Demo Against New Family Detention Centre In Sussex, 30/07/11

Croydon NoBorders is calling for a demo in Haywards Heath from 1pm on Saturday 30th July to protest against a new detention centre for children and families which is due to open in late summer at nearby Pease Pottage.

Haywards Heath is the home of Mid Sussex Council which granted planning permission for the former Crawley Forest School to be converted into a migrant prison.

The migrant prison, known euphemistically as a "pre-departure accommodation centre", will be run by the infamous security firm G4S, who are facing charges for corporate manslaughter following the death of deportee Jimmy Mubenga on a BA flight in November. The prison will "normally" hold families for up to 72 hours but they could be held for up to a week in "exceptional circumstances".

"Play facilities" at the prison will be run by children's charity Barnado's. Campaigners have started a campaign against Barnado's for their involvement, disrupting a fundraising event and picketing Barnado's shops and head office.

In May 2010, the coalition government agreed to completely end the detention of children for immigration control purposes. However, now they want to open a new detention centre exactly for this purpose. Barnardo's support will not make a bad situation better for the detainees - it has helped create this bad situation in the first place, because Barnardo's cuddly image was used as propaganda by the Border Agency to get planning permission to build the jail. Whatever excuses Barnardo's give, they know they are making a mistake. As the recession causes financial difficulties for Charities, some abandon their principles and turn to the State for any contracts they can get their hands on.

At a time of savage public spending cuts, it is disgusting how the State finds no shortage of money to expand the military-prison-border complex. It starts a new imperial war "to protect civilians in Libya" - but without shame builds borders to prevent terrified civilians from fleeing war-zones and seeking sanctuary inside Fortress Europe. How soon before the State enforces mass deportations to Libya, in the same way it deports Iraqi and Afghan refugees?

The survival of the State is dependent on how long it can fool its citizens into blaming immigrants for unemployment, hunger and homelessness. This distracts us from recognising that Capitalism is a bankrupt economic system which can only create jobs for bomb makers, prison guards and deportation escorts. The assault against migrants is the sharp end of the knife that is being used to cut back support for vulnerable and poor people, young and old alike.

Another world is possible if people with and without papers struggle together to resist their mutual exploitation by the State and Capitalism.
Croydon NoBorders is part of a transnational network of groups and individuals campaigning for an end to immigration controls and for a world without borders, states and capitalism.

Please join us on Saturday 30th July with banners, placards and instrument to call for an end to detention and deportation. Gather at Muster Green park in Haywards Heath at 1pm.

My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding To Be Bulldozed?

Eviction cost already skyrocketing as groups announce human rights shield.

Dale Farm, Europe's largest Traveller community, and one featured in the TV series ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’, faces imminent eviction. Traveller representatives have been told that 28 days notice of eviction will be served on them on 14 March. Dale Farm is a former scrapyard in Basildon, and is owned by the Travellers. It consists of 100 family plots, half of which are set to be demolished.

In response, human rights groups have announced that they will be setting up a full-scale human rights monitoring camp at Dale Farm, before the eviction notice expires on 9 April. Hundreds of activists have pledged to form a human shield around the site to prevent bulldozers from demolishing homes.

Costs for the planned eviction are already skyrocketing. Basildon District Council has set aside 8 million pounds for the eviction itself and estimates that another 10 million pounds will be required. Their application to have the Home Office foot the bill has just been turned down. Taxpayers have already contributed £2.5 million to the Council’s legal and other related costs.

Ironically, the eviction costs are being blamed as one of the reasons why Basildon Council is controversially selling off playing fields in the green belt, and allowing developers to build on them to increase their value. The Council also looks set to announce a bank loan to cover the eviction bill at a special council meeting on March 14th. The skyrocketing costs are coming at a time when as many as 100 Basildon Council jobs are likely to be axed to help the borough cope with budget cuts which will leave it £2.3million short. Basildon is also cutting £505,000 to disabled services.

"Dale Farm residents are willing to move, at no cost to Basildon, but need the Council to identify suitable land," said Richard Sheridan, chair of the Gypsy Council. However this seems increasingly unlikely, as Council leader Tony Ball has promised to resign if the Traveller's are not evicted before the 5 May council elections. There is an obligation under international law for government to find suitable alternative accommodation for those being forcibly evicted.

"When we can find £18 million to evict families from their own land but can't find the funds to keep nurseries, libraries and youth centres open, something has gone terribly wrong," said Natalie Fox from Dale Farm Solidarity. The group is organising human rights monitors to stay at Dale Farm should their be an eviction. She called the eviction "ethnic cleansing", noting that 90% of traveller planning applications are initially rejected compared to 20% overall.

The eviction comes at a time of increased repression of Romani and Traveller communities in France and Italy. The eviction, which is expected to last up to three weeks will drive many Travellers back onto the road and their children will be forced to leave school.

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights stated that ‘the practice of forced eviction constitutes a gross violation of human rights’. They went on to say that ‘to be persistently threatened or actually victimized by the act of forced eviction from one’s home or land is surely one of the most supreme injustices any individual, family, household or community can face’.

Contacts:

On behalf of
Dale Farm Solidarity: Yoshka Pundrik (07583761462)
Dale Farm Housing Association: Grattan Puxton (07888699256)
On behalf of Dale Farm:
Mr Richard Sheridan, chair of The Gypsy Council (07747417711)
Mary Ann McCarthy (07961854023)

http://dalefarm.wordpress.com

Notes for Editors

[1] Although being a runaway hit, My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding has been criticised by some in the Traveller community for it's biased portrayal of their lives:
http://www.travellerstimes.org.uk/blog.aspx?n=c6e13428-2329-462b-a0f8-f6ccab22ced7&h=False&c=f1b1c82c-0f3c-4edf-98cd-502ea80ed8fa

[2] 90% of Traveller planning applications are initially rejected compared to 20% overall -- Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) (2006). Common Ground: Equality, good race relations and sites for Gypsies and Irish Travellers: Report of a CRE inquiry in England and Wales. London: CRE.

[3] In order to cover the cost of the eviction, Basildon council is selling off playing fields to cover the cost:
http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/county_news/8461127.__10m_policing_bill_to_evict_travellers_from_Dale_Farm/

Axing 100 staff:
http://www.halsteadgazette.co.uk/archive/2010/12/16/Basildon+News+%28basildon_news%29/8739399.Basildon_Council_to_shed_100_staff_and_cut_services/

and cutting disabled services:
http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/8792420.Basildon_Council_cuts_target_disabled_services/

[4] For a list of some of the expenditures, see:
http://www.advocacynet.org/resource/1288

[5] UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights General Comment No. 7 on forced evictions, see:
http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/0/959f71e476284596802564c3005d8d50?Opendocument

Britons: More Racist/Xenophobic/Bigoted/Paranoid/Ignorant* Than Anyone Else?

* delete as applicable

The latest Transatlantic Trends on Immigration report shows that Britons are easily the most fearful and ignorant of migration trends than any other country surveyed. Where the country comes out top of the survey: 65% see immigration as more of a problem than an opportunity; 59% said there were "too many immigrants" [the European average for this figure is 12%]; had the most negative views on migrants in the job market (taking jobs away from 'natives' and bringing down wages of citizens); access to health care, state schooling and social housing should be for citizens only; and 48% thought that immigration negatively affects 'British culture'. The UK also has the lowest approval for a country's government's handling of immigration matters.

The only positive thing that we could find in all the data was that at least we weren't as obviously xenophobic as the Italians, Germans, Dutch and French in ascribing increases in crime to immigrants.

In an odd footnote to the media coverage of this was the BBC's on-line content where it claims, after discussing attitudes to access to health and schools and migrants taking jobs from natives, was this: "However, nearly three quarters thought the government should allow more foreign doctors and nurses into the UK and just over half wanted more foreign care workers for the elderly." We can find this nowhere in the report, nor were there any listings of questions involving the migration of health care workers in the Methodology.

Odd! Maybe they just made it up? If it is true however, it just goes to show that the old Empire spirit is still alive: foreigners - make good servants but you wouldn't want one moving in next door to you or marrying your daughter; and maybe this is the reason the Brits are so more racist/xenophobic/bigoted/paranoid/ignorant* than everyone else.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This news comes on the day that another report, 'Coping with Destitution: Survival and livelihood strategies of refused asylum seekers living in the UK', part-funded by Oxfam and conducted by the Centre for Migration Policy Research, is published in the UK detailing the appalling conditions of destitution that refused asylum seekers have to in this country. Many face a hand-to-mouth existence, sleeping rough or stuck in an endless rut of sofa-surfing or sleeping on friends' floors. Many suffer from ill-health because of the lack of accommodation, because of a poor diet and a lack of access to healthcare. Most are in constant fear of forced return or, due to their vulnerability, of being attacked on the street or being exploited and abused. Many are emotionally and psychologically scarred already and their situations are making them much worse.

It's Not Just People Smugglers Who Exploit Refugees

a comment piece by Lyn Bender originally published by The Age

The tragic news of the recent suicide of a person detained in Villawood illustrates the big price that can be paid in human life because of our treatment of asylum seekers.

We accuse people smugglers as traffickers and profiteers in human misery, however, they are just the usual small fry victims who take the rap. With 4903 people in detention, 700 children and 21 centres, business is booming in the displaced people sector. At least $1 billion dollars a year is being spent to detain asylum seekers and the figure is bound to rise as boats keep appearing on the horizon, in response to wars, floods, drought, famine and human rights abuses. What a boost to Australia's GDP.

The Shire Council in the Town of Derby is hailing the proposed reopening of Curtin Detention Centre as an economic yippee for the town, 40 kilometres away from the centre. Especially as staff for the centre will live in the town and are expected to boost local business including that of nearby Weipa.

SBS World News has reported that in July 2010, West Wimmera Shire chief Jim McKay had appealed to the then immigration minister Chris Evans that an investment be made in a Wimmera processing centre rather than offshore. Mayor Ron Hawkins is reported to have said that this would boost the struggling town and bring much-needed jobs. His proposal was rejected.

This is all so yesteryear. In 2001 the Australian government agreed to pay $10 million to Nauru to detain 500 asylum seekers. Nauru with its depleted phosphate resources and poor economy needed the money.

The current government is considering setting up business in Timor — another vulnerable struggling state that the minority government under PM Julia Gillard figures could use the business. In a mutually beneficial deal Timor gets the money and we push untidy boat people offshore and look like we have found our own unique solution.

Again there is nothing new in all of this. According to recently released [2009] British cabinet Documents of 1979, Margaret Thatcher had considered buying an island with Australia in the Philippines or Indonesia to permanently settle Vietnamese refugees.

In 2002, when I was employed by the Woomera detention centre as a psychologist, I lived in the town of Woomera. The locals told me that the Reception and Processing Centre had made a difference in the town. The centre boosted jobs and consumption. The town did not welcome the prisoners but enjoyed the custom that emanated from the ongoing detention. The small hospital was not so happy that its beds were filled with people who were regularly rescued from suicide attempts and who had embarked on hunger strikes.

The local fireman, who was also the ambulance driver, found rescuing people from these attempts to be nerve wracking.

There is an abundance of research testimony and reportage from the period of the Pacific Solution that attests to the damage and trauma that detention inflicts on an already traumatised population. "A last resort?", the report of the National Inquiry into Children in Detention, was tabled in parliament on May 13, 2004.

But it is not just the trauma to the children we should be concerned about. Nor even the damage to families or the single men who embark on these absurdly dangerous voyages. They have a noble cause: a bid to save themselves and their families. Those who seek to profit from their plight can claim no such moral high ground.

The employees at the Detention Centres were poorly trained and frequently not emotionally equipped (who would be?) to manage the task of imprisoning traumatised people. They were inadequately supported in the job and subjected to abuse and violence. They became the bad guys inflicting often unintentional violence. I witnessed attempts to restrain hysterical detainees, that diminished the sense of the officers' self worth. Some became stressed and traumatised. Young nurses at Woomera questioned their own integrity in working at the centre, as did I. For that reason I felt compelled to speak out about the treatment of asylum seekers. And it seems here we go again. We all sustain moral wounds through any exploitation of the misery of the world's refugees: whether they are used to fire up electorates for votes, or simply are targeted to make us feel falsely secure in a massively changing world. Rather than harming and imprisoning the dispossessed, there is a better way all round.

We could reduce suffering and boost our economy by investing in infrastructure rather than prisons. We could feel more secure and gain self-respect and moral integrity by welcoming nurturing and integrating refugees within our communities.

Dale Farm Update & Thoughts

News is still sketchy but there were at least 2 arrests when around 50 bailiffs from the notorious Constant & Co., supported by 3 van-loads of police and a number of Basildon District Council officers, attempted to enter the Hovefields Drive site to evict families and their caravans from 7 sites. Bulldozers were used to tear up the ground works in order to prevent the caravans return.

The bailiffs were met by a number of protesters who had gathered in advance of their arrival to try and prevent the eviction but they were overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers. As one observer said: "The bailiffs came in at eight in the morning and told everyone they had to leave immediately. I think it's been pretty violent in how they were dealing with things."

One Hovefields resident, who managed to get a High Court injunction following last month's issuing of 28 days notice of eviction by the Council, remained on the site following the bailiff's action. As to the fate of the other residents forced out, some of the children involved were being sheltered by other Dale Farm residents but many of the families no doubt spent the night parked up on the side of the road somewhere nearby.

The whole Dale Farm saga is indicative not only of the nimby attitude of residents to gypsies, travellers and Roma in general, but also reveal a widespread racism that lurks just below the surface of polite society. This almost universal stigmatisation of Roma and travellers has lead to centuries of persecution and marginalisation within society, resulting in the 'self-fulfilling prophecy' of a whole group of peoples who just wish to be left alone to live their lives as they see fit.

Yet, 'normal society' want them to assimilate, to settle down and be just like them. Failing that, to just go away. But 'society' refuses to accept any of the blame for creating 'the problem'. I Eastern Europe the centuries of persecution of Roma and traveller folk developed into official state policy, reinforcing and legitimising this racism. Even now, governments are struggling to undo this structural persecution, the condemning of a particular group of people to being second class citizens. Having their children singled out for sending to inferior schools, then being denied access to further eduction or jobs; denied housing and health care; access to the courts; all simply because of who their parents are. Basically Apartheid under another name.

Now this problem, which has existed on a smaller scale through out the rest of Europe* has move on to our doorsteps and the consequences have been played out in the headlines and T.V. news reports in France recently, and before then in Italy. In those cases, the Roma have moved in order to flee that persecution only to run into the same sort of racist resentment and stigmatisation, dressed up in the guise of protecting law and order.

In the Dale Farm situation exactly the same forces are in operation.


* One only has to think of how many derogatory terms for gypsies and travellers are in common usage to work out how true this is.

Some Light In The Limbo Of Everyday Existence?

And in another court decision, this time in the Supreme Court, the Home Office's challenge to an EU directive that asylum seekers who have already had one claim turned down but have submitted a fresh claim be allowed to look for work if their claim has not been processed within a year has been dismissed. Needless to say, the decision raised the ire of the usual suspects with claims that "tens of thousands" [Daily Telegraph] or even "up to 45,000" [Daily Mail] of "failed (sic) asylum seekers given right to work". Both of them of course took the opportunity to quote the latest MigrationBotch aka Andrew Green whinge, though only the Mail had the gall to print his smear about the refused asylum seekers in question not being "genuine refugees".

Just because someone's application for asylum has been turned down as it does not fit the ever more restrictive Home Office criteria, the ever smaller hoops that refugees have to jump through in order to be granted what is usually a very limited right to remain, doesn't make them bogus whatever all the anti-immigration propagandists would have you believe. At least this decision will allow the very small number of refused asylum seekers that actually do manage to get a job to live in something other than a limbo characterised by abject poverty that is hardly alleviated by an occasional charity hand-out whilst the rusty machinery of Home Office bureaucracy slowly grinds its way towards a decision on their case.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yet the latest news is that Damian 'The Omen' Green is seeking to subvert the court ruling by imposing restrictions on the type of jobs refused asylum seekers could apply for, barring them from "more than 28.5m jobs and restrict them to industries in which there are official staff shortages" according to the latest from the Guardian. Blatant discrimination.

Metro Targeted By Anti-Racist Spoof

London commuters were this morning surprised to find that their usual Metro paper was a bit thinner, yet more interesting and engaging, than usual.

Tens of thousands of copies of a spoof newspaper that looked very similar to the free daily were distributed at 20 busy tube stations around the capital during rush hour. Thousands more were distributed in other cities around the country.

Under the headline 'Gordon Brown to be deported to Scotland' the frontpage story claimed the former prime minister was facing imminent removal back to his "home country," as the new coalition government introduced new immigration rules that imposed further restrictions on "non-English nationals". Alongside the story, a manipulated picture showed Gordon Brown being arrested by two policemen at beer festival in Cambridge.

Wearing a white T-shirt bearing the Metro logo and a blue baseball cap, one of the 50 or so distributors, who preferred to keep anonymous, said: "By replacing the word 'British' with 'English' when talking about 'British jobs' and the 'floods of illegal immigrants into Britain,' we hope people will realise how racist and absurd this rhetoric of immigration controls is."

In a witty attempt to highlight the racist and sexual violence experienced by immigration detainees at the hands of private 'detainee escorts', a fake advert claimed that G4S, the private security giant that runs a number of immigration detention centres in the UK and provides detainee escort services on behalf of the UK Border Agency, was looking for "strong men" to "escort women abroad."

The rest of the spoof paper featured a 60-Second interview with a real-life ex-detainee, a 'myth-buster' about asylum and immigration, an 'immigration newspeak' glossary, racist quotes from mainstream press and a couple of more in-depth articles on immigration controls and protests against them.

Many of those who picked up the paper initially seemed confused as to why the Metro had "shrunk." Realising it was a spoof, however, many commented that it was "very funny", "clever", "naughty" and "brilliant". Some even returned back and asked for more copies. Others, however, threw it away and wanted the thicker "real thing."

The Metro website has also been spoofed, with a layout similar to that of the paper's official website but with the spoof paper's content.

The 'spoofing operation' was part of 'two days of action against racist press', called by a coalition of anti-racist and migrant rights groups under the name Press Action.

A spokesperson for the anonymous group of spoofers said, "We are sick of being lied to; we are sick of being lied about. These lies, repeated everyday by free papers, tabloids and other corporate mainstream media outlets, have almost become a reality, where the most vulnerable victims of this screwed-up political-economic system are blamed for it."

Explaining why the group chose the Metro and not a 'more obvious target' when it comes to racist press, such as the Daily Mail or the Evening Standard, the anonymous spokesperson commented: "We wanted to highlight the fact that racism and anti-immigration bias is sometimes more subtle than the Daily Hate rants. Besides, the Metro seemed to provide a better vehicle due to its exploitation of the 'public' transport system, so we thought we'd reclaim that right for a day."

-ends-

For further information and enquiries, please contact: pressaction@riseup.net
Photos available on request.

Notes for editors:

1. A pdf of the spoof paper can be found at:
http://www.metr0.co.uk/images/metr0-e-edition.pdf
or http://pressaction.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/metro_spoof.pdf

2. The spoof Metr0 website is at http://www.metr0.co.uk

3. The callout for the Two Days of Action Against Racist Press can be found at:
http://pressaction.wordpress.com/2010/06/06/two-days-of-action/
or http://www.metr0.co.uk/article/days-of-action.html

Just Who Is Responsible For UK's Worsening Treatment Of Migrants?

It looks like the Tories claims that Nu Labour's mythical 'open door' immigration policy and their supposed attempts at mass social engineering (read as eugenics) via a policy encouraging 'mass immigration', not to mention the creation of the 'multicultural society' (read as 'diluting our precious bodily fluids'), was as restrictive and mean spirited as the Tories themselves hope to be.

The evidence for this has been coming in in droves recently. Just today we have had the news that Refugee and Migrant Justice (RMJ), the charity that provides legal support to thousands of asylum seekers across England and Wales have been forced into administration because of the changes brought in by Nu Labour to the way that Legal Aid fees are paid. Paul Gray, the chair of RMJ: "It is with great sadness that RMJ's trustees took the decision . . . we are very concerned about the position of our 10,000 clients, and of our dedicated and highly professional staff."

Instead of being paid hourly rates with fixed fees for most cases , the previous government decided that it would be a good idea to save money by only paying the fees when cases were exhausted. The net result is that only law firms with large financial backing can afford to take on Legal Aid-funded cases and charities or small firms that fight social justice issues that do not have that backing have either to face going to the wall or give up on Legal Aid-funded cases altogether, especially those firms specialising in asylum cases. Paul Gray again: "This situation is caused by late payment of legal aid by up to two years, not inefficiency or even lack of income . . . Late payment has an unequal impact on charities because they cannot get bank loans to finance the cash gap."

So that was a good outcome for any government seeking to halt, in their eyes, vexatious claims from refused asylum seekers who might dare to seek full legal redress and use the courts to fully pursue their rights under the law to seek, just like anyone else is free to do, as long as they can afford 'justice'. So, despite extensive lobbying of the new government from across the political spectrum, RMJ have been forced to call it a day, leaving over 10,000 clients, including 900 lone children, in legal limbo and more vulnerable than ever of being fed through the Borders Agency mincer and on to the next deportation flight.

The Ministry of Justice's response when then possibility of RMJ having to close its was first announced: "If RMJ fails, we accept that there will be some disruption while their clients look for help from another adviser. However, [the Legal Services Commission] believe that capacity will not be adversely affected as clients and caseworkers will be able to transfer to other organisations, as has happened in similar situations." Except that they wont be specialists in immigration law and their potential clients wont get the best legal advice possible. Still, they will be cheaper. One up to Nu Labour.

Then there was the Tory-Whig Alliance's announcements both of the resumption of deportations of Iraqi asylum seekers directly back to Baghdad, a scheme that had failed miserably last time it was tried, and the plan to send Afghan children back to Afghanistan in direct contravention of any number of international laws and conventions (this was more of a leak than a planned announcement), a move that was roundly condemned by everyone from the UNHCR though the Refugee Council to Human Rights Watch. The tender for the £4m "reintegration centre" in Afghanistan designed to 'process' 120 adults and 12 boys aged under 18 who had been forcibly returned from the UK. Up to 150 teenagers would be sent back in its first year of operation.

The British plans forms part of a wider European move to plan the return of unaccompanied migrant children to Afghanistan. Norway wants to open their own reception centre in Kabul, whilst Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands are to follow suit soon. All this is as the direct result of Nu Labour circulated a policy paper on unaccompanied minors in February during a Brussels workshop that called for an "EU-wide presumption" that a child's best interest was to return. It also argued that formal safeguards such as guardianship were "immensely expensive to put in place", emphasising the cost cutting basis of the plan.

According to the Home Office, there are currently 4,200 unaccompanied child refugees in the country and a fair portion of these have had their asylum applications refused by the Home Office on the basis that they are lying about their true age, never mind actually accepting their reasons for fleeing persecution. However, child protection laws guarantee that they will not be left destitute and homeless and many of these children are currently living in care homes across the UK.

Amongst those who are highly critical of the plan is Kamena Dorling, legal and policy officer for the Migrant Children's Project at the Children's Legal Centre: "If a child has no family to whom they can be returned safely, then it is difficult to see how returning them alone to Kabul will be in line with the UK Border Agency's duty, under the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, to ‘safeguard and promote the welfare' of that child."

However the government's main interest is solely in presenting a picture of the UK as not being a 'soft touch', hence Damian 'The Omen' Green repeating the same tired old clichés focusing on the 'pull factors', such as they are, rather than the 'push factors': "No one should be encouraging children to make dangerous journeys across the world." Just how trite can one get?

We, and numerous others, have worked with these children who (along with their families) have been so desperate to escape their circumstances that they have spent months (if not years) travelling halfway around the world; often walking hundreds of miles through all weathers; risking life and limb; often being beaten, robbed or raped; often trusting their lives to people traffickers (sometimes paid by their families selling everything they own); all in the hope of reaching the relative safety of a land they have only ever seen on the TV or heard of on the radio. That Green should denigrate them with this tosh would be outrageous if it weren't totally to be expected.

The UNHCR also objected to the forced return of Iraqi asylum seekers that the UK and other EU countries have jointly carried out in the past 2 weeks whilst all that well-known snake oil salesman David Cameron could come up with was praise for "our brave servicemen and women fought and died" in Iraq. Yet the war that those troops have pursued in Iraq (and Afghanistan) is the very reason why many of these people were forced to become refugees. Strikes two and three for Nu Labour.

Days later the UNHCR released a report entitled 'Trees Only Move In The Wind' which further reinforce the general dangers that unaccompanied child migrants face, not only on their journeys to the EU, but also when they reach here. It makes for salutary reading.

On top of all this this week saw a report entitled 'Not Gone But Forgotten' from the Red Cross criticising the government's asylum system as "shameful" and "inhumane", and laying into the 'section 4' hardship provision. A survey carried out by the organisation suggested that 87% of the 11,000 plus destitute refused asylum seekers that it helped last year often lived on one meal a day.* Not particularly good PR for the government but no doubt of more concern to them is news from their own newly created Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) of another report that effectively torpedoes the government's plans to cap migration.

The OBR's message is that the demographic time bomb of a falling birth rate and an increasing elderly population coupled with a massive cut in non-EU migration, the cutbacks, a weakening pound and a slowing economy will lead to a further decrease in migration. The net result will be even less of a tax intake to pay for the growing pensions bill and fewer people to fill the low paid carers jobs in the dwindling public and outsourced private sector care providers. Strikes four and five to Nu Labour but the last one is all down to the Tory-Whig Alliance, and from now on the buck will have to stop with them.


* See also the Guardian article 'The asylum seekers who survive on £10 a week'.

G4S Alert In Brighton: Want To Work For G4S??

G4S, the company contracted by the UKBA to take care of large chunks of the deportation and detention process, will have а booth at the City Future Job Fair in Brighton on the 4th of June from 10:00am-4:00pm, which happens to be the same week as the European-wide Week of Action against the Deportation Machine.

The job fair, organized by Brighton & Hove City Council, the Evening Argus, and Job Centre Plus (who also employ G4S Security in their Brighton office), is meant to give Sussex “the chance to visit over 30 key employers with hundreds of current job vacancies all under one roof.” G4S will be one of those 30 employers. (See: www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/jobs-fair)

Groups throughout Brighton are issuing а statement to the Council that it is unacceptable to invite a company to participate in the job fair with such а horrendous and well-documented record of rights abuses towards migrants.

Join us in complaining to the City Future Job Fair sponsors, Brighton & Hove City Council and the Argus for allowing G4S to have а stall in this job fair. Also contact the Brighton Centre (run by the Council) for its role in hosting and organizing the event.

Brighton and Hove City Council
· Location: King’s House, Grand Avenue, Hove, BN3 2LS
· To make а complaint, online form: www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=c1191434
· Online form: www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=b1153064

City Employment Initiatives Team
· Brighton Town Hall, Bartholomew Square, Brighton, BN1 1JA
· Phone: (01273) 296397
· Email: futurejobs@brighton-hove.gov.uk

Argus (Brighton’s main local newspaper)
· Location: Argus House, Crowhurst Road, Hollingbury, Brighton BN1 8AR
· Phone: 01273 544 544
· Fax: 01273 566 144
· Editorial Editor: Michael Beard, editor@theargus.co.uk, 01273 544 501
· Letters to the Editor: letters@theargus.co.uk

Brighton Centre: Please contact Debbie Matthews, in charge of conferences
· Location: Kings Road, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 6GR
· Phone: 01273 290131
· Fax: 01273 779980
· Email: debbiematthews@brighton.gov.uk

Statement Against G4S Recruitment In Brighton & Hove Jobs Fair

G4S styles itself as "the world's leading international security solutions group", providing the outsourcing of governmental operations such as prison and detention centre management, the escort and transfer of prisoners and immigration detainees, and patrolling international borders; private security services to the oil and gas industry, private energy utilities, corporations; and even the Wimbledon Tennis tournament.

Their operations stretch around the globe from USA to New Zealand, via Canada, the UK, Europe and Australia. In 2009, the company had pre-tax profits of £219.2m, from a turnover of 7.01bn (up 7.4% on 2008 figure). The company's UK government security portfolio had a £1bn plus annual turnover, up 16%, and produced pre-tax profits of £97.3m (for UK and Ireland). Immigration is a key component of this sector and the profits it produces. The company runs 3 detention centres: Brook House and the Tinsley House children and families centre, both at Gatwick Airport, and the Oakington IRC near Cambridge which recently saw the recent death of a 40 years old detainee, Eliud Nyenze, from a heart attack after apparently being denied medical assistance by G4S staff.

The company's other immigration-related activity is the escorting of detainees between detention centres, to courts and tribunals and to deportation flights. In the former they were involved in the transfer of Sehar Shebaz and her 12 month old daughter Wania on both their 9 hour journey from Dungavel in Scotland to the notorious Yarl's Wood detention centre near Bedford on 21 May, and her deportation the following day back to her likely death at the hands of her violent ex-husband extended family in Pakistan.

The escorting of immigration detainees, handcuffed between 2 guards for the entire trip and often resisting because they know they could be going back to the threat of imprisonment, torture or even death, is just one of the jobs G4S Security are seeking to recruit additions to their 595,000 plus worldwide workforce for at the City Future jobs fair on Friday 4 June in the East Wing of the Brighton Centre. The fair is organised by Brighton & Hove Council, Job Centre Plus and is sponsored by the Evening Argus.

We call upon these organisations to refuse to support a company that profits so much from the misery of others; to withdraw their invitation to take part in the jobs fair and not to invite the company in any of its myriad forms to any future such events. We ask the Brighton and Hove public to support this call by contacting their local councillor and the Evening Argus to complain about their association with G4S Security.

At Last - Potential Light In The Labour Leadership Darkness

Since Gordon Brown announced that he was standing down as Labour leader it has been looking increasingly likely that the contest to replace him would take place between a bunch of middle class white male political apparatchiks whom one would find it difficult to squeeze a fag paper between them on policy or almost anything else. These prospective candidate clones had all been political researchers in the inner circle loop had also all made early noises off that the reason New Labour failed to stay fresh in the eyes of the electorate was because it had neglected its core constituency: working class voters.

Now, anyone with even a passing grasp of Labour history would know that the party had been ignoring the needs of the working class since the day it was formed. And this process was merely accelerated when the Blair/Brown plan to 'reinvent' as Nu Labour was first formulated. The plain fact is that Labour history has always been one of continuous movement towards the 'middle' of the political spectrum, and just like water going down a plughole, the nearer the middle they got the faster the rate of movement. Now they find Clegg and Cameron camped on what they though was now their home turf and they are stuck with two option: to try and elbow their was back to this mythical 'middle ground'[1] or to reconnect with what should be the needs of the party's core constituency.[2]

And their response? Well, initially it appeared that, rather than spending any time really analysing the 'whys and wherefores', the response would be straight out of the 'knee-jerk' school of politics: a quick coronation based around a common view that the voters blamed all their troubles on bloody foreigners 'over here stealing our jobs and homes and filling up our schools and doctors waiting rooms', therefore we should have been even tougher on immigration. Not that they weren't already turning the screws even tighter. Labour, for example, had planned to save £4.5bn by rendering destitute hundreds of thousands of people currently seeking indefinite leave to remain in the country but, according to ex-immigration minister Phil Woolas, the public didn't know about this 'tough cop' approach: "What we did was not too little, but it was too late. People felt we were shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted." Thus it was all a failure to communicate.

So far, so bad. Then however, it appeared that some light be possibly be shone in the murk of all these recriminations as there appeared to be a chance that Jon Cruddas, who has often been at odds with his party's prevailing 'let's blame it all on immigrants' easy option, would stand. But that expectation proved fruitless and he passed up the chance to put forward arguments like:

"Immigration has been used as a 21st-century incomes policy, mixing a liberal sense of free for all with a free-market disdain for clear and effective rules. We have known this was a problem. Yet the answer for the government lay in a ratcheted-up rhetoric rather than solutions that may have challenged liberal assumptions and business lobbyists alike. Low pay and job insecurity, despite a minimum wage, has left people on the edge of society looking in on new levels of riches. This has happened while migrant workers are set against British workers by rogue employers looking to shave costs to make a bigger buck. This has not happened by accident. Labour actively took the decision not to better regulate for agency workers, and to not introduce living wage agreements."[3]

on the main stage of the leadership debate (though we can but hope that he continues to inject some sense into it even if his position is limited and often contradictory).

Then there is John McDonnell, another working class MP from the 'left' of the party but currently struggling to get the requisite number of nominations. He has been less vocal on the subject but has a history of supporting causes like the Yarl's Wood hungerstrikers, the SOAS cleaners and others struggling against immigration-related repression, and therefore might also contribute views counter to the Milibands, Burnhams and Balls of this world, resulting in some form of rational debate.

However, the piece de resistance must surely now be the announcement this morning that Diane Abbott, the first black MP and female to boot, would join the race. She certainly wont be trotting out the same tired hypocritical rhetoric that Nu Labour were 'tough on immigration and tough on the causes of immigration'. Instead, announcing her reasons for standing, she said that the immigration system is "inefficient and unfair and brings abuse" and that "nobody (else) will say we have to address the underlying issues behind black and white working class unease about immigration, about housing, job insecurity."

She wont win of course, the job is bound to go to one of the safe 'lets not rock the boat' apparatchiks, and the Labour Party's' default setting on immigration is unlikely to change. But then again we don't really care who does win, just as long as they actually try and reconnect with reality and somebody argues the point that it is not migrants that are to blame for the shortage of housing, education, training and meaningful jobs; it is them, the political classes, who have created the conditions that allowed this to happen. Ed Miliband is right, "immigration is a class issue". Just not in the way he meant it.

For example, it is not that immigrants are getting what public housing that is available ahead of the so-called 'indigenous' population, it is that successive governments have decimated that public housing stock that working class voters rely upon especially in areas like London and in the industrial heartlands where unemployment is rife. Instead they chose to follow the Thatcherite ethic, selling it off to subsidise the public coffers and remove the costs of maintaining it via direct works departments from local council budgets. At the same time no new public housing was built to replace it and the inevitable consequence is that the pressures on the ever dwindling council houses that were still available would increase.

This has also inevitably led to bigots wishing to pedal their race-hate agenda or sell their execrable daily newspapers being able to feed lies to and exploit the ignorance generated in the general public around immigration issues, such as immigrants jumping the housing queues. The simple truth is that, rather than jumping any queue, the houses that migrants are getting is ex-council properties in the hands of private letting agents, housing that is often in such a state of dilapidation that nobody would chose to live in them unless they had no other choice short of living on the streets.[4]

This is just one example of the sort of myth (along side blaming migrants for binging wages down, rather than as Cruddas suggests, the employers that pay the wages in the first place) that has the potential to go unchallenged in this 'debate'. One can but hope that it doesn't come down to that. The Tories and Lib Dems may have joined the Blair and Brown version of Labour in junking ideology in order to gain power but Labour have a chance to reject that option and fight for real working class values, not just those of their 'core vote' but for all workers, including migrants. And not to just fight for their own careers as Labour Party apparatchiks.


[1] The idea that everyone can occupy the middle ground is patently absurd ('how many pin-heads can one get on the head of an angel?). And one assumes that there must be a fence in the middle dividing off right from left, therefore, if everyone is sitting on this fence in the middle, it is bound to collapse at some point.
[2] The more paranoid commentators currently appear to think that this [the Tory-Whig coalition] is all some master plan by Cameron - push Labour to the wilderness of left-wing politics - rather than just some accident of history. And if Nu Labour do continue to try and occupy this 'middle ground', they might just as well join the coalition.
[3] We have to say that almost any argument would be more enlightening that the sort of one Ed Balls is putting forward: "Britain is not a racist country"! What is that meant to mean?
[4] And that only some property speculator would want to buy as they know they can make massive profits out of them from the government in just such a fashion without having to invest any money to bring them back up to any sort of acceptable housing standard.

'British Jobs For Foreign Workers'?

Mark Easton in his BBC blog has come up with an interesting take on the 'British jobs for British workers' saga that we have commented on previously. And even better is the fact that the comments of the piece are by and large not from the usual racist trolls that one find peopling these types of spaces, spewing out their ill-informed and often fascist bile (as, for example, in the pages of the Mail and its ilk).

Footnotes

Going back to the '98% of all jobs created under Nu Labour went to bloody foreigners' non-story, we have tried rehashing the statistics and have come up with a different story:

'More than half of all new jobs go to indigenous population'* In a shock turn of events, it has been discovered that around 1.38 million or 50.3 percent of the new jobs created since 1997 have been taken by British nationals. During the same period the number of UK born nationals employed in the country has risen by 791,000 to 25.26 million. This has meant that the employment rate for British nationals has remained steady through out that period, at 73.5 percent. So, despite the fluctuation in the number of jobs available due to massive de-industrialisation, firms closing or moving their businesses abroad and job losses due to the global downturn. Or the changes in the population due to births and deaths, and to people entering and leaving the country, nothing much has really changed.

Some of you may have noticed another fabricated non-story in the yellow press, this one retreading the myth of non-English speakers outnumbering children with English as their first language in schools across the country. We have dealt with this before but just in case you haven't come across the arguments, check out Five Chinese Crackers for a dissection of the Mail, Express and Telegraph's racist delusions.

* We apologise profusely for the use of that vomit-inducing term and for the use of terms containing the word 'nation'.

Nauseating In The Extreme

No doubt Frank Field was nodding his head in agreement as he read the coverage of the letter to Brown, Cameron and Clegg from the Peterborough councillors bemoaning the fact that 'Migration is ruining our peaceful city'. The yellow press certainly salivated over the story, and none more so than the Daily Mail. But if one actually looks at what the two councillors are really communicating is nostalgia for a lost halcyon age:

Bobbies on bicycles; a community which "lived in peace and harmony", where "there was parental choice in education with school places. There was no homelessness. There were no problems with registering at the local doctors for health services."

"We had four police houses in the ward years ago. Everyone knew and respected the local constable. Now we have muggings, robberies, burglaries and neighbour disputes. We have prostitutes, drug dealers and an ever-increasing number of people who drive without road tax or insurance." There are towns and villages up and down the country where there is not a 'black' face to be seen or where the only Pole is the one danced around in May, yet their police houses closed down decades ago.

These problems have absolutely nothing to do with immigration and for the councillors to try and link all these problems to the people lured to their area as cheap farm labour is totally disingenuous to put it mildly. To blame the fact that local "housing waiting lists have rocketed and our homeless hostels are full" on migrants rather than the Tory and Labour schemes to sell off almost all council housing is delusional. But hey, it's not a vote winner to do otherwise.

The letter of course gave the Mail and the rest of the yellow press the (unneeded) opportunity to run all the usual vile racist myths and caricatures:

Czech mothers "who arrived in Peterborough two weeks ago" with her seven children and who speaks "in broken English" jumping the housing queue. "Outside the kitchen door there are grubby children's clothes and some beer cans." A husband who "is claiming the Jobseekers' allowance. Back in our country he was a school cleaner, but in Peterborough they say there are no vacancies."
"14, 15 and 16-year-old girls who have arrived from Slovakia and Lithuania to come in pregnant or wanting fertility advice." The staff at a local doctors surgery "suspect they want babies because they know it will lead to a house and child benefits."
The myth of immigrants "killing swans to eat and are also preying illegally on fish" - "Local anglers claimed ' legally-protected swans' were being 'butchered' by immigrants who are 'raping' the city's waterways by snaring the birds, battering them to death with iron bars and roasting them on open fires on the bank of the River Nene."*
"People sleep rough in derelict houses, alleyways, garden sheds or under crude shelters made of wood and plastic sheeting in the parks - anywhere they can find a place to rest their weary heads at night."

Really, the hypocrisy just gets worse and worse: "While it should be stressed that many of the new arrivals work very hard for low wages - doing jobs local people are not prepared to do - there are many who have quickly learned how to work the benefits system. Each day at 1pm, when the Inland Revenue Office at Hereward House opens, a queue of girls speaking foreign tongues snakes down the road. Their buggies and prams crowd the pavement as they wait to sign on for tax credits and child benefits - as they are entitled to under EU law."

The Mail reporter (Sue Reid) on the trail of all these dirty foreigners (over here stealing our houses, jobs and women) even had the audacity to try and intervene with her own form of citizen's arrest (to no avail):

"This week, I saw two uniformed UK Border Agency officers (plus a policeman and two Peterborough Council staff) search three empty properties in Thistlemoor Road. They found no one. Yet the stench of urine inside, the abandoned bed clothes on the floor and a pile of unwashed cups in the kitchen sinks was proof someone had been staying there until very recently. When I pointed out that three penniless and jobless Slovakians were living in a property just along the street, the officers got in their cars and drove away. As a result, Ivan, 37, Monica, 30, and Vadim, 42, managed to escape detection. Inside a shabby, boarded up house, they have made a home. There are two single beds and a couple of dirty rugs on the concrete floor downstairs. Through the rotting roof you can see the sky. "We came here 20 days ago," says Monica, with tears in her eyes. "I worked yesterday for the first time - getting £10 for doing cleaning at a house." "We have nothing apart from what we have found on rubbish tips. We try to keep clean and have bought a few bars of soap. The only thing I have eaten today is a bag of grapes.""

So the three people she tried to grass up she had already interviewed and knew how badly off they were but you can bet your bottom dollar that she wasn't turning them in so as to make sure they got a proper roof over their heads and a decent meal inside them.

Her next comment aptly shows up her complete lack of understanding and human solidarity: "Why Ivan, Monica and Vadim have left home and journeyed across Europe to live such a squalid existence is hard to understand." Exactly.

The Mail has really surpassed even their greatest excesses in xenophobic barrel-scraping reportage with this piece of thinly disguised racist vitriol, packing so many ignorant right-wing cliches into one article that it probably manages to even trump the whole of the Express' election campaign anti-immigration carpet-bombing offensive.


* This one even gets the the pro-blood sports Mail hypocritically playing the animal welfare card: "Witnesses say migrants camping in woods are using inhumane methods to kill fish, such as long lines with multiple hooks, which are left in the water overnight and cause a slow and painful death."

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That even the Times can come out with the stupidest of this election's clichés 'Immigration: the 'silent' election issue' beggars belief. What planet are these journalists on? Few actual politicians may be spending more than a few passing seconds on the subject of immigration (i.e. as few as they can get away with), the yellow press have been talking about little else.*

The big problem is that when the main parties do talk about immigration they inevitably play into the hands of the overtly-racist right, and especially the BNP, and a number of voices are being raised questioning this policy.


* Frank Field article was even titled 'Why is there no talk about immigration?' What he really meant is 'Why is nobody agreeing with my views on immigration?'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Interestingly, the Times printed the day before what has probably been the most useful piece of coverage of immigration in the whole of the election campaign. It was entitled: 'Q&A: the facts about immigration.' Check it out.

More On Jobs & Statistical Abuse

A few more articles, this time from the Guardian [1, 2], that you can examine to get a different slant on the rabid Tory press' junk statistics. Plus, Andrew Neil's own less than literate use of the statistics which he used in his handbagging of Woolas on Thursday has been shown up by quiet a few of the commentators on his BBC blog.

Ennui & Election Time Immigration Statistics

It was with a terrible debilitating sense of ennui that we saw the front pages of the Express and Mail yesterday parroting an uncredited story from that bastion of reaction the Spectator's Coffee House blog, inflating it out of all significance and fuelling the two paper's respective ludicrously high non-story-immigration-stories counts of recent months, ludicrously high even if one takes in the fact that that a pseudo-election campaign has been up and running since the turn of the year.

This debilitating sense of ennui was further 'enhanced' by coming across the claim in the Mail article "Here JAMES SLACK explains what is really happening..." This kiss of death, James Slack 'by name, slack by nature' having another go at trying to juggle a bunch of statistics and dropping the whole lot in an unedifying pile on the floor. Having spent hours trying to decipher some of his previous attempts at simple maths, counting apples and oranges and getting bananas, we quiet frankly couldn't be bothered to waste our valuable time and energy.

Fortunately those nice people over at Five Chinese Crackers were crackers enough to try, so you can all have a look at their attempts to unravel the far from blue ribbon statistical analysis of the Mail and Express, and by inference the Spectator. And if you are feeling particularly masochistic, you too can read the Spectator's original post, its moan about the Mail stealing its story and its smug attempt to hatchet Woolas on his muddled response to their analysis. Additionally, Left Foot Forward have an alternative analysis of the figures, but quiet frankly the argument over 'British jobs for British workers' was nationalist posturing when Brown came out with it in the first place and it remains nationalist posturing, whatever the actual statistics.

As a footnote, it is very interesting that the Spectator, Mail and Express all seem to manage to find diffenent headline numbers for the percentage of jobs that they seem to think have gone to these 'damned foreigners' anyway. Who says statistics can't lie?

The Mail Says: 'Foreign Nurses Forced To Take English Lessons'...

...So It Must Be True?

Ah yes! The Daily Mail, in its xenophobic Spitfires-over-the-cliffs-of-Dover and Churchill-fighting-the-damn-foreigners-on-the-beaches world, is at it again, revealing the startling news that (as the Telegraph puts it in its more sedate rehash of the Mail's story), 'NHS trust employs staff from 70 countries' - "Managers at Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals in Oxford have arranged for employees to take English lessons after patients complained that they could not make themselves understood."

Except that the Mail's original version is slightly more sensationalist, 'Revealed: Hospital has staff from 70 countries as nurses who don't even understand 'nil by mouth' forced to take English lessons' [note the word 'forced'] - "An NHS hospital has staff from a staggering 70 countries on its payroll. The huge number of overseas nurses, cleaners and porters has forced health chiefs to send them on ten-week English courses because many do not understand basic medical phrases."

And how do we know this to be the case? You can bet your bottom dollar that the NHS Trust did not press-release the story. Of course not, far too obvious a target for Mail-like sensationalism. So, in sightly torturous English, the Telegraph reveals who did, "Many nurses and other front-line staff at the hospitals have such poor language skills that they are unable to read or write English, patient groups said."

The aforementioned 'patient group(s)' was, according to the Mail, the Oxford Radcliffe Patients' Forum, or to be more accurate, one Jacquie Pearce-Gervis,* who apparently "called last night for English lessons to be made compulsory rather than voluntary." The Telegraph, who appear to have checked her bona fides before publishing, identified her as spokeswoman for "Patient Voice, the Oxfordshire-based campaign group". And a quick search of the internet reveals that she was certainly a member of the 'Oxford Radcliffe Patients' Forum'** in 2006 (the most recent listing on the Trust's website) but most recently she has been a member of the Oxford-based or Oxfordshire-based group 'Patients Voice', depending on who one reads. Whether this is the same group as the pro-vivisection Oxford-based group Patients' Voice for Medical Advance we do not know.

However, it would appear that all one needs to do to get a story in the Mail, whatever group one claims to represent, is to ring up some dodgy Mail journo or the 'News' desk itself with some juicy titbit about damn foreigners causing good English stock some form of upset and Bob's your uncle (or aunty as the case maybe be, though she wouldn't get any favourable space if she were the later).

Anyway, to get back to the Mail: "Among the terms some workers from countries such as Burma, the Philippines and Poland can't follow are 'nil by mouth', 'doing the rounds' and 'bleeping a doctor'." Err! Why that particular choice of countries? Burma possibly, the Philippines less obviously, but Poland!? Clearly Poles (swan-eating shed-squatters) are now up there with the French (cheese-eating surrender monkeys, though they do want to ban the burqa) and Germans (the Boche - no can't use that word, its French - started WWI, WWII and the EU along with the French and always beating England on penalties at the World Cup) on the Mail's list of countries to hate.

Now here's the juicy bit, the meat (or TVP) in the sandwich of this story: "The lessons follow several 'near-disaster' cases, including one where a meal was delivered to a patient because a member of staff did not understand that 'nil by mouth' meant the man could not eat or drink." Disturbing, especially as the headline implied that this was due to "nurses who don't even understand 'nil by mouth'."

Reading on through the article, after learning that "all doctors from outside the EU must pass an English language test set by the General Medical Council before they can practise" and that "the same rules do not apply for other hospital workers", except that nurses and porters of course do not practice medicine and therefore do not have to take the GMC tests. "Instead, they are usually assessed on their grasp of the language at interview."

OK then? Except, "the problem has become so acute at Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals that foreign workers are being encouraged to attend ten-week, taxpayer-funded 'English For Speakers Of Other Languages' courses, which are run by a nearby college."

So exactly how bad is this 'problem'? The Mail seems reluctant to actually say. It does reveal the interesting 'factoid' that "research has found that up to a quarter of nurses - more than 60,000 - working in London are foreign, with the largest number coming from the Philippines." What research this is the article does not reveal, or why the facts about London are relevant to Oxford and a hospital (or is that a hospital trust, not necessarily the same thing) that the paper clearly implies has much more of a 'problem' with foreign staff as they surely would be leading with the banner 'London hospitals employ staff from 70 countries' or some such rubbish?

Then we get a list of some hospitals in London and that "Manchester Royal Infirmary also has a high proportion of foreign staff from countries including India, Ghana, Spain, Germany, Iceland and the Yemen." Outstanding journalism! But probably nicked from a 2002 edition of the Independent.*** And its only then that we learn, both that this earth-shattering story is due to this Ms Pearce-Gervis calling "last night for English lessons to be made compulsory rather than voluntary."

And, wait for it, "There have been cases when porters have delivered a patient food despite the fact there is a clear sign on their bed saying "nil by mouth"." So it is NOT nurses who don't understand the phrase 'nil by mouth', it is porters delivering food to patients who apparently do not understand it. And even then we have no evidence that the food being delivered to the bed of someone due to have an operation was because the porters could not read English or because they got mixed up over who was having what meal, a mistake that we are sure no English-reading porters has ever made.

And even then, in the very next sentence, Ms Pearce-Gervis states "obviously this could have led to disaster but fortunately THE PATIENT [our emphasis] has been intelligent enough to point out that they are not allowed the food." So it was only one patient, as the Mail itself claimed earlier in the article. One case and even then there's no evidence presented of possible 'disaster' if the patient had gone ahead and eaten the food.

So what do Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust have to say on the subject? After a short anonymous quote from 'a member of staff at the trust' ("I think it should be compulsory. There can often be problems with common slang terms used on the ward." - something that 10 weeks of English lessons are not necessarily going to solve) and as many column inches of space dedicated to Dr Daniel Ubani, the German (naturally) GP involved in the death of a patient through the administration of a massive overdose of a painkiller he had never used before, but who also happened to have failed the GMC language test, their spokesperson, Rainy Faisey, deputy director of human resources at Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals, claimed that the courses were a way of giving staff in lower-paid jobs a chance to develop their skills.

"As an employer, Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust offers a wide variety of training and development opportunities to its staff to help them to provide excellent care for our patients and further their career in the NHS. Like all good employers we give all staff the opportunity to develop their reading, writing and numeracy skills, whether their first language is English or not."

So, all in all, another xenophobic Mail non-story. And NO nurses are in fact being "forced to take English lessons."



* Who a back copy of the May 2004 issue of ORH News helpfully tells us "began work at the Radcliffe Infirmary as a shorthand typist when she was 17 and worked in the NHS for 20 years before re-training as a teacher in further education."
** As an aside, the Oxford Radcliffe Patients' Forum or Patient and Public Involvement Forum or the Oxfordshire and Berkshire Consortium for Patient and Public Involvement in Health (or even Oxfordshire and Berkshire Consortium for Patient and Public Involvement in Health depending on which NHS trust website one visits) no longer appears to exist in one or maybe all of its previous forms. Certainly neither of the websites [1, 2] are up and running and there is no mention of it in recent issues of the ORH News.
If, however, you live in the Oxford area, you can apply to join the panel by filling out this form. And maybe you'll get to meet the famous Ms Pearce-Gervis who the Mail is happy to dedicate so much of its valuable advertising space to.
*** This really does show up how little research goes in to this sort of story. No doubt the journo Google a few hospitals abd came up with the Independent article 'Why foreign nurses hold the nation's health in their hands', which contains the following information: "Indian nurses now account for one in ten of the infirmary's nursing workforce." Followed by: "In addition, a dozen other countries supply staff, including the Philippines, Australia, Spain, Ghana, Germany, Iceland and the Yemen."

Selected Lowlights Of The Yarl's Wood Inspection Report

As many of you probably cannot be bothered to read the full report on the unannounced full follow-up inspection of Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre on 9 – 13 November 2009 by the Chief Inspector of Prisons, we've chosen a few lowlights for you, with the odd comment of course.

Length of Detention:

Over the past six months, 420 children had been detained, of whom half had been released back into the community, calling into question the need for their detention and the disruption and distress this caused. Some children and babies had been detained for considerable periods – 68 for over a month and one, a baby, for 100 days – in some cases even after social workers had indicated concerns about their and their family’s welfare. Detailed welfare discussions did not fully feed into submissions to Ministers on continued detention. - Introduction. [This figure of only 50% actually deported was confirmed earlier this month.]

Now Phil Woolas has responded to this directly, on amongst other things Radio 4, and has claimed that, whilst half of all Yarl's Wood detainees are released at some point (he helpfully pointed out that "all the people we are talking about are appeal-rights exhausted"), almost all are subsequently removed from the country. Now, this raises a few interesting points.

Firstly, and our maths here may not be too hot, but if half of all detainees are released but almost all are subsequently removed then:
1] half are being detained before all legal avenues have been exhausted, be they appeal-rights exhausted or not;
2] in order to remove almost 100%, if half are removed at each subsequent detention, then 25% are detained twice before deportation, 12% detained three times, 6% four times, you get the picture.

Therefore the line that "whenever we [UKBA] take decisions involving children, their welfare comes first and we will always seek to act in the best interests of the child" and that the Home Office's only detains people when their removal is imminent or when there is a risk of them absconding, and when other alternatives have been considered, is clearly not true.

And just ask yourself, if you have been in the country for a number of years, you have a settled home life with your children in school, are you likely to go on the run? The Home Office clearly thinks so, despite them never having offered one scintilla of evidence that this is likely to be the response of families facing deportation.

So his statement in response to the report that "The sad fact is that some illegal immigrants refuse to comply with the decision of the independent courts and return home voluntarily. The alternatives to centres like Yarl's Wood include putting children into care – which would mean separating them from their parents and risking increased child trafficking and further illegal immigration," is a load of hogwash. [Note: he does not iterate the other alternatives.] And to bring child trafficking into the argument is really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

None of the five families who had been held for 28 days or more [NB: reviews of continued detention have to be carried out after 28 days] and who were discussed during a conference call held during the inspection were removed and all were eventually released. - Main recommendation #2.

More than 10% of detainees had been held at Yarl’s Wood for more than six months. Of these, 13 had been held for six to eight months, eight for eight to 10 months and 11 for more than 10 months. Three detainees had been detained for two years and more. The average length of detention at the centre was 34 days for single female detainees (compared to 22 days in 2008) and 16 days for families. There were no statistics for length of detention across the estate and even those for length of detention at Yarl’s Wood were not easily accessible. The cumulative length of detention was highly relevant to the management of cases, including by the UKBA’s on-site office, so this lack of accurate statistics could adversely impact on detainees. - Immigration casework 3.15.

One Zimbabwean woman detained for nearly two years was awaiting a Court of Appeal hearing, but the monthly review letters failed to mention that there had been no forced removals to Zimbabwe throughout this period. In the case of another woman held for 13 months, it had taken a year to confirm her claim of having Nigerian nationality and the monthly review letters failed to identify the reason for lack of progress. There was no evidence in the case file that the detainee was not cooperating. In other cases, the reason for continued detention was highly questionable. One Nigerian woman who had been at the centre for 16 months was told that her continued detention was because she had been ‘assessed as posing a serious risk of harm to the public’ for committing the offence of possession of a false identity document for which she had served nine months in prison. - Immigration casework 3.17.

Health & Welfare Provision:

Provision of activities for them was among the poorest seen in any removal centre. It had been inadequate at the last inspection, and had declined even further. The absence of activity added to the depression and anxiety of women, many of whom were spending lengthy periods at Yarl’s Wood. The average length of stay had increased by 50% since the last inspection, and one in ten women had been detained for more than six months. There was some paid work, but only about a dozen jobs offered more than 10 hours a week. The quality and quantity of education was poor, except for some good arts and crafts work. - Introduction.

The conditions, activities and services for children, within the centre, had improved significantly, but this, while welcome, could not compensate for the adverse effect of detention itself on the welfare of children, half of whom were later released back into the community. - Introduction.

There had been no assessment of adult mental health needs. - Introduction.

Food:

None of the 5 previous recommendations regarding food had been achieved, though the percentage saying that "the food was good or very good" had risen to 17% from the previous only 7%, against the comparator standard of 27%.

Food lacked variety, could be of poor quality and was much criticised by detainees. - Respect HE.24.

Detainees did not work in the kitchen and were unable to contribute to the preparation of national dishes. - Respect HE.33.

Removals:

[Between August and October 2009], 845 detainees had left following issue of removal directions: 554 [66%] had been escorted by G4S inland and 143 of these removals (26%) had failed; 291 [34%] had been escorted by overseas escorts and 74 (25%) had failed. - Removal and release 10.18.

There were several examples of arrangements made to split the family for effective removal. This usually meant separating the family from the father, but in one case the proposal was to separate a five year old child from his mother on their journey to the airport. In another case, separating the father was described as ‘leverage over the mother’ and in another, separating the mother from her 18 year old son was described as ‘leverage to decrease the mother’s obstructive behaviour’. - Removal and release 10.26.

In January 2009, force had been used to split a family of six so that the father and two children could be removed. The youngest child had been removed by force from his father’s grip and a 10 year old child was taken by force into the departure area after refusing to leave his mother. In the same month, force was used on a pregnant woman. Her three year old son had been kept in the family care suite while she was taken to the legal offices to be given removal directions. On leaving the offices, she had refused to move further and called repeatedly for her son. She had been forcibly placed in, and held in, a wheelchair and taken to the family care suite where she was reunited with her son. - Removal and release 10.27.

Paid Work:

Paid work had expanded to 49 paid work roles, but this was still inadequate for the population. Only a quarter of roles offered work for more than 10 hours a week and there was a two to three week waiting list for jobs. The application process was unclear and work agreements that detainees were required to sign were not translated. Access to work could be vetoed for non-compliance with UKBA, which inappropriately mixed custodial and immigration functions. the child. - Activities HE.37.

The privileges of enhanced status were access to the clothing bazaar, 30 minutes a day internet access and the ability to apply for paid work, subject to UKBA approval (see section on work and learning and skills). Standard level detainees were restricted to 30 minutes a week of internet access, which inappropriately reduced the amount of their contact with the outside world. - Rewards scheme 8.15.

Further recommendations 8.16 Detainees should only be downgraded to the standard level for a pattern of behaviour rather than a single incident, unless that incident is very serious. 8.17 Reviews should be regular and take place on time. 8.18 Reduced access to the internet should not be a penalty within the rewards scheme

Other findings:

A 65% increase in the use of force in first 9 months of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008.

Almost twice the numbers of incidents of temporary confinement under Rule 42 in first 9 months of 2009 compared to same period 2008.

A 37% increase in the number of complaints, nearly half were made about medical issues [32%] and ‘poor communication’ [16%].

After the 2008 inspection, the HM Inspectorate of Prisons made 128 recommendations, the same number as during the 2009 visit. Of those, only 59 [46%] were achieved by the second visit. Of those 43 unachieved and 16 partially achieved recommendations from 2008, 65 were carried over to this report to make 187 new or repeated recommendations to the operators of Yarl's Wood [156] and to UKBA [29], plus 2 jointly addressed.

But probably most damning of all:

There seemed to be no change in practice following the removal of the reservation to Article 22 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and no consideration of whether detention was essential or in the best interests of the child. - Childcare and child protection 4.28.

Playing The Immigration Card

Monday saw yet another article in the Guardian by MigrationBotch front-man Alan Green, ostensibly in response to an Observer editorial, 'We're still a long way from an honest debate about immigration', the day before. However, it was really prompted by the criticism of Dave™'s, and consequently his and the right-wing anti-immigration press', peddling of the myth of the 70 million.

His little ditty 'How to tackle immigration', with its disingenuous subheading "With rising concern over immigration to the UK, it is important to examine its sources – and how we can limit them", merely rehearsed his tired rhetoric and showed up his lack of grasp of the concepts and terminology involved in the statistics, which he tries to wield in support of his bigotry.

The Observer editorial commenced with a typically liberal sentiment, "It is now generally recognised in British politics that expressing concern about the scale of recent immigration into the country is not necessarily a sign of racism." Unfortunately that is incorrect, as the corollary to it is that the situation that is causing that concern is the 'fault' of the 'excess' of migrants i.e. it is the migrants that are driving down wages (as the Daily Mail claims referencing the recent Equalities and Human Rights Commission report, 'The UK's New Europeans'), causing the lack of social housing, placing a 'burden' on the NHS, etc., etc. It is not the migrants driving down the wages, it is the employers who are willing to pay lower wages in order to maximise their profits. This is exactly the same process that has seen the industrial base in the UK exported to countries where the wages are lower and we do not seem to blame the workers in those countries for being willing to accept lower wages that the good old British worker, do we? It's capitalism stupid! [1]

In a similar fashion, it is every government since Thatcher's (along with every 'aspirational' council tenant who bought their council house) that are to blame for the lack of available social housing, the sort of council houses that were passed down the generations within families just as many manufacturing jobs had been before they moved abroad or disappeared otherwise. And as for the NHS, there would not be one if it had not been for the migrants in the 50's and 60's who kept it staffed and in existence, and it still only just gets by because of the 'imperialistic' drain on the skill base of the rest of the world.

That the Observer then uses the EHRC report, which flatly contradicts an Institute for Public Policy Research report 'The Economic Impacts of Migration on the UK Labour Market' from February last year, as evidence that "There is no doubting the impact of recent, sustained high levels of immigration" is bizarre. The paper erroneously claims that "One predictable effect, the study found, was to hold down wages for skilled and semi-skilled workers in Britain." The report does not even mention any effect on the wages of skilled workers (and the Observer article the same day 'Eastern European immigration 'has hit low-paid Britons'' also does not mention this 'phenomenon'). If they cannot get this simple 'fact' right, then clearly we are "still a long way from an honest debate about immigration."

One thing that this Observer editorial does not mention (though is hinted at in its article on the report, and is needless to say totally ignored in the Mail piece) is that "In many cases the new migrants have precarious employment and housing arrangements, are vulnerable to exploitation, or lack support networks and access to information." In fact, most are stuck in dead-end jobs with little or no prospects of moving up the 'job ladder'.

The Observer editorial ends: "Immigration will feature in the election campaign and rightly so. [2] Parties must explain their policies on a matter of concern to so many voters. But they must explain them honestly. Sadly, there is little chance of that happening. Labour and the Tories may have become freer in their discussion of immigration, but they show no sign of really wanting to dispel the fog of ignorance and prejudice that still shrouds debate on the issue." Obviously this a "fog of ignorance and prejudice" that the paper's editor also appears to suffer from.

Which brings us neatly to Alan Green's (never ending) contribution to the "fog of ignorance and prejudice". Here we have a man who, in his very comfortable retirement, has decided to ride his hobby-horse into the ground. He has become what he clearly appears to believe is a self-taught expert on immigration (we use the term immigration rather than migration because his interest in the subject is specifically that). Except that he constantly lets his ignorance slip. Sometimes it is simple things, such as claiming that "Over the past 50 years, their [the Office of National Statistics] projections at the 20-year range have been accurate to about 2.5% (sic). This actually means nothing. 2.5% of what? What he in fact means is that the estimates are accurate to within 2.5%. A small point, but a very telling one when he cannot even get the terminology right (just as Cameron did when he talked about 'net immigration').

Green follows this faux pas up with the claim that the ONS "have confirmed [in a recent parliamentary answer] that most of last year's fall in immigration has already been factored in to the latest projections." [our emphasis] This is blatantly NOT true. If you read the parliamentary answer and the methodology (which the article helpfully gives links to): "The assumptions for the 2008-based projections are based upon final estimates of long-term international migration up to the end of 2007, plus provisional International Passenger Survey (IPS) estimates of long-term international migration for the year ending December 2008. Thus the calculation of the assumptions took into account the decline in long-term international net migration indicated by the provisional IPS estimates published by ONS on 27 August 2009."

So, despite the fact that the figures were published in October last year and that "the 2008-based projections assume annual net migration from [A8 & A2 EU member states] declining from +25,000 for 2009-10 to zero for 2014-15 onwards," it actually says nothing about factoring in the 2008-09 figures as Green states. Nor does it say what estimates for the decline from a net migration figure of 163,000 in 2008 they used. [3]

In a recent blog we pointed out, as others have done, Green's claim that immigration is the major factor for future population growth. Here he repeats it again: "Nor it is correct to say that the birth rate is more crucial than net migration in determining population growth. If you take account of the children of future immigrants, then immigration accounts for 68% of population growth." The big problem is that he wants to have his cake and eat it. You cannot count the same figures twice. In population statistics, migration is migration and natural population growth (births minus deaths) is natural population growth.

Yes, future migrants will be younger and more fertile than the existing ageing UK population but that is totally irrelevant for these statistics. If future immigrants were all older and less fertile that the current population no doubt he would be using that as a stick to beat them with.

He then claims that: "The public are increasingly conscious of this – which is why 85% express concern that our population is projected to hit 70 million in 2029." [4] Yet a similar survey he frequently quotes from also found that 36% wanted a population of less than 50 million, whilst 40% did not know what the optimum population size for the UK should be. Lies, damned lies and statistics, eh! And it is 84% by the way.

He then goes on to give his options for cutting immigration: "The first thing is to exclude asylum from this discussion. Asylum seekers account for only 10% of net foreign immigration and only one-third of those are granted protection. [5] The rest face the quite different problem of removal," listing EU migrants (he hopes wont be too much of a 'problem' in the future); students (must leave after study unless they "entered a genuine marriage" or got a work permit); spouses and fiancées (reduce non-"genuine marriages by British citizens") but his big answer is a cap on economic migration at 20,000.

We are too bored with all this to examine his 'thoughts' any further, short to say his is the sort of discourse, despite his denials elsewhere, that Roland Schilling, the UK representative of the Office of the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees, no doubt meant when he warned that the current disgraceful level of debate risked being hijacked by dangerous anti-immigrant groups [MigrationBotch, surely not?] and would push potential refugees further into the "shadowy world dominated by gangsters and people smugglers."


[1] "The recent migration may have reduced wages slightly at the bottom end of the labour market, especially for certain groups of vulnerable workers, and there is a risk that it could contribute to a ‘low-skill equilibrium’ in some economically depressed local areas." This is all based on "A relatively limited evidence base [that] suggests that eastern European immigration has brought economic benefits, including greater labour market efficiency and potential increases in average wages." [both quotes 'The UK's New Europeans']
[2] Just how much immigration will feature in the coming election rests largely on how the Tories approach the subject and, given that their own analysis showed that their attempts to exploit the immigration card backfired, they may have learnt their lesson and largely steer clear of the issue. The BNP, UKIP and Alan Green will however have something to say on the subject.
[3] Unfortunately, Green's Observer article gives a link to Population Trends No. 128, with figures only up to 2006, as a link to illustrate "last year's fall in immigration". About as useful as the proverbial chocolate teapot. In fact, in the first 3 months of 2009 there were 23,000 work permit applications from E8 workers (down from down from 48,755 in the same period in 2008) and 26,150 in the second quarter (down from 46,070 the year before).
[4] Not surprising really when the question "How would you feel about a population of this size?" Gave as answer options: Delighted / Wouldn’t mind / Slightly worried / Very worried / Don’t know.
[5] And of course asylum applications have been severely cut back on over the years, so it would be too obvious to hit them yet again. Though you could always increase the refusal rate.