decision to pursue the previous Tory government’s appeal over its unlawful anti-protest laws. Crucially, this concerned former home secretary Suella Braverman’s authoritarian overreach of secondary legislation to ram through laws parliament had already rejected.

    Here’s the video where Peter Stefanovic rips into Labour:

    In particular, as Stefanovic pointed out, Braverman used these so-called Henry VIII powers to establish an especially authoritarian crack-down on the right to protest. Specifically, she handed police greater power to arrest protesters. She did so by redefining the meaning of “serious disruption” to encompass anything they deemed as causing ‘more than minor’ impact.

    Previously, the House of Lords had shot down this particular element lowering the threshold of what would constitute a “serious disruption” by protesters. However, Braverman didn’t let this lie. Instead, she pushed this through via the back door using secondary legislation. This doesn’t require parliamentary scrutiny – so MPs didn’t get to vote on this.

    Already, as Stefanovic and others also noted, police have arrested hundreds of protesters using these draconian powers. This includes climate activist Greta Thunberg and many other climate and Palestine activists:

    Enter human rights group Liberty. In May 2024, the group won a case challenging the government over this. Significantly, the High Court ruled that the government had acted unlawfully in imposing these powers and ignoring the will of parliament.

    Labour getting in on the Tory power-grab

    Predictably however, Braverman wasn’t giving up her dictatorial power-trip. Before Sunak announced the election, she launched an appeal against the High Court’s ruling.

    As Peter Stefanovic said, the new Labour government had a choice between continuing the appeal:

    in support of this Tory power-grab which would set an extremely dangerous precedent, or defend democracy and the rule of law by dropping the appeal and scrapping these unlawful powers.

    Of course, it chose the former. Now, the Labour government is set to waste vast sums of taxpayers money doing the same.

    Once again, Stefanovic dragged the government on this. First, he highlighted how Labour had opposed the Tories’ bill in parliament. Then, the clincher – he exposed the staggering scale of the party’s hypocrisy from one key recent speech.

    On the one hand, there was Labour’s attorney general Richard Hermer pronouncing in July that:

    The prime minister and the lord chancellor have both made clear that the promotion and the protection of the rule of law will underpin our approach to legislation and policy.

    Crucially, he declared that this meant:

    guarding against the abuse of the proper role of secondary legislation

    Now, here’s Cooper now doing the direct opposite of this. The decision to continue the appeal is guarding something alright, and that’s the establishment against the public’s democratic right to protest. In other words, the slimy home sec has done what the Starmerite cabinet does best – another whiplash-inducing U-turn.

    And speaking of staggering levels of hypocrisy, here’s the Home Office’s response to media outlet Hyphen quizzing the government on the decision:

    Labour’s opposition was always performative

    Of course, it’s hardly a surprise. Labour has consistently worn its business-buddy-buddy badge where all corporations can see it. From welcoming billionaire backers with open arms, to soliciting the support of financial titans in the City, since Starmer took to the helm, the party has been a teeming cesspit of corporate capitalist sell-outs.

    The Canary has consistently highlighted the party’s corporate and lobbyist connections. We’ve also underscored particularly its polluting industries ties. So, Braverman’s unlawful police powers enable it to protect these interests – whether that be climate-wrecking fossil fuel corporations, or companies supplying arms to Israel:

    What’s more, the writing was likely already on the wall, as one poster on X pointed out:

    Naturally, others – including the Canary – had also seen it coming a mile away. In October 2023, Steve Topple previously also expressed how:

    Labour’s outrage is performative – given it failed to support Green Party peer Jenny Jones’s fatal motion in the Lords which would have stopped Braverman.

    Then, at the end of July, fellow Canary journalist Samantha Asumadu wrote:

    However, the opposition day votes for a repeal of the Public Order Act 2023 on 16 May 2023 may be an indication of whether Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is likely to attempt to repeal it or not now they are in government. 57 Ayes and 278 Noes.

    The Act was not mentioned in the party’s manifesto. However, Labour has said that its mission in government is to “take back our streets”. Take back the streets from whom remains to be seen.

    In other words, this was all entirely predictable. A Labour Party cosying up to the corporate capitalist establishment would do one thing when it got into power, and one thing only. That is, shield CEOs and its big money-spinner revolving door.

    Any lingering notion the Labour government will bring about a real, meaningful break from the Tories’ authoritarian power-grab is as limp as the last vestiges of Starmer’s election promises gone the way of the U-turn. And Cooper proved beyond doubt that the Labour right is full of vacuous charlatans. But then, thanks to the home sec’s hubby regularly Ball-sing stuff up on morning-time TV, we already knew that.

    Welcome to “changed” Britain – new new Labour government edition – where supposed centrist sensible politicians are the new cheerleaders of the death of democracy and the descent into authoritarian fascism. Thanks to Peter Stefanovic – at least we know of part of the threat, now.

    Feature image via X – Peter Stefanovic/Youtube – Sky News/the Times and Sunday Times/the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Labour’s new ‘hostile office’ immigration plans: racist political theatre for the far-right

    As the new Labour Party government panders to the right-wing fascists in the wake of the UK race riots, a migrant rights non-profit has exposed its latest plans for the violent, racist sham they are.

    Notably, the group has called out Labour’s immigration raids as:

    a form of racist kidnapping and an extension of colonial divide and rule tactics

    Labour’s ‘hostile environment’

    As the Canary reported, on Wednesday 21 August, Labour announced that the government aims over the next six months to:

    to achieve the highest rate of deportations of failed asylum seekers for five years. The goal is to remove more than 14,000 people by the end of the year, according to the Times.

    The new Labour government intends to increase detention capacity at removal centres and sanction employers who hire people with no right to work in the UK.

    Now, the Migrants’ Rights Network has produced a report exposing the abhorrent racism at the heart of Labour’s new policies.

    Its new ‘Hostile Office’ report is titled ‘Immigration Raids: An Anatomy of Racist Intimidation’. The Migrants’ Rights Network and academics Monish Bhatia and Jon Burnett collaborated on the new analysis. As it says on the tin, this delves into the government’s use of immigration raids against migrants communities.

    Unsurprisingly, far from fomenting the violent deportation aims of the state, it found instead that these function as a “fear mechanism”. In other words, the government uses these as a form of racist intimidation, to divide racialised communities.

    The Migrants’ Right Network therefore argued that:

    Raids are meant to humiliate, intimidate, racially subjugate and inflict harm on the “Other”, specifically migrants and/or racialised people.

    Raids and racial profiling

    Notably, the new report revealed that authorities have targeted South Asian communities the most. Between January 2022 and September 2023, immigration enforcement officials conducted a disproportionate number of raids on Indian, Bangladeshi, and Pakistani nationals. While people of Asian heritage made up just 9.3% of the population, the state carried out 50% of the 19,895 immigration raids during that period against them.

    Central and Eastern Europeans were the next largest group authorities targeted at 21%. Following these groups, the stated had targeted Albanian nationals and Romanian nationals most, in 8% and 7% of raids respectively.

    The charity has also released groundbreaking research mapping the location and frequency of raids. Crucially, it showed that immigration enforcement often carry these out either in city centres on businesses, in areas with significant racialised populations, or in significant areas for migration routes.

    In particular, authorities executed the greatest number of raids in Belfast, Northern Ireland (1,277), and Stranraer in Scotland (1,102), around their harbours. These are all areas covered by Operation Gull, the joint border policing exercise between police and immigration services in the UK and Ireland.

    Similarly, authorities had implemented a high number of raids in areas of London and Birmingham with high racialised populations.

    Raids and deportations on the rise after Tories’ racist bills

    Given immigration enforcement’s focus on these communities, the report challenged the:

    efficacy of the intelligence used versus the influence of racial profiling.

    Critically, it demonstrated that raids are highly secretive and ambiguous. For instance, it underscored that it is unclear how officials conducting the pre-visit checks determine the immigration status from surveillance at the premises, or how thorough these checks are. Instead, the report suggested that most immigration raids take place as a result of low-grade intelligence such as ‘tip-offs’, including fabricated reports from rival businesses or gossip.

    Significantly, the report highlighted how raids had sky-rocketed. In particular, it found that:

    The number of immigration raids increased by 68% from September 2022 to September 2023. Almost constantly since March 2023, more than half of people present at an immigration raid have been arrested. The arrest rate peaked at 64.24% in April 2023 and has only fallen below 50% twice – to 47.31% and 47.83% in May and August 2023, respectively. This is a significant increase: before August 2022, the percentage of people arrested following an immigration raid was largely between 25% and 30%.

    Alongside this, the report identified how the deportation rate appeared to ramp up in tandem:

    From January to August 2022, the median deportation rate following an immigration rate was 6.26%. Between September 2022 and February 2023, this increased to 9.17%. The largest increase in deportation rates following an immigration raid rose to 14.83% in March 2023 and 19.95% in April 2023.

    Notably, it highlighted how the state had increased these after passing the Tories’ racist anti-immigration acts. Specifically, the spike in arrests in deportations followed the state putting the Nationality and Border Act into effect in July 2022, and the Illegal Migration Act in July 2023. Given this, it stated that the timing reinforced:

    the function of immigration raids as a fear mechanism and as ‘political theatre’. These two pieces of legislation created new immigration offences for which people might be arrested, increased punishments for existing offences, expanded powers for Immigration Enforcement (and other agencies) and sought to reduce legal protections for migrants in conflict with the law.

    Labour: fomenting ‘state-sanctioned fear’

    Largely, the report concluded that immigration raids were a tool of “state-sanctioned” fear against racialised communities across the UK.

    CEO of the Migrants’ Rights Network Fizza Qureshi said:

    Raids are an extension of colonial ‘divide and rule’ tactics that pit neighbours, colleagues and the wider community against each other and while inflicting fear. It’s time to send a clear message to the State that we will be holding them to account for the intimidation of racialised communities. I hope this report marks the beginning of an organised effort to scrutinise incredibly secretive operations, and encourage more community-led pushback to these raids.

    Echoing this, academics and co-authors of the report Monish Bhatia and Jon Burnett said:

    Raids are a mechanism to create State-sanctioned fear. They are utilised as part of attempts to disrupt and intimidate communities. They turn neighbour against neighbour, and legitimise the idea that they need to exist. This report makes it loud and clear that raids are part State violence and part political theatre.

    And Home secretary Yvette Cooper’s latest parade of deportation policies and goals cannot be extricated from this racist political pantomine either. Needless to say, it’ll do nothing but stoke more fear and division against migrants and racialised communities. And much as the Tories toxic anti-immigration acts and raid culture have done – fan the flames of fascist bigotry festering on this racist island.

    Feature image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Campaign groups call on Home Office to stop ‘steady erosion’ of protest rights

    Civil society organisations demand home secretary protects the ‘safety valve’ of democracy

    Environmental groups are among 92 civil society organisations who have warned Yvette Cooper against “the steady erosion of the right to protest” in the UK, and called on her to reverse the previous government’s crackdown on peaceful protest.

    “The right to protest is a vital safety valve for our democracy and an engine of social progress,” the letter, delivered on Friday, said. “The achievements of peaceful protest are written on the labour movement’s own birth certificate.”

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Sangita Myska burns LBC as it makes rancid bigot Braverman a host

    Journalist Sangita Myska has struck out at LBC – her former employer who seemingly dropped her from the show in April. With just one shameless move, the broadcast station has shown exactly why representation does not equate to liberation for marginalised communities. At least, certainly not when you give far-right racist Suella Braverman the host-seat to spout her bigoted bile.

    In a singular X post, Myska put paid to the idea – exposing LBC’s decision for the opportunistic move it is. That is: pandering to the right-wing establishment, dressed up like a diversity hire.

    LBC screws over Sangita Myska for… Suella Braverman?

    In April, Listeners of LBC were rightly outraged over the seeming suspension of Sangita Myska from her broadcast slot. At the time, rumours swirled it just might have had something to do with Myska’s fiery interview hauling Israeli government spokesperson Avi Hyman over the coals for his shamefaced lies.

    Naturally, LBC had mostly brushed off Myska’s disappearance from the show. Largely, presenters like James O’Brien have simply peddled the broadcasters line that it was due to low listener figures. Only, as folks on X have highlighted, Myska’s ratings had been soaring:

    At the time, LBC said that Myska was simply:

    leaving the station at the end of her contract, after nearly two years

    Of course, precisely no one was buying it. To date, Myska hasn’t spoken out about the circumstances surrounding her ‘leaving’ LBC. But while she still hasn’t illuminated us on this, she has now come for her old employer over another dick move.

    Specifically, she poured scorn on LBC for sucking up to literal wood fibre at the very base of the barrel and genuinely unironic Tory leader hopeful Suella Braverman:

    In a glorious gloves off moment, Myska set out how the two brown women couldn’t be more different. She wrote that:

    Brown women with public profiles are a diverse group. We do not all revile the homeless, asylum seekers, Joan Salter, tofu, lawful protestors, centrists, the EU, international courts. Nor do we ‘dream’ of deportation flights to Rwanda, endorse the language of the far right, or hope to lead the Tory party.

    On top of this, Myska apologised to listeners for being “unable to answer all” their questions. Many took this as confirmation for what people had earlier thought. That is, that LBC was laying cover for Israel:

    Owned by literal Zionists and platforming them too

    A corporate media outlet sacking a brown women who dared to speak out against a white supremacist endorsed ethnostate. Who’d have thought?

    One X poster pointed out LBC’s parent company is owned by zealous Zionist Ashley Tabor-King and son of multimillionaire Michael Tabor:

    And after unceremoniously shelving Myska, LBC *checks notes* invited on the literal personification of anti-migrant, racist bigotry and rightwing culture war shitfuckery:

    So, on the one hand, award-winning journalist Sangita Myska who held Israel’s feet to the fire was right there. But when you can amplify far-right gammon-baiting Suella Braverman to another undeserved role, why wouldn’t you stick her in the host seat?

    Some good came out of it at least – for one, we all got a good laugh at James O’Brien’s public meltdown over his (presumably) temporary stand-in:

    And most satisfying of all, Myska’s statement meant that once again, LBC got well and truly burned. Call it karma.

    Feature image via the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Labour announces new anti-migrant legislation, as report shows UK immigration policies are all racist by design

    A new report demonstrated decisively how the UK’s immigration legislation is racist by design – just as the new Labour Party government seeks to amend it. In particular, it explored the reality that UK policies mainly target racialised people from Britain’s former colonies in raids, detention, deportation, and deprivation of citizenship.

    The recent ‘illegal’ Migration Bill 2023 and Nationality and Borders Act 2022 are part of a long history of targeting and excluding ‘unwelcome’ and ‘undesirable’ groups of migrants. Crucially, the report illustrated how these bills base this rhetoric on colonial ideas of race and deservingness. In other words: who can be economically ‘useful’ to Britain.

    Labour government’s racist immigration legislation

    The Migrants’ Rights Network released the fresh report following the announcement of the new Border Security Bill in the King’s Speech. Notably, this set out how the new Labour government would introduce a new piece of immigration legislation to:

    modernise the asylum and immigration system, establishing a new Border Security Command and delivering enhanced counter terror powers to tackle organised immigration crime [Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill]

    As the Canary has previously reported, these punitive, aggressive policies will do little to actually end perilous boat crossings. To do that, the Labour government would instead need to expand safe routes to asylum. However, so far it appears wedded to the rightwing hardline borderisation approach.

    Given this, the Migrant Rights Network report sought to put this alarming continuation in the context of its long-term hostile environment history. It examined how racism and colonialism play a central role in immigration policies.

    Significantly, the report traced the historic colonial origins of the Home Office. Alongside this, it looked at the role of the 1948 British Nationality Act. Both of these shaped the notion of the “good immigrant” along racial lines.

    Since then, governments have deliberately designed immigration legislation to keep non-White, racialised communities from Britain’s former colonies out of the UK. For instance, this included ‘The Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962’, and ‘The 1981 British Nationality Act’.

    Racism and colonialism has shaped UK immigration policies

    Specifically, the report explored the function of racism and colonialism in shaping legislation around citizenship, and visa schemes. Deprivation of citizenship legislation and its amendments have legalised racism in Britain. That is, these have continually deprived racialised people of citizenship.

    Of those deprived of citizenship and their nationalities between 2002 and 2022:

    • 85% had or were deemed to have nationalities of countries in Africa, and South or West Asia (the Middle East)
    • What’s more, 83% were from former British colonies. Of this, 41% were South Asian, all being Pakistani or Bangladeshi.

    Of course, the latter findings sit alongside new prime minister Keir Starmer’s recent racist dogwhistle attack on Bangladeshi people living in the UK.

    Furthermore, the report unpacked how the “good character” test involved in applications for British citizenship, invokes racist ideals of ‘civility’. In doing so, the analysis identified that these application processes associated racialised migrants with criminality and, for Muslim migrants, extremism.

    UK’s long-term ‘racist commodification’

    The report also traced the historical continuity between today’s points-based immigration system and the work vouchers of the 1960s. Most notably, it found that governments have based visa schemes, including sponsored worker schemes, on ‘racial commodification’.

    In short: the commodification of racialised people and/or people from the Global South for the purposes of economic extraction and exploitation by the Global North.

    This has created an increasingly large and insecure class of migrant workers. In particular, the government has turned people into objects for their labour. As such, the report concluded that immigration legislation limits the ability of racialised people to come to the UK. Invariably, this has controlled migrants’ freedom to live their lives.

    CEO of the Migrants’ Rights Network Fizza Qureshi said:

    For People of Colour and other marginalised groups, this system simply wasn’t designed for us. That is why we are calling for the Hostile Office and immigration system to be dismantled. With a new Government in power, we hope it works with us to dismantle these cruel structures that have made the lives of migrants, and migratised people, a misery and joins us in taking a bold and transformative stance with migrant justice at the heart of policy.

    Featured image via

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Pressure increases on Labour to bin Bibby Stockholm as more protests erupt

    Asylum seekers have held a sit-in demonstration outside the floating asylum accommodation the Bibby Stockholm. They were protesting their quasi-detention limbo on the barge as the new Labour Party-run Home Office puts them through huge waits for their claims to be processed.

    Bibby Stockholm sit-in and solidarity protests

    As the Guardian reported:

    Dozens of asylum seekers living on the Bibby Stockholm barge are staging a sit-down protest over delays in processing their asylum claims, overcrowding conditions and trouble accessing medical treatment.

    A man this week described the boat in Dorset as the “hell barge”. There are about 400 asylum seekers onboard, one of the highest rates of occupancy since it opened in 2022.

    From the start, the Tories de facto floating prison has been riddled with controversy. Days after the Home Office had forced 39 migrants aboard the vessel in August 2023, tests detected the bacteria legionella within its water system. This bacteria can cause a potentially deadly respiratory condition known as Legionnaires’ disease.

    As a result, the government had to evacuate the refugees from the barge. In September, freedom of information requests (FOIs) revealed that tests had identified the most deadly strain of legionella on the vessel.

    Meanwhile, others have highlighted the huge sums of taxpayer’s money the government has thrown at the abhorrent floating cage. A migrant solidarity group had estimated the cost of the barge at £560k for just four weeks. However, information obtained by investigative group Corporate Watch revealed the Bibby Stockholm’s bill to be much higher in total. It found that the weekly cost amounted to nearly £300k. This means that the government squandered £2.2m to private contractors while the barge remained vacant due to legionella.

    Campaigners have also underscored the appalling conditions and treatment on board. For instance, refugees on the barge have described the poor food quality and restricted access to it. Notably, for nearly half the day, they are entirely unable to access food from the on-site canteen.

    The traumatic experience of living on the isolated Bibby Stockholm has led to suicide attempts, with one Albanian man, Leonard Farruku, dying by apparent suicide in December 2023.

    Legal action has been a feature of the barge’s controversial history from the word go too. First, in August 2023 the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) launched a challenge against the Home Office over fire safety concerns.

    Then, local councillor and Portland Mayor Carralyn Parkes embarked on a legal battle over the Bibby Stockholm. In October 2023, the courts quashed her initial judicial review against the Home Office. However, Parkes pursued her legal action, this time against Dorset Council. In May 2024, the courts once again dismissed the case. In both instances, the High Court had ruled that neither the Home Office or Dorset Council had planning authority over the barge.

    Bibby “hell barge”

    Many on the barge have waited long delays in the Home Office processing their asylum claims. Some on board haven’t received a decision after three years. In fact, an iNews report from December 2023 revealed that the Home Office won’t even approve claims while asylum-seekers are housed on the Bibby Stockholm.

    So now, asylum-seekers have launched a first-of-its-kind protest. Carrying placards that read “life not limbo” and others calling for “freedom” from the Bibby Stockholm, they sat together in the outside courtyard:

    Meanwhile, local residents and campaigners from Stand Up to Racism Dorset stood in solidarity with them at the port:

    A number of refugee rights groups backed their calls for the new Labour government to shut down the Tories racist legacy:

    As refugee and asylum specialist Lou Calvey noted, the right-wing vanity project was always a deliberate decision by a the rancidly racist Tory government. Instead, Labour could now choose to house asylum-seekers in communities, where local people and services can support and welcome them:

    Labour prioritises right-wing pandering and publicity stunts over people

    Indeed, the 18-month contract for the barge is set to expire soon. So, it would present the perfect opportunity for Labour to ditch it.

    Despicably however, in the in the final weeks of the election campaign, then shadow and now Home secretary Yvette Cooper said Labour would initially keep the barge. Cooper told LBC that the party would seek to end its use “as fast as possible”, but argued that:

    what you have to do first of all, the system is broken, so we need to prevent small boats arriving in the first place and that means smashing the criminal gangs.

    Already, Cooper has launched Labour’s game of migrant scapegoating from the outset. First on the agenda, Labour waving its dick around with its rightwing pander-project-come-border security plans. As the World Socialist Web Site reported:

    Within 48 hours of Labour coming to power, British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced the creation of a Gestapo-like Border Security Command (BSC).

    However, the Canary has pointed out before how these plans will do little to actually end dangerous boat crossings. To prevent people making the perilous crossing, Labour needs to expand safe routes to asylum.

    Ostensibly, its “stop the boats” chest-beating is not – and never was – about saving lives. If it were, the new Labour government would put a stop to the enormous abhorrent racist prison boat in its own backyard once and for all.

    This Thursday – 18 July – will mark one year since the barge arrived in Portland. Labour should end Dorset’s – and the country’s – ship of “shame” for good. 

    Feature image via Tom Lawrence – X

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda admission sparks legal action from detained asylum seekers

    Migrants seek redress for ‘immense distress’ from deportations now thrown into chaos by election announcement

    Asylum seekers detained by the Home Office and threatened with deportation to Rwanda are set to take legal action against the government after Rishi Sunak admitted that no flights will take place before the general election.

    The Home Office started raiding accommodation and detaining people who arrived at routine immigration-reporting appointments on 29 April in a nationwide push codenamed Operation Vector.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Detainee protests on rise over deportations from UK to Rwanda

    Hunger strikes at detention centres as asylum seekers get ‘no answers’ from Home Office and fear removal on Gatwick or Heathrow flights

    Protests and hunger strikes among asylum seekers held in detention centres in preparation for deportation to Rwanda are increasing, the Guardian has learned.

    Approximately 55 detainees, including Afghans, Iranians and Kurds, are believed to have staged a 10-hour peaceful protest in the exercise yard at Brook House immigration removal centre, near Gatwick airport from 6pm Tuesday until 4am Wednesday.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Colonial UK and France ramp up racist migrant rhetoric with Rwanda plan and detention centres

    Once again, the violence of colonial ‘fortress’ Europe is on full display as the UK ramps up its racist refugee policies. Meanwhile, across the Channel, a new report has exposed France’s abusive migrant detention regime.

    Rwanda plan: Tories set their immoral scheme in motion

    The UK government has begun its appalling assault on migrants living across the country.

    On Monday 29 April, the Home Office launched a spate of detentions. As the Guardian reported:

    Detainees will be immediately transferred to detention centres, which have already been prepared for the operation, and held until they are put on planes to Rwanda. Some will be put on the first flight due to take off this summer.

    Now, the government has confirmed that it has detained a number of these migrants ready for deportation.

    A Supreme Court ruling last year that ruled that sending migrants to Rwanda in this way would be illegal because it:

    would expose them to a real risk of ill-treatment

    Moreover, numerous rights groups, the UN Refugee Agency, and the UN’s human rights office have slammed the government’s scheme. In February, UN human rights chief Volker Türk issued a scathing statement on the plan, saying that:

    It is deeply concerning to carve out one group of people, or people in one particular situation, from the equal protection of the law – this is antithetical to even-handed justice, available and accessible to all, without discrimination.

    Immigration tyrannising migrants

    Naturally however, this hasn’t stopped the racist Tory government from ramming it through parliament. On 22 April the House of Commons passed the abhorrent new law which greenlights the Tory’s flagship asylum policy.

    So, following this, a new Home Office document has now revealed that the government plans to deport 5,700 migrants to Rwanda this year.

    Specifically, it detailed that Rwanda has “in principle” agreed to accept 5,700 migrants already in the UK.

    Under the government’s new plans, it can deem asylum claims inadmissible for migrants who arrived in the UK between January 2022 and June last year.

    So of course, it has already started its foul campaign tyrannising migrants.

    Calling it “another major milestone” in the Rwanda plan, the ministry released photographs and a video of immigration enforcement officers detaining several migrants at different residences.

    Violence in France’s detention centres

    Meanwhile, across the Channel, the violent racist architecture of colonial borderisation has also been in full swing.

    A new report by migrant rights groups including SOS Solidarity and France Terre d’Asile (“France Land of Asylum”) has revealed that migrant detention in France is also on the rise. Worse still, the report documented a rise in violence towards migrants inside these detention facilities.

    Specifically, it found that France had incarcerated more undocumented migrants in detention centres in 2023 than in 2022.

    French authorities held 46,955 migrants in the detention centres across the country and in overseas territories in 2023. This was compared to 43,565 the previous year.

    In mainland France, the large majority were men, 5% were women and 87 individuals were children accompanied by their parents. More than 120 said they were under-18 but French authorities had declared them to be adults. Most migrants were Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccan, in that order.

    On average detention centres held them 28.5 days out of a maximum allowed of 90 days. Notably, this was a week longer than the previous year. Given this, the report noted how the incarceration had impacted the mental health of the detainees. Detention had sometimes led to suicide attempts, self-mutilation, tensions and violent incidents with people working with them.

    Crucially, the report noted:

    Never have our associations witnessed so many violent acts as in 2023

    While some detainees sometimes clashed with others held with them, the report also identified police violence towards migrants.

    For example, at one centre in the Paris region, more than 40 migrants officially complained of:

    physical violence, threats or insults of racist or homophobic character, (and) sexual assaults

    Notably, this violence was specifically from police inside the facility.

    Trash ‘deterrent’ and ‘detention’ rhetoric

    Predictably, both colonial governments have bandied about bullsh*t about ‘detention’ and ‘deterrent’.

    The Tories xenophobia-fueled argument is that the threat of being deported to Rwanda will deter tens of thousands of annual cross-Channel arrivals.

    Of course, this isn’t what the official statistics show. Instead, arrivals have increased by more than a quarter in the first third of the year compared to the same period in 2023.

    Similarly, France has held up its detention scheme as a major pillar of its deportation plans.

    However, the nonprofit report found that of those held in detention centres, it had expelled 15% fewer detainees from the country last year compared to 2022, despite an increase in deportations overall.

    Ultimately, it’s all bluster and demonstrates the dangerous end point of scapegoat politics. People seeking safety from persecution, poverty, and violence should be welcomed into our communities. Instead, vile governments continue their immoral, racist colonial project without a shred of conscience.

    Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

    Feature image via Wikimedia/Youtube/the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Never mind stop the boats: Sunak is using fear to build a life raft for himself. But the people will stop him | Owen Jones

    Asylum seekers are our neighbours, not political pawns for failing politicians. If MPs cannot resist the Rwanda plan, activists will

    Laws that are unjust will inevitably be broken. Here is a basic reading of our history, and indeed how numerous rights and freedoms were secured in the first place. Ruled as we are by a desperate man lacking a moral compass, our sinking government has brought forward plans to detain asylum seekers across the UK in preparation for their deportation to Rwanda. After both the European court of human rights and the supreme court declared the government’s scheme unlawful – not least because Paul Kagame’s authoritarian regime could plausibly deport them to the country from which they fled – the government railroaded through legislation, absurdly declaring Rwanda to be safe. Here is the very definition of a law to be disrespected: one drawn up to override the courts and thus the separation of powers, to turn a lie into a legal fact, in support of an unworkable and immoral scheme that imposes pain on the traumatised purely to bolster a prime minister’s imploding administration.

    Civil disobedience will take many forms. Asylum seekers will simply avoid reporting to the authorities, disappearing from the system altogether: indeed, the Home Office reports it cannot locate more than six in 10 migrants identified for deportation. But a network of activists across the country is poised to take action. We have lived through a decade of protests, speaking to a growing willingness to take to the streets to defy authority. Social media plays a pivotal role, not least when it comes to migrants’ rights: Anti Raids Network, for example, uses X to promote calls by local groups to mobilise activists to stop deportation raids. One such callout in Solihull yesterday asked for help stopping a deportation van: “There are unmarked enforcement vans in the car park, and we think these people could be at risk of being taken to detention.”

    Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

    Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • The Tories are STILL dragging their heels on a court ruling over post-Brexit EU Settlement Scheme

    The Independent Monitoring Authority for the Citizens Rights’ Agreements (IMA) is calling for a resolution on a landmark judicial review judgment against the UK Home Office relating to the implementation of parts of the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS).

    EU Settlement Scheme: still not properly implemented

    The judge ruled in favour of the IMA and clarified that the Withdrawal Agreement residence right of a person with EU pre-settled status does not expire for failure to make a second application to the scheme. This is provided they continue to meet the conditions for it.

    The judgment also found that, irrespective of an application for settled status, those who have lived here for five years and have continued to meet the relevant conditions (as set out in the Agreements), are automatically entitled to permanent residence rights under the relevant Agreement.

    In the IMA’s view, the current Home Office approach of automatically applying a two-year extension to all pre-settled status holders shortly before they approach their current date of expiry does not go far enough to address the first aspect of the High Court’s ruling. This is because it could potentially adversely impact their residency rights under the EU Settlement Scheme.

    The IMA says it is concerned that this approach may continue to cause challenges for citizens, for example with employment or housing, due to the continued temporary nature of pre settled status being visible on official documents. However, status should not expire in practice providing the person continues to meet the underlying conditions.

    The Home Office must address the issues

    The IMA is holding regular meetings with the Home Office to better understand its plans for how the judgment will be implemented. It understands that the Home Office is nearing a final view on proposals that seek to provide practical solutions for citizens. The IMA says it will continue to promote workable resolutions and monitor the effectiveness of any changes to the EU Settlement Scheme.

    Miranda Biddle, chief executive of IMA said:

    The IMA is keen to ensure that citizens’ rights are upheld and the court’s ruling is implemented in a manner that provides clarity and practical resolution for citizens.

    It is crucial that in implementing the judgment the uncertainties being faced in relation to citizens’ ability to live, work and raise their families in the UK are addressed and concluded.

    The IMA will continue to hold the Home Office to account and urge them to implement the necessary changes when finalised.

    Anyone facing difficulties accessing their rights is encouraged to contact the IMA for support. There are also a number of supporting organisations listed on its website who can assist with EUSS applications. If you would like to share information with the IMA on behalf of EU and EEA EFTA citizens, then please visit here.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Tories are spending a QUARTER of the international aid budget on UK refugee costs

    On Wednesday 10 April the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) published its provisional statistics on how the UK’s international aid budget was spent in 2023. Without irony, the FCDO admitted that around a quarter of it was spent within the UK.

    This annual publication provides an overview of the provisional UK aid spend in the calendar year 2023 and has revealed that the UK is spending more than a quarter of UK aid on costs associated with housing refugees in the UK.

    This spending by the Home Office and other departments to cover administrative and accommodation costs for housing refugees in the UK continues to hinder the ability of FCDO to scale up its spending on sustainable development.

    Gross mismanagement of the aid budget

    The UK spent £4.3bn on costs associated with refugees in the UK in 2023, compared with £3.7bn in 2022.

    The UK spent nearly 5 times as much on refugee costs in the UK as spent on bilateral support for humanitarian needs in 2023. The UK spent £888m of bilateral UK aid on humanitarian assistance in 2023, a decrease of £221m (19.9 %) from £1.1bn in 2022.

    The FCDO statistics also reveal that:

    • 27.9% of the UK aid budget was spent on refugee costs in the UK in 2023 (£4.3bn) compared to 28.9% in 2022 (£3.7bn).
    • Spending on asylum seekers and refugees in the UK has increased by 16.4% since 2022.
    • A total of £15.4bn was spent in 2023 making this 0.58% of gross national income.
    • The UK spent £4.3bn of the UK aid budget on refugee costs in the UK in 2023 compared to £4.1bn UK aid spent by the FCDO bilaterally.
    • The Home Office spent £2.9bn in 2023 (19.2% of the UK aid budget), while in 2022 this was at £2.3bn (18.7%).

    Cutting international aid budget

    Across the FCDO, spending internationally declined. The report found that the department’s spending accounted for 61.6% of the UK aid budget in 2023 (£9.4bn) compared to 59.7% in 2022 and 71.6% in 2021. While this is an increase on 2022, it remains below 2021 and years preceding. Specifically in 2023, the FCDO spent:

    • £1.05bn of its region-specific bilateral UK aid in Africa (52.4%). While this has been an increase in share from 42.9% in 2022, in total numbers this is a decrease from £1.06bn in 2022.
    • £619m in Asia (30.8%). This is a decrease in comparison to 2022 both in terms of total and percentage, £925m (37.4%).
    • £248m (12.3%), in Europe, while in 2022 this was £335m (13.5%).

    Stop spending international aid in the UK

    Gideon Rabinowitz, director of policy and advocacy at Bond, the UK network for NGOs, said:

    With over a quarter of the UK aid budget being spent right here in the UK, the government seems to have lost its grip on UK aid spending which is weakening the UK’s ability to respond to urgent global crises and support long-term sustainable development needs in lower-income countries.

    INGOs are once again seeing vital funding for emergency support programmes in Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere being cut or held back, and we suspect this is due to escalating Home Office asylum costs taking an increasing chunk of the UK aid budget.

    The government must stop seeing the UK aid budget as the primary pot for this spending given that it is legally required to support poverty reduction in lower-income countries.

    While we welcome UK aid spending increasing from 0.50% to 0.58% of gross national income, we urge the government to commit to this as the new minimum spending floor as we begin to scale up to return to 0.7%.

    Featured image via the UK government

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Bibby Stockholm is facing a ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’ moment

    It’s one year since it was revealed that the Bibby Stockholm barge would be used to contain refugees and asylum-seekers in Britain. So, Berlin-based artist Katherine Kannon and Dorset solicitor Nigel Turner have worked together to adapt Katherine’s poster of Dorset landmarks. The artwork now includes the barge, shown just off Portland and labelled “Dorset’s Shame”:

    The Bibby Stockholm: a year of opposition

    Art can be a powerful way to draw attention and invite questions. In a move reminiscent of the film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, the aim is to sell the posters to mark this anniversary and raise funds for displaying the Dorset print on three billboards around Weymouth and Portland.

    Turner said:

    When I first saw Katherine’s original Dorset poster, I was struck by the fact that Portland was front and centre of the image. It seemed right to adapt the poster to highlight the Bibby Stockholm as an unwelcome local landmark.

    I dealt extensively with Dorset Council last year on this case, and my impression is that they gave up the fight before it started, despite having voted against the barge in July 2023.

    On 3 April 2023, it was revealed that the Home Office intended to deploy the Bibby Stockholm as a way to contain asylum-seekers (people who are here legally because their asylum claims are already being processed).

    Even the local Conservative MP, Richard Drax, said the use of the barge would be “totally and utterly out of the question”. Since then, the vessel has been the focus of local and national anger.

    On 13 July 2023, at a full council meeting, Dorset Council passed the following motion (one councillor described the agreement with the Home Office as ‘a devil’s deal’):

    That this council condemns the commercial agreement between the Home Office and Portland Port for the mooring of the Bibby Stockholm barge to accommodate up to 500 asylum seekers at this location. That the mooring of the barge in Portland Port is an entirely inappropriate location and should be removed at the earliest opportunity…

    Portland residents objected to the Home Office’s lack of consultation ahead of the decision to place the barge there.

    An example of quasi-detention

    Nevertheless, it arrived in Portland on 18 July 2023 after months of extensive repairs in Falmouth. The Bibby Stockholm was briefly operational for five days in August 2023. However, the small on-board cohort was then evacuated due to the discovery of Legionella in the barge’s water system.

    The Bibby Stockholm has been labelled performatively cruel and a method of quasi-detention. Indeed, there have been suicide attempts on board and one Albanian man, Leonard Farruku, died apparently by suicide in December 2023. That same month, 65 charities wrote an open letter demanding the closure of the Bibby Stockholm barge.

    In August 2023, the Fire Brigades Union launched a legal challenge over fire safety concerns on board the Bibby Stockholm. And in October 2023 and February 2024, Portland mayor Carralyn Parkes asked the High Court for a judicial review of the decisions, by the Home Office and Dorset Council respectively, not to seek or enforce planning permission at the site (decision pending).

    The Bibby Stockholm: the fight continues

    The site has drawn protest visits from far-right and neo-Nazi groups. Locally, anti-immigrants have said:

    • Residents should be fed into an incinerator.
    • The Bibby Stockholm should be bombed.
    • It should be set on fire (with everyone in it).
    • The barge should be cut adrift.
    • There should be a ‘weekly death count’ of its residents.

    According to the fire risk assessment drawn up by CTM (the barge operator), the barge is now on 24/7 arson watch.

    Despite the Home Office’s claim that the barge was being used to save money on hotels, the National Audit Office has stated that it is considerably more expensive than hotels – the barge will have cost £34.8m over its 18-month initial operation.

    High-quality A3 prints of the copyrighted artwork can be purchased for £30, including P&P, by contacting nigelturner[at]westbournecreative.co.uk All proceeds will go to support the Three Billboards campaign.

    Featured image via the University of Birmingham, and additional image supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Home Office and arms fair organisers bombarded by protesters over their complicity in arming Israel

    The Home Office and an arms trade body received an unpleasant surprise on Tuesday 12 March, as activists targeted them both over an arms fair and their complicity in supporting Israel‘s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

    ADS Group: complicit in genocide

    Hours before the UK government’s ‘Security and Policing’ fair was scheduled to begin on 12 March, Palestine Action targeted the organisers of the arms fair – ADS Group. Activists covered the London offices of ADS group in red paint, symbolising their complicity in Palestinian bloodshed:

    The Security and Policing arms fair is a Home Office event running from 12-14 March. It brings together arms companies, cops, spies, border guards and delegations from other countries – including Israel. Participants of the event include Israel’s Elbit Systems, BAE Systems, and L-3 Harris — all of whom are known suppliers for the Israeli military.

    Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest arms firm, whose supply of weapons has been described as “crucial” to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. They supply 85% of Israel’s military drone fleet and land-based equipment, as well as tanks, bullets, bombs and missiles.

    ADS Group, organisers of the event, act as representatives and advocates for the world’s largest arms companies. The group offer arms companies exclusive access to arms fairs to gain market and stakeholder access – for the purposes of weapons sales – along with business and network support and government lobbying and access to politicians.

    Their events have been attended by scores of MPs, with ADS itself undertaking lobbying and influencing on behalf of its weapons trade members.

    The Home Office: also propping up Israel’s war crimes

    Since 7 October, Israel has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians, injured over 72,000 and displaced the vast majority of the Gazan population.

    Following Palestine Action’s work, campaign groups the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) and Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) staged a protest outside the Home Office over the arms fair:

    A Palestine Action spokesperson said:

    Collaborating with Israel and their weapons trade demonstrates our government’s ongoing complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Palestine Action will take necessary measures to intervene, disrupt and expose those who are gathering in order to profit from Palestinian deaths.

    Featured image and additional images via Palestine Action

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.