Phone the UK's latest prison profiteers! Ring them on Tuesday 26th April to protest against their involvement in detention and deportation!
In March 2011 Barnado's announced that they will run the play facilities at the UKBA's new "pre-departure accommodation centre" in Pease Pottage, near Gatwick. We call on Barnado's to stop cashing in on others' misery and have chosen Tuesday 26th April as the day to contact them. Below are the contact numbers for all the regional offices:
London & South East - 020 8551 0011
South West - 0117 937 5500
Yorkshire - 0113 393 3200
Midlands - 0121 550 5271
North West - 0151 488 1100
Scotland - 0131 334 9893
Wales - 0292 049 3387
North East - 0191 240 4800
Northern Ireland - 0289 067 2366
For more info about the pre-departure accommodation see:
http://nobordersbrighton.blogspot.com/search?q=pre-departure+accommodation
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Saturday, 9 April 2011
You Legitimise Child Detention, We Disrupt You
On 9 March, Barnardo's announced that it had agreed with the UKBA to provide staff and children's activities for the proposed new immigration prison for up to nine families at Pease Pottage, Crawley Forest.
A group of activists from groups including London No Borders, All African Women's Group, and SOAS detainee support swarmed in to the Museum of childhood during Barnardo's fundraising initiatives panel this afternoon to ask, 'How charitable is it to collude with the UKBA in locking up children?' and 'Why fund that of all things during the crisis?'. Despite some protestations from the crowd, many looked thoughtful and kept quiet during the proceedings. After some leafleting and general interruption the group moved to the front of the museum where banners were laid out and discussions with passers-by took place- all in all a successful stunt.
Watch the video of the protest here.
A group of activists from groups including London No Borders, All African Women's Group, and SOAS detainee support swarmed in to the Museum of childhood during Barnardo's fundraising initiatives panel this afternoon to ask, 'How charitable is it to collude with the UKBA in locking up children?' and 'Why fund that of all things during the crisis?'. Despite some protestations from the crowd, many looked thoughtful and kept quiet during the proceedings. After some leafleting and general interruption the group moved to the front of the museum where banners were laid out and discussions with passers-by took place- all in all a successful stunt.
Watch the video of the protest here.
Sunday, 3 April 2011
Oranges & Sunshine: Children's Charity Barnardo's Must Learn From Past Mistakes
by Clare Sambrook, co-ordinator of End Child Detention Now.
This isn’t the best of times for Barnardo’s, Britain’s biggest children’s charity. Already under fire for lending its name to the government’s rebranding of child immigration detention, Barnardo’s has a shaming presence in the deeply upsetting film, Oranges and Sunshine, released today.
The film concerns the hard-to-believe scandal of 130,000 children effectively exported from Britain to supply free labour and “white stock” to the Commonwealth. The practice began in earnest in the late 1800s, a collaboration by government, churches and charities including Dr Barnardo’s. In the years after World War II, some 4,500 children in care were despatched, the last landing in Australia as recently as 1970.
Oranges and Sunshine opens in 1986 when real-life Nottingham social worker Margaret Humphreys hears something unbelievable from a client whose brother Jack, lost since childhood when they were taken into care, has got in touch. Now middle-aged, Jack writes from Australia, saying he was sent there as a little boy “in a big ship full of kids”.
“Why have I never heard about it?” asks Humphreys, played with skilful ordinariness by Emily Watson. “Why has no-one ever heard about it?”
The answer, Humphreys finds, is that governments, churches and charities lied about it. The film focuses on child migrants sent to Australia. Oranges and Sunshine — Jim Loach’s debut feature — takes its name from false promises made to children by adults entrusted with their care.
Child migrants were told their parents were dead. Parents who had left children in institutions’ care with every intention of getting them back were told they had been adopted by loving families close to home.
In fact they had been sent thousands of miles away to wretched lives and sometimes criminal abuse in the care of ill-run institutions and child-raping Christian Brothers.
The film reveals how Margaret Humphreys and her husband Mervyn discovered and exposed all this, founding the Child Migrants Trust to help migrants trace their birth certificates, their parents, and their past.
The loss and pain might have been less had governments, churches and charities seen for themselves the errors of past practice and worked urgently to inform and reunite the damaged families. In one of the film’s heartbreaking moments, Humphreys tells Jack — the lost-and-found-again brother in Australia, played by Hugo Weaving — that she has found his mother. Then she pauses.
“We’re too late, she’s dead, isn’t she?” he says. “When did she die?”
“Last year,” says Humphreys.
A 105 minute docudrama written by Rona Munro (of Loach-senior’s Ladybird, Ladybird), the film stays close to Humphreys’s quest, eliciting the children’s stories gently, gathering darkness as it goes. Resisting flashbacks, Lynch lets the childhood horrors play out in the audience’s mind, where they stay. This quiet film provokes a deep and lasting anger.
Barnardo’s — only briefly mentioned: a name check, a scribble in a notebook, a cog in the machine — has tended to bury the past, but the past haunts the latest chapter of Barnardo’s story.
In February 2010, a full twenty-four years after Humphreys first heard of the “big ship full of kids”, Prime Minister Gordon Brown at last apologised to child migrants — paying tribute to Margaret Humphreys and the Child Migrants Trust.
Barnardo’s then chief executive Martin Narey welcomed Brown’s apology, expressed sympathy with the migrants, but resisted apologising for Barnardo’s part. Instead, Narey said: “This policy was well intentioned and many who advocated it before and after the Second World War sincerely believed migration would offer impoverished children the chance of a radically better life.”
He added: “I hope that today’s events give every one of us an opportunity to reflect on past failures and learn from past mistakes.”
This expression of regret, that it seemed right at the time, did not accept responsibility, own up to or challenge what Barnardo’s officials had done. Their sincerity did not help the children, who might have been better served by alertness and scepticism in the adults charged with their care.
New times, new scandals. Has Barnardo’s learned from past mistakes?
Ten months ago the UK’s new coalition government promised to end the “moral outrage” of immigration child detention, which, it is now widely accepted, causes children lasting psychological harm. But instead of ending detention, the government commissioned a review of the “alternatives” led by the Border Agency’s own director of criminality and detention Dave Wood, a man whose false undermining of the medical evidence of harm is a matter of parliamentary record.
In December the “alternatives” were unveiled: detention, rebranded. According to calculations by Professor Heaven Crawley at the Centre for Migration Policy Research the government’s new “family-friendly pre-departure accommodation” could hold 4,445 children every year.
Last week the Border Agency won planning permission for a “family-friendly” facility in the Sussex village of Pease Pottage, complete with 2.5-metre perimeter fences, electronic gates, “control and restraint” — and Barnardo’s charity workers to “help families prepare for their return”.
Objectors who attended the Council planning meeting (noting councillors’ concerns that a “majestic beech tree” should be protected from the children) claimed Barnardo’s involvement “almost single-handedly swung the application in UKBA’s favour”.
The Border Agency is cock-a-hoop, trumpeting public approval from “highly respected” Barnardo's. The charity’s new chief executive Anne Marie Carrie admits: “There will be some who say, ‘Why would Barnardo's be involved with this?’”
Indeed there are. Former Children’s Commissioner Sir Al Aynsley-Green is among those asking what on earth Barnardo’s is playing at.
That others, who privately confess dismay, fear to speak out, is one measure of Barnardo’s clout.
Yesterday, in response to emailed questions, the charity said:
“Barnardo’s will be providing welfare and social care within the new pre-departure accommodation being established for asylum-seeking families in Crawley. The decision to do so was made by the Chief Executive with the support of Barnardo’s Council and goes right back to our core purpose: Barnardo’s seeks to support the most vulnerable children in the UK. We have agreed to play a role because we believe it is critical that families and children are treated with dignity and respect and able to access high quality support services during this time.”
Among the questions Barnardo’s declined to answer: “What potential problems and conflicts might arise from lending the Barnardo’s name to the UK Border Agency?”
And: “Why did Barnardo’s not seize the opportunity of government’s wish for third-party endorsement to push the government to honour its pledge to end child detention?”
In other words, isn’t Barnardo’s helping to create the situation that makes children vulnerable? Won’t it be party to their distress?
Gordon Brown apologised to the child migrants last year on behalf of Britain. Barnardo’s didn’t apologise, but it did pledge to “take the opportunity to reflect on past failures and learn from past mistakes.” Perhaps they should reflect more deeply, in particular on whether Barnardo’s role should be to keep a proper distance from the government and its agencies. Instead of deploying its reputation to legitimise and endorse the new detention regime by contracting to serve it, Britain’s most powerful children’s charity could be leading the fight against child detention.
[Repost]
This isn’t the best of times for Barnardo’s, Britain’s biggest children’s charity. Already under fire for lending its name to the government’s rebranding of child immigration detention, Barnardo’s has a shaming presence in the deeply upsetting film, Oranges and Sunshine, released today.
The film concerns the hard-to-believe scandal of 130,000 children effectively exported from Britain to supply free labour and “white stock” to the Commonwealth. The practice began in earnest in the late 1800s, a collaboration by government, churches and charities including Dr Barnardo’s. In the years after World War II, some 4,500 children in care were despatched, the last landing in Australia as recently as 1970.
Oranges and Sunshine opens in 1986 when real-life Nottingham social worker Margaret Humphreys hears something unbelievable from a client whose brother Jack, lost since childhood when they were taken into care, has got in touch. Now middle-aged, Jack writes from Australia, saying he was sent there as a little boy “in a big ship full of kids”.
“Why have I never heard about it?” asks Humphreys, played with skilful ordinariness by Emily Watson. “Why has no-one ever heard about it?”
The answer, Humphreys finds, is that governments, churches and charities lied about it. The film focuses on child migrants sent to Australia. Oranges and Sunshine — Jim Loach’s debut feature — takes its name from false promises made to children by adults entrusted with their care.
Child migrants were told their parents were dead. Parents who had left children in institutions’ care with every intention of getting them back were told they had been adopted by loving families close to home.
In fact they had been sent thousands of miles away to wretched lives and sometimes criminal abuse in the care of ill-run institutions and child-raping Christian Brothers.
The film reveals how Margaret Humphreys and her husband Mervyn discovered and exposed all this, founding the Child Migrants Trust to help migrants trace their birth certificates, their parents, and their past.
The loss and pain might have been less had governments, churches and charities seen for themselves the errors of past practice and worked urgently to inform and reunite the damaged families. In one of the film’s heartbreaking moments, Humphreys tells Jack — the lost-and-found-again brother in Australia, played by Hugo Weaving — that she has found his mother. Then she pauses.
“We’re too late, she’s dead, isn’t she?” he says. “When did she die?”
“Last year,” says Humphreys.
A 105 minute docudrama written by Rona Munro (of Loach-senior’s Ladybird, Ladybird), the film stays close to Humphreys’s quest, eliciting the children’s stories gently, gathering darkness as it goes. Resisting flashbacks, Lynch lets the childhood horrors play out in the audience’s mind, where they stay. This quiet film provokes a deep and lasting anger.
Barnardo’s — only briefly mentioned: a name check, a scribble in a notebook, a cog in the machine — has tended to bury the past, but the past haunts the latest chapter of Barnardo’s story.
In February 2010, a full twenty-four years after Humphreys first heard of the “big ship full of kids”, Prime Minister Gordon Brown at last apologised to child migrants — paying tribute to Margaret Humphreys and the Child Migrants Trust.
Barnardo’s then chief executive Martin Narey welcomed Brown’s apology, expressed sympathy with the migrants, but resisted apologising for Barnardo’s part. Instead, Narey said: “This policy was well intentioned and many who advocated it before and after the Second World War sincerely believed migration would offer impoverished children the chance of a radically better life.”
He added: “I hope that today’s events give every one of us an opportunity to reflect on past failures and learn from past mistakes.”
This expression of regret, that it seemed right at the time, did not accept responsibility, own up to or challenge what Barnardo’s officials had done. Their sincerity did not help the children, who might have been better served by alertness and scepticism in the adults charged with their care.
New times, new scandals. Has Barnardo’s learned from past mistakes?
Ten months ago the UK’s new coalition government promised to end the “moral outrage” of immigration child detention, which, it is now widely accepted, causes children lasting psychological harm. But instead of ending detention, the government commissioned a review of the “alternatives” led by the Border Agency’s own director of criminality and detention Dave Wood, a man whose false undermining of the medical evidence of harm is a matter of parliamentary record.
In December the “alternatives” were unveiled: detention, rebranded. According to calculations by Professor Heaven Crawley at the Centre for Migration Policy Research the government’s new “family-friendly pre-departure accommodation” could hold 4,445 children every year.
Last week the Border Agency won planning permission for a “family-friendly” facility in the Sussex village of Pease Pottage, complete with 2.5-metre perimeter fences, electronic gates, “control and restraint” — and Barnardo’s charity workers to “help families prepare for their return”.
Objectors who attended the Council planning meeting (noting councillors’ concerns that a “majestic beech tree” should be protected from the children) claimed Barnardo’s involvement “almost single-handedly swung the application in UKBA’s favour”.
The Border Agency is cock-a-hoop, trumpeting public approval from “highly respected” Barnardo's. The charity’s new chief executive Anne Marie Carrie admits: “There will be some who say, ‘Why would Barnardo's be involved with this?’”
Indeed there are. Former Children’s Commissioner Sir Al Aynsley-Green is among those asking what on earth Barnardo’s is playing at.
That others, who privately confess dismay, fear to speak out, is one measure of Barnardo’s clout.
Yesterday, in response to emailed questions, the charity said:
“Barnardo’s will be providing welfare and social care within the new pre-departure accommodation being established for asylum-seeking families in Crawley. The decision to do so was made by the Chief Executive with the support of Barnardo’s Council and goes right back to our core purpose: Barnardo’s seeks to support the most vulnerable children in the UK. We have agreed to play a role because we believe it is critical that families and children are treated with dignity and respect and able to access high quality support services during this time.”
Among the questions Barnardo’s declined to answer: “What potential problems and conflicts might arise from lending the Barnardo’s name to the UK Border Agency?”
And: “Why did Barnardo’s not seize the opportunity of government’s wish for third-party endorsement to push the government to honour its pledge to end child detention?”
In other words, isn’t Barnardo’s helping to create the situation that makes children vulnerable? Won’t it be party to their distress?
Gordon Brown apologised to the child migrants last year on behalf of Britain. Barnardo’s didn’t apologise, but it did pledge to “take the opportunity to reflect on past failures and learn from past mistakes.” Perhaps they should reflect more deeply, in particular on whether Barnardo’s role should be to keep a proper distance from the government and its agencies. Instead of deploying its reputation to legitimise and endorse the new detention regime by contracting to serve it, Britain’s most powerful children’s charity could be leading the fight against child detention.
[Repost]
Thursday, 24 March 2011
Pre-Departure Accommodation Planning Application Approved
*** PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE DISSEMINATION***
PEASE POTTAGE PRE-DEPARTURE ACCOMMODATION APPROVED DESPITE OBJECTIONS [24/03/11]
Despite noisy protests outside, Mid Sussex Council District Planning Committee today gave a green light to the continued detention of children and families when they approved by 14 votes to 1 the UK Border Agency's application [1] to turn Crawley Forest School in Pease Pottage into a Pre-Departure Accommodation centre.
Opponents of child detention, including SOAS Detainee Support, Brighton No Borders and No Borders London, branded the decision "disgraceful" and vowed to continue the fight against the centre and the companies involved in designing and running it.
From the start of the Planning Committee meeting it was apparent that the majority of councillors were much more concerned about the colour of the internal fences and whether a "majestic beech tree" would be "protected from the children climbing on it " than the exact nature of the regime operating the facility, the level of security and how little it differed from current forms of family detention. [2]
Ian Bros, one of the formal objectors at the planning meeting, says that the involvement of children's charity Barnado's in the centre, which has much been trumpeted by the government, almost single-handedly swung the application in the UKBA's favour. Whilst Barnado's will run play facilities at the centre, the facility itself will be run by global security giant G4S, who are threatened with corporate manslaughter charges for the death of a detainee in their care last year [3]. G4S did not get a single mention in the meeting, Ian noted, and the councillors present "seemingly believed that Barnado's will take charge of the whole centre".
Ends.
Notes for editors:
[1] See: http://pa.midsussex.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=LG3751KT04L00
[2] The UKBA has portrayed the Pre-Departure Accommodation Centre as a new form of Planning Use and, as such, should be considered a Sui Generis Use, whereas objectors point out that the facility more closely resembles a Category D Open Prison-style facility. See: http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/commonprojects/changeofuse/
[3] See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/16/mubenga-g4s-face-charges-death
[Alec Smart]
PEASE POTTAGE PRE-DEPARTURE ACCOMMODATION APPROVED DESPITE OBJECTIONS [24/03/11]
Despite noisy protests outside, Mid Sussex Council District Planning Committee today gave a green light to the continued detention of children and families when they approved by 14 votes to 1 the UK Border Agency's application [1] to turn Crawley Forest School in Pease Pottage into a Pre-Departure Accommodation centre.
Opponents of child detention, including SOAS Detainee Support, Brighton No Borders and No Borders London, branded the decision "disgraceful" and vowed to continue the fight against the centre and the companies involved in designing and running it.
From the start of the Planning Committee meeting it was apparent that the majority of councillors were much more concerned about the colour of the internal fences and whether a "majestic beech tree" would be "protected from the children climbing on it " than the exact nature of the regime operating the facility, the level of security and how little it differed from current forms of family detention. [2]
Ian Bros, one of the formal objectors at the planning meeting, says that the involvement of children's charity Barnado's in the centre, which has much been trumpeted by the government, almost single-handedly swung the application in the UKBA's favour. Whilst Barnado's will run play facilities at the centre, the facility itself will be run by global security giant G4S, who are threatened with corporate manslaughter charges for the death of a detainee in their care last year [3]. G4S did not get a single mention in the meeting, Ian noted, and the councillors present "seemingly believed that Barnado's will take charge of the whole centre".
Ends.
Notes for editors:
[1] See: http://pa.midsussex.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=LG3751KT04L00
[2] The UKBA has portrayed the Pre-Departure Accommodation Centre as a new form of Planning Use and, as such, should be considered a Sui Generis Use, whereas objectors point out that the facility more closely resembles a Category D Open Prison-style facility. See: http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/commonprojects/changeofuse/
[3] See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/16/mubenga-g4s-face-charges-death
[Alec Smart]
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Fit To Fly?
"Fit to fly" is a short film by Martin Freeth about the work of Medical Justice.
Watch the film
Monday, 21 March 2011
Down And Out In Lampedusa
Whilst the situation in Libya has been holding the world's attention, the fall out from the fighting and the uprising in Tunisia earlier on in the year has only, in the form of refugees arriving in Europe, has only intermittently made it into the press. Landfall for most of these refugees, just as it has been for decades, is the tiny island of Lampedusa 130 km off the Tunisian coast and 300 km from the Libyan capital Tripoli. In the past couple of years, since Berlusconi struck a deal with his then close friend Gaddafi to prevent the passage of migrants across the Mediterranean to Europe, the so-called 'push back policy', the flow had dropped to almost zero (the Tunisian authorities had also had a fairly strict policy of preventing the flow of refugees from its territory). Now it has turned into a deluge and Lampedusa is suffering its own humanitarian crisis.
In the wake of the Tunisian uprising in January, 5,600 Tunisian refugees arrived on the Island over the course of a few days in February, an island with a population of only 4,500. And there are currently around 5,000 Tunisian and Libyan refugees on the Island again today, with hundreds arriving each day. Here is a quick run down of some of the events in the past 2 weeks based on news reports and verbal accounts from an activist on the Island:
14 March - 22 landings on the Island with 1623 people arriving in a 24 hour period. Plus another boat is known to have capsized in Tunisian waters - 5 rescued with approximately 35 refugees unaccounted for, presumed drown. Neo-fascists Marine Le Pen, Front National presidential candidate, and Mario Borghezio, an Italian Northern League MEP also turned up to garner a bit of publicity and were greeted by a demonstration of 30 locals, who made it plain to them that they were not welcome.
15 March - 2,500 refugees currently on Lampedusa but no new arrivals due to bad weather.
16 March - Stefania Craxi, the Under-secretary for Foreign Affairs, visited to see the situation at first hand, warning that the rest of Europe would have to help out Italy. Interestingly, she was a prominent apologist for Ben Ali when he fled Tunisia, claiming that Italy should have granted him asylum. She even claimed that he was not a dictator, even though it was her father, then Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, helped Ben Ali seize power in 1987. No doubt she was seeking to return Ben Ali’s favour when he sheltered Craxi Snr. after he fled Italy to avoid criminal charges in 1984?
Italy’s Interior Minister Roberto Maroni quoted as saying that 11,200, mostly Tunisian immigrants, had arrived in Lampedusa since the start of this year.
17 March - Lampedusa residents block the landing of 4 boats with around 200 refugees on board in the harbour. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees the refugee facility on the Island designed for 850 is currently housing 2,600. “There are a number of women and many minors amongst the refugees. They sleep everywhere: two in every beds, under the beds, outside, in any space available, so that there is no space even to walk. They do not have blankets. There is no water to shower. They are given a bottle of water to wash themselves. There is not much food. They have to queue up for hours and sometimes the food finishes before they arrive at the end of the queue and when they eat it they immediately want to sleep.”
18 March - Lampedusa's residents again prevent a boat with 116 people on board from landing during daylight hours. Over night 3 boats with 378 people arrived.
20 March - 12 boats with a total of 1,350 refugees arrive, with a further 117 arriving at Catania in Sicily.
"Sunday we woke up around 7 am because someone was shouting from a megaphone on a car telling people to go and occupy the port to stop the arrival of red cross tents, probably for at least 10,000 people. The woman at the megaphone is one of the locals that want to save the [tourist] economy in Lampedusa and want the Tunisian [to be] transferred elsewhere in Italy. We went there to check what was happening. The people of Lampedusa always try to explain to the Tunisians that they are not against them and they just want them to be transferred quickly anywhere else in Italy. They also wanted the Tunisians to join but most of them were too scared to get in trouble."
"In the end they had to let them unload the tents because otherwise the ferry would not leave with their fish and it would have been a problem for the many fishermen on the Island."
Currently there are around a thousand Tunisians sleeping rough in the port area, many with wet clothes and no blankets, almost no food and only 1 litre of milk a day between 5 people. Many are falling ill from being cold and constantly wet (it has also been raining and there is little shelter). Local police have been giving many of them their waterproofs and their lunch too. "A whole family with a small kid, some minors and some very young women arrived. They brought the women and the minors into a building [owned by] the council. I saw them arriving. Many were walking bare foot and were half naked."
Many of the refugees had taken part in anti-government demonstrations and who had been arrested and beaten and are afraid because Ben Ali's cronies are still in charge in Tunisian despite the Jasmine revolution. Consequently they have good asylum cases but there is little legal advice available on their rights to asylum. Many also say they just want to reach their relatives in France or just want a job, both of which will hold no sway with the authorities and is certain to get them locked up in a camp and deported.
In the wake of the Tunisian uprising in January, 5,600 Tunisian refugees arrived on the Island over the course of a few days in February, an island with a population of only 4,500. And there are currently around 5,000 Tunisian and Libyan refugees on the Island again today, with hundreds arriving each day. Here is a quick run down of some of the events in the past 2 weeks based on news reports and verbal accounts from an activist on the Island:
14 March - 22 landings on the Island with 1623 people arriving in a 24 hour period. Plus another boat is known to have capsized in Tunisian waters - 5 rescued with approximately 35 refugees unaccounted for, presumed drown. Neo-fascists Marine Le Pen, Front National presidential candidate, and Mario Borghezio, an Italian Northern League MEP also turned up to garner a bit of publicity and were greeted by a demonstration of 30 locals, who made it plain to them that they were not welcome.
15 March - 2,500 refugees currently on Lampedusa but no new arrivals due to bad weather.
16 March - Stefania Craxi, the Under-secretary for Foreign Affairs, visited to see the situation at first hand, warning that the rest of Europe would have to help out Italy. Interestingly, she was a prominent apologist for Ben Ali when he fled Tunisia, claiming that Italy should have granted him asylum. She even claimed that he was not a dictator, even though it was her father, then Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, helped Ben Ali seize power in 1987. No doubt she was seeking to return Ben Ali’s favour when he sheltered Craxi Snr. after he fled Italy to avoid criminal charges in 1984?
Italy’s Interior Minister Roberto Maroni quoted as saying that 11,200, mostly Tunisian immigrants, had arrived in Lampedusa since the start of this year.
17 March - Lampedusa residents block the landing of 4 boats with around 200 refugees on board in the harbour. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees the refugee facility on the Island designed for 850 is currently housing 2,600. “There are a number of women and many minors amongst the refugees. They sleep everywhere: two in every beds, under the beds, outside, in any space available, so that there is no space even to walk. They do not have blankets. There is no water to shower. They are given a bottle of water to wash themselves. There is not much food. They have to queue up for hours and sometimes the food finishes before they arrive at the end of the queue and when they eat it they immediately want to sleep.”
18 March - Lampedusa's residents again prevent a boat with 116 people on board from landing during daylight hours. Over night 3 boats with 378 people arrived.
20 March - 12 boats with a total of 1,350 refugees arrive, with a further 117 arriving at Catania in Sicily.
"Sunday we woke up around 7 am because someone was shouting from a megaphone on a car telling people to go and occupy the port to stop the arrival of red cross tents, probably for at least 10,000 people. The woman at the megaphone is one of the locals that want to save the [tourist] economy in Lampedusa and want the Tunisian [to be] transferred elsewhere in Italy. We went there to check what was happening. The people of Lampedusa always try to explain to the Tunisians that they are not against them and they just want them to be transferred quickly anywhere else in Italy. They also wanted the Tunisians to join but most of them were too scared to get in trouble."
"In the end they had to let them unload the tents because otherwise the ferry would not leave with their fish and it would have been a problem for the many fishermen on the Island."
Currently there are around a thousand Tunisians sleeping rough in the port area, many with wet clothes and no blankets, almost no food and only 1 litre of milk a day between 5 people. Many are falling ill from being cold and constantly wet (it has also been raining and there is little shelter). Local police have been giving many of them their waterproofs and their lunch too. "A whole family with a small kid, some minors and some very young women arrived. They brought the women and the minors into a building [owned by] the council. I saw them arriving. Many were walking bare foot and were half naked."
Many of the refugees had taken part in anti-government demonstrations and who had been arrested and beaten and are afraid because Ben Ali's cronies are still in charge in Tunisian despite the Jasmine revolution. Consequently they have good asylum cases but there is little legal advice available on their rights to asylum. Many also say they just want to reach their relatives in France or just want a job, both of which will hold no sway with the authorities and is certain to get them locked up in a camp and deported.
Sunday, 13 March 2011
More On Barnardo's And The Continued Detention Of Children
A repost of a National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns news item:
Children’s charity Barnardo’s have been contracted by the Home Office as a service provider at the new families detention centre at Pease Pottage, Sussex. The secure “pre-departure accommodation” is widely seen as detention re-packaged, and Barnardo’s role in the centre – which could see over 6,000 children a year detained – is controversial.
Chief Executive Anne-Marie Carrie, refused to condemn the practice of child detention on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning, arguing that Barnardo’s are best placed to help in the running of the new centre, described by the Immigration Minister as having “an entirely different look and feel to an immigration removal centre”.
However, Heaven Crawley, professor of international migration at Swansea University, said on the Today programme the that new process is “really something of a repackaging”. Writing for the Migrants’ Rights Network blog today, Professor Crawley claims that to repackage detention as ‘pre-departure accommodation’ is disingenuous. “Families with children will be taken to the facility against their will. Once there, families will not be allowed to come and go freely. The unit is intended to be secure, which in this case means a 2.5m palisade fence with electronic gates surrounding the site, and 24-hour staffing designed to provide ‘an appropriate level of security to protect the occupants of the site and deter them leaving the site’.” She also calls on the government to come clean – if it can’t end child detention then it should say so. In fact, earlier this week in Parliament, the Immigration Minister did let slip that detention of children at Tinsley House immigration Removal Centre would indeed continue for “high risk families”.
Without doubt, the routine use of force and detention of children and families over the years has been shameful. As reported in the Free Movement legal blog, a High Court judgement in January revealed just how disgraceful practice has been. The case of R (on the application of Suppiah) v Secretary of State for the Home Department demonstrated that, despite overwhelming evidence that detention is harmful to children, UKBA officials ignored even their own guidelines on detaining only as a last resort. Alternatives were not pursued, UKBA claims of offering assisted voluntary removal prior to detention were untrue, and excessively long periods of detention were being used needlessly.
Sadly, no officials have been or will be brought to book for the false imprisonment of children and families under the previous Labour government. It is all water under the bridge since the coalition announced plans to reform the detention system for families.
It is yet to be seen whether the involvement of one of the country’s leading children’s’ charities will significantly improve the lot of detained children, or merely serve to help the coalition government with it’s public relations exercise.
The fact remains that children are still to be detained, and force is still to be used against families to remove them from the UK. The asylum system still operates a culture of disbelief, resulting in a high percentage of refugees being sent back to persecution.
And a question remains unanswered: just what do have we to fear from these families that we must hunt them down, lock them up and forcibly deport them? Families who have fled persecution, war or poverty, and come to the UK to make a better life for themselves and their children, should be allowed to live in safety for as long as they want to. Many would return to their home countries when it is safe, others would settle and their children grow to become part of our ever-changing society.
But as for detention, we can leave the final words to the previous Chief Executive of Barnado’s, Martin Narey, speaking in December 2010 in support of the government’s claim to have abolished detention of children:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Barnardo's won't lessen trauma of child detention - Guardian Comment Is Free article.
'Accommodation centre' rebrand fury - Morning Star.
No Borders oppose new deportation centre - Institute of Race Relations.
Promises, Promises - End Child Detention Now.
Children’s charity Barnardo’s have been contracted by the Home Office as a service provider at the new families detention centre at Pease Pottage, Sussex. The secure “pre-departure accommodation” is widely seen as detention re-packaged, and Barnardo’s role in the centre – which could see over 6,000 children a year detained – is controversial.
Chief Executive Anne-Marie Carrie, refused to condemn the practice of child detention on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning, arguing that Barnardo’s are best placed to help in the running of the new centre, described by the Immigration Minister as having “an entirely different look and feel to an immigration removal centre”.
However, Heaven Crawley, professor of international migration at Swansea University, said on the Today programme the that new process is “really something of a repackaging”. Writing for the Migrants’ Rights Network blog today, Professor Crawley claims that to repackage detention as ‘pre-departure accommodation’ is disingenuous. “Families with children will be taken to the facility against their will. Once there, families will not be allowed to come and go freely. The unit is intended to be secure, which in this case means a 2.5m palisade fence with electronic gates surrounding the site, and 24-hour staffing designed to provide ‘an appropriate level of security to protect the occupants of the site and deter them leaving the site’.” She also calls on the government to come clean – if it can’t end child detention then it should say so. In fact, earlier this week in Parliament, the Immigration Minister did let slip that detention of children at Tinsley House immigration Removal Centre would indeed continue for “high risk families”.
Without doubt, the routine use of force and detention of children and families over the years has been shameful. As reported in the Free Movement legal blog, a High Court judgement in January revealed just how disgraceful practice has been. The case of R (on the application of Suppiah) v Secretary of State for the Home Department demonstrated that, despite overwhelming evidence that detention is harmful to children, UKBA officials ignored even their own guidelines on detaining only as a last resort. Alternatives were not pursued, UKBA claims of offering assisted voluntary removal prior to detention were untrue, and excessively long periods of detention were being used needlessly.
Sadly, no officials have been or will be brought to book for the false imprisonment of children and families under the previous Labour government. It is all water under the bridge since the coalition announced plans to reform the detention system for families.
It is yet to be seen whether the involvement of one of the country’s leading children’s’ charities will significantly improve the lot of detained children, or merely serve to help the coalition government with it’s public relations exercise.
The fact remains that children are still to be detained, and force is still to be used against families to remove them from the UK. The asylum system still operates a culture of disbelief, resulting in a high percentage of refugees being sent back to persecution.
And a question remains unanswered: just what do have we to fear from these families that we must hunt them down, lock them up and forcibly deport them? Families who have fled persecution, war or poverty, and come to the UK to make a better life for themselves and their children, should be allowed to live in safety for as long as they want to. Many would return to their home countries when it is safe, others would settle and their children grow to become part of our ever-changing society.
But as for detention, we can leave the final words to the previous Chief Executive of Barnado’s, Martin Narey, speaking in December 2010 in support of the government’s claim to have abolished detention of children:
“Incarcerating [children] simply because they have parents who wish to live here was unnecessary, expensive and more to the point, just plain wrong.” former Barnados Chief Executive, Martin Narey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Barnardo's won't lessen trauma of child detention - Guardian Comment Is Free article.
'Accommodation centre' rebrand fury - Morning Star.
No Borders oppose new deportation centre - Institute of Race Relations.
Promises, Promises - End Child Detention Now.
Thursday, 10 March 2011
Barnado's Legitimise The Continued Detention Of Children
PRESS RELEASE ***FOR IMMEDIATE DISSEMINATION***
The children's charity Barnardo's is legitimising the continued use of detention for children by agreeing to provide welfare services at a "pre-departure accommodation" centre the government plans to open in Pease Pottage near Crawley in Sussex.
The Home Office and UK Border Agency claim that this facility will be 'open non-detention accommodation' [1] and, as such, they are seeking to persuade the Mid Sussex District Planning Committee that their Change of Use planning application is a sui generis use [2], falling outside of other current planning guideline Classes.
However, careful consideration of the limited publicly available information [3] on how the facility will operate shows that it will in fact closely resemble current Immigration Removal Centres and Short Term Holding Facilities in many facets:
· children and families will be arrested and administratively detained under the provisions of the 1971 Immigration Act when being move to and from this 'Pre-Departure Accommodation'; [3a]
· they will be subject to the Control and Restraint techniques used across the detention estate; and [3a]
· the detained children will only be allowed out of the facility under strictly controlled circumstances. [3b]
Clearly this amounts to the continued use of "the detention of children for immigration purposes".
According to the BBC [4] which has seen an advanced copy of a speech from Barnado's chief executive Anne Marie Carrie, the charity will seek to justify its participation in this controversial project. Ian Bros of No Borders Brighton, who is formally objecting to the planning application, states Barnado's: "may seek to rationalise its proposed work at the facility as helping to hold the Home Office to its commitment to run a more humane removal system, but it cannot escape from the fact that this is a detention centre in all but name. In fact Anne Marie Carrie has given the lie to the government's position that this is not a detention centre by calling it 'secure pre-departure accommodation' in her proposed speech. This is clearly a Class C2A [Secure Residential Accommodation] use, just as all Immigration Removal Centres are classed and as such the Mid Sussex Council should reject this planning application as incorrectly filed."
Ian concludes: "It is bad enough that the Home Office are trying to rush this whole project through the planning process, ignoring EU competitive tendering process, and restricting public access to the planning application itself under catch-all security considerations, but to rope a respected charity in as its PR-patsy must really win some prize in the annals of government spin."
London NoBorders, http://london.noborders.org.uk
No Borders Brighton, http://nobordersbrighton.blogspot.com
Notes to Editors:
[1] See CgMs Consulting letter to Pease Pottage residents on behalf of the Home Office: http://tinyurl.com/crawleyforest
[2] See the planning application: http://pa.midsussex.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=LG3751KT04L00
and http://www.planning-applications.co.uk/uco1.htm
[3] See:
[a] the current UK Border Agency's Enforcement Instructions and Guidance Chapter 45 Family Cases: http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/enforcement/oemsectione/chapter45?view=Binary
[b] and the Planning Statement: http://62.189.207.187/pap_msdclive/framepage.asp?dc2=&appnumber=11/00330/COU
[4] See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12690444
The children's charity Barnardo's is legitimising the continued use of detention for children by agreeing to provide welfare services at a "pre-departure accommodation" centre the government plans to open in Pease Pottage near Crawley in Sussex.
The Home Office and UK Border Agency claim that this facility will be 'open non-detention accommodation' [1] and, as such, they are seeking to persuade the Mid Sussex District Planning Committee that their Change of Use planning application is a sui generis use [2], falling outside of other current planning guideline Classes.
However, careful consideration of the limited publicly available information [3] on how the facility will operate shows that it will in fact closely resemble current Immigration Removal Centres and Short Term Holding Facilities in many facets:
· children and families will be arrested and administratively detained under the provisions of the 1971 Immigration Act when being move to and from this 'Pre-Departure Accommodation'; [3a]
· they will be subject to the Control and Restraint techniques used across the detention estate; and [3a]
· the detained children will only be allowed out of the facility under strictly controlled circumstances. [3b]
Clearly this amounts to the continued use of "the detention of children for immigration purposes".
According to the BBC [4] which has seen an advanced copy of a speech from Barnado's chief executive Anne Marie Carrie, the charity will seek to justify its participation in this controversial project. Ian Bros of No Borders Brighton, who is formally objecting to the planning application, states Barnado's: "may seek to rationalise its proposed work at the facility as helping to hold the Home Office to its commitment to run a more humane removal system, but it cannot escape from the fact that this is a detention centre in all but name. In fact Anne Marie Carrie has given the lie to the government's position that this is not a detention centre by calling it 'secure pre-departure accommodation' in her proposed speech. This is clearly a Class C2A [Secure Residential Accommodation] use, just as all Immigration Removal Centres are classed and as such the Mid Sussex Council should reject this planning application as incorrectly filed."
Ian concludes: "It is bad enough that the Home Office are trying to rush this whole project through the planning process, ignoring EU competitive tendering process, and restricting public access to the planning application itself under catch-all security considerations, but to rope a respected charity in as its PR-patsy must really win some prize in the annals of government spin."
London NoBorders, http://london.noborders.org.uk
No Borders Brighton, http://nobordersbrighton.blogspot.com
Notes to Editors:
[1] See CgMs Consulting letter to Pease Pottage residents on behalf of the Home Office: http://tinyurl.com/crawleyforest
[2] See the planning application: http://pa.midsussex.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=LG3751KT04L00
and http://www.planning-applications.co.uk/uco1.htm
[3] See:
[a] the current UK Border Agency's Enforcement Instructions and Guidance Chapter 45 Family Cases: http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/policyandlaw/enforcement/oemsectione/chapter45?view=Binary
[b] and the Planning Statement: http://62.189.207.187/pap_msdclive/framepage.asp?dc2=&appnumber=11/00330/COU
[4] See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12690444
Barnardo's To 'Front' New Detention Centre
In a surprising PR coup, the Home Office have managed to persuade Barnardo's, the children's charity, to run the welfare side of the new children and families detention-lite centre near Crawley. This facility, as we have steadfastly been arguing, singularly fails to meet the Coalition's promise to end the detention of children for immigration purposes, as the charity's chief executive Anne Marie Carrie concedes when (in the text of a speech today released to the BBC) she describes this pre-departure accommodation as "secure". It doesn't matter what the sign on the facility's fence says, whether it describes it as 'Open Accommodation - As Approved By Barnardo's', it the people held there are detained under the powers contained in the Immigration Act 1971 and are not free to leave the facility at any time, taking their children with them, then it is no better than the Families Unit at Yarl's Wood, no matter how many toys Barnardo's supply the place with.
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Latest Greek Travel Advice
10th of March: Worldwide solidarity action day with the 300 hunger strikers immigrants-workers in Greece.
Latest Greece travel advice:
You might have heard that Greece is a beautiful country to visit with delicious food and people with great hospitality. Be careful: this is not the whole truth. The reality for hundreds of thousands of visitors is completely different. There is a general threat of human rights’ violations. Expatriates and visitors, who cross the Greek borders, can be departed or transferred in detention centres for 2–4 months or longer. If and when these visitors are released, they are forced to work in agriculture, local industry, organised crime, or as street salesmen, without documents or any civil rights whatsoever. Visitors of Greece are warned about abuse, intolerance, hatred, slander and indiscriminate violence by the Greek State.
Greece is exploiting approximately 500,000 illegal immigrants and refugees to raise the nation’s miserable economics. Last year, nearly 140,000 immigrants crossed the Greek borders in a hope of better life. Most of them are going to remain illegal for years and treated as unwelcome contemporary slaves.
Since the 25th of January, 300 immigrants who work and live in Greece for many years started a nationwide hunger strike in Athens and Thessaloniki. They claim the legalisation of all undocumented immigrants of Greece. Their struggle is a struggle of all immigrants, workers and citizens of the world.
The 10th of March will be the 45th day of their hunger strike, but the Greek State has not yet responded to their rightful claims!
We call people in Greece and throughout the world to carry out civil disobedience actions on the 10th of March in solidarity with the 300 hunger strikers. We ask everyone to target their actions against Greek soft spot-tourism: 15% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product is coming from tourism. In fact, tourism and migration are two sides of the legal right of freedom of movement.
We suggest an easily attainable target that you people can find almost in every country: Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO). You can e.g. demonstrate, blockade, squat, spread leaflets or carry out other creative actions in front, inside or around GNTO offices.
The addresses of the GNTO offices aboard are here: http://internezia.net/addresses.html
If you don't have a GNTO office at your city, you can target your actions against the Greek embassies or enterprises, or simply demonstrate in crowded public places or on media.
300 MURDERS OR LEGALIZATION
More information about the hunger strike of 300: http://hungerstrike300.espivblogs.net
'All Immigrants of the World'
Latest Greece travel advice:You might have heard that Greece is a beautiful country to visit with delicious food and people with great hospitality. Be careful: this is not the whole truth. The reality for hundreds of thousands of visitors is completely different. There is a general threat of human rights’ violations. Expatriates and visitors, who cross the Greek borders, can be departed or transferred in detention centres for 2–4 months or longer. If and when these visitors are released, they are forced to work in agriculture, local industry, organised crime, or as street salesmen, without documents or any civil rights whatsoever. Visitors of Greece are warned about abuse, intolerance, hatred, slander and indiscriminate violence by the Greek State.
Greece is exploiting approximately 500,000 illegal immigrants and refugees to raise the nation’s miserable economics. Last year, nearly 140,000 immigrants crossed the Greek borders in a hope of better life. Most of them are going to remain illegal for years and treated as unwelcome contemporary slaves.
Since the 25th of January, 300 immigrants who work and live in Greece for many years started a nationwide hunger strike in Athens and Thessaloniki. They claim the legalisation of all undocumented immigrants of Greece. Their struggle is a struggle of all immigrants, workers and citizens of the world.
The 10th of March will be the 45th day of their hunger strike, but the Greek State has not yet responded to their rightful claims!
We call people in Greece and throughout the world to carry out civil disobedience actions on the 10th of March in solidarity with the 300 hunger strikers. We ask everyone to target their actions against Greek soft spot-tourism: 15% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product is coming from tourism. In fact, tourism and migration are two sides of the legal right of freedom of movement.
We suggest an easily attainable target that you people can find almost in every country: Greek National Tourism Organisation (GNTO). You can e.g. demonstrate, blockade, squat, spread leaflets or carry out other creative actions in front, inside or around GNTO offices.
The addresses of the GNTO offices aboard are here: http://internezia.net/addresses.html
If you don't have a GNTO office at your city, you can target your actions against the Greek embassies or enterprises, or simply demonstrate in crowded public places or on media.
300 MURDERS OR LEGALIZATION
More information about the hunger strike of 300: http://hungerstrike300.espivblogs.net
'All Immigrants of the World'
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
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
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
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
UKBA Announce Start Of New Families Removals Process
The Border Agency has announce the start of their "radical new process for managing the return of families found to have no right to be in the UK." According to their press release, the 'options' available under this scheme "will include a form of limited notice removal, the use of open accommodation, and - as a last resort where families resolutely fail to comply, family friendly, pre-departure accommodation", the latter being the type of facility the Home Office is currently trying to open in Pease Pottage.
The latter is part of the third and final option available for the removal of the families of refused asylum seekers - an Ensured Return, where the new constituted Family Returns Panel "advise the UK Border Agency on return plans to ensure the welfare of the child is taken properly into account" according to this latest piece of government spin on its policy. This Panel will apparently "provide expert advice to the UK Border Agency on the best method of ensuring the return of individual families, taking into account the specific welfare needs of children."
And just how 'radical' and family-centric is this new policy and how far does it really go in "taking into account the specific welfare needs of children"? Well, according to Immigration Minister Damian Green, "(a)t every stage of the process, we expect families to leave voluntarily" and that the government "will be trying to ensure that families can remain in the community prior to their departure home." Yet if these families fail to agree with any of the voluntary options offered during 'family conferences', it appears almost inevitably that they will end up being detained in a dawn raid on their home by UKBA officials and they will be removed to one of these 'pre-departure accommodation' facilities, in much the same way as they have been taken to other existing Immigration Removal Centres up til now.
Not that this is expressly laid out in the 'Open Accommodation' policy document ['Open Accommodation: Accommodating Families Outside Of Detention'] [1], which appears to essays a never-ending circus of 'non-cooperating' families who fail to take up the Agency's 'offer' at any point ending up facing yet another return to the Family Returns Panel. Thus, a family that has failed to take up a first stage Assisted Voluntary Returns package, will either be given 2 weeks notice to leave the country ('Required Return') or go straight to 'Open Accommodation' [not passing go and not collecting their plane tickets and a helpful escort to the airport] if they are considered unlikely to cooperate i.e. are 'flight risks': "We consider that moving such families out of their existing accommodation and away from community links and ties they have built up will signal to them that they have reached the end of the road and enable them to understand that their removal will happen." This means offering them transport to the 'open accommodation' and, if refused, the Borders Agency ending all form of support including accommodation and vouchers, effectively making them homeless and with no access any other form of transportation, [2] plus a referral back to the Board.
Accepting the move to the 'pre-departure accommodation' is the next stage which the government hope will inevitably end in the family 'voluntarily' removing themselves (something they have obviously failed to do at either of the two previous stages of the process) within 3-28 days. If they have not left the country within 72 hours, it's back to the Panel again. "[T]he overall length of stay at the accommodation will be capped at 28 days" and after that families will apparently be moved back to "section 95/section 4 accommodation" i.e. stage one of the process. "However, there may be circumstances where the family seek to prevent their removal and the resulting delay pushes their case over the 28 days which we consider it reasonable for them to be in open accommodation for. This may be beyond our control." This interestingly contradicts the CgMs letter to Pease Pottage residents about the first such 'pre-departure accommodation' facility which states that "(i)n exceptional cases they might be held for up to one week but linked to a specific date when they will leave the UK." [3]
And just how much compulsion is involved in all this? Well the government has carefully chosen its language and has given a number of mixed messages, such as: "there will be some circumstances where families will be REQUIRED to move to temporary NON-DETAINED accommodation facilities prior to removal" [our emphasis] and claimed that "(o)pen accommodation is a non-detained residence where families will be FREE TO COME AND GO AS THEY PLEASE". [4] Yet careful reading of all the documents and of the plans for the Pease Pottage facility clearly show that compulsion is de facto a central factor in this scheme and that this form of accommodation is far from being 'open' in any meaningful use of the word.
That Sarah Teather, the Minister of State for Children and Families, has the gall to claim that this policy "shows real progress on our commitment to reform the returns process for families", "putting compassion and children's welfare at the heart of these new arrangements", only shows how much the Coalition has swallowed their own propaganda hock, line and sinker.
[1] Chapter45 of the latest version of the UK Border Agency Enforcement Instructions and Guidance, the manual for UKBA immigration operations, has been updated to include the new Family Cases strategy and that continues to expressly states that: "All family members, including children, SHOULD BE ARRESTED AS A WHOLE UNIT and the arrest should be made as soon as practicable, TO ENSURE THAT THE FAMILY IS LEGALLY IN IMMIGRATION CUSTODY FOR CONVEYANCE TO THE PORT OF DEPARTURE OR TO PRE-DEPARTURE ACCOMMODATION. It will normally be that arrests in such circumstances will be under administrative powers contained in paragraph 17 of schedule 2 of the 1971 Act and not under criminal powers." [Section 45.10 Control and Restraint] [our emphasis]
[2] "It may be the case that some families will argue that termination of their existing accommodation support will leave them destitute. However, we are not proposing denying access to support. Accommodation support remains available – but only within an open accommodation facility."
[3] However, the 'Open Accommodation' document only refers to the Thornton Heath pilot scheme, which differs in significant areas such as security and accessibility from the planned Pease Pottage facility.
[4]NB: The CgMs letter to Pease Pottage residents on behalf of the Arora/Home Office consortium planning the first 'pre-departure accommodation' only make reference to children being "permitted to leave the facility for short periods" and that "(s)taffing levels, their expertise and the environment of the accommodation [providing] the appropriate security for the facility."
The latter is part of the third and final option available for the removal of the families of refused asylum seekers - an Ensured Return, where the new constituted Family Returns Panel "advise the UK Border Agency on return plans to ensure the welfare of the child is taken properly into account" according to this latest piece of government spin on its policy. This Panel will apparently "provide expert advice to the UK Border Agency on the best method of ensuring the return of individual families, taking into account the specific welfare needs of children."
And just how 'radical' and family-centric is this new policy and how far does it really go in "taking into account the specific welfare needs of children"? Well, according to Immigration Minister Damian Green, "(a)t every stage of the process, we expect families to leave voluntarily" and that the government "will be trying to ensure that families can remain in the community prior to their departure home." Yet if these families fail to agree with any of the voluntary options offered during 'family conferences', it appears almost inevitably that they will end up being detained in a dawn raid on their home by UKBA officials and they will be removed to one of these 'pre-departure accommodation' facilities, in much the same way as they have been taken to other existing Immigration Removal Centres up til now.
Not that this is expressly laid out in the 'Open Accommodation' policy document ['Open Accommodation: Accommodating Families Outside Of Detention'] [1], which appears to essays a never-ending circus of 'non-cooperating' families who fail to take up the Agency's 'offer' at any point ending up facing yet another return to the Family Returns Panel. Thus, a family that has failed to take up a first stage Assisted Voluntary Returns package, will either be given 2 weeks notice to leave the country ('Required Return') or go straight to 'Open Accommodation' [not passing go and not collecting their plane tickets and a helpful escort to the airport] if they are considered unlikely to cooperate i.e. are 'flight risks': "We consider that moving such families out of their existing accommodation and away from community links and ties they have built up will signal to them that they have reached the end of the road and enable them to understand that their removal will happen." This means offering them transport to the 'open accommodation' and, if refused, the Borders Agency ending all form of support including accommodation and vouchers, effectively making them homeless and with no access any other form of transportation, [2] plus a referral back to the Board.
Accepting the move to the 'pre-departure accommodation' is the next stage which the government hope will inevitably end in the family 'voluntarily' removing themselves (something they have obviously failed to do at either of the two previous stages of the process) within 3-28 days. If they have not left the country within 72 hours, it's back to the Panel again. "[T]he overall length of stay at the accommodation will be capped at 28 days" and after that families will apparently be moved back to "section 95/section 4 accommodation" i.e. stage one of the process. "However, there may be circumstances where the family seek to prevent their removal and the resulting delay pushes their case over the 28 days which we consider it reasonable for them to be in open accommodation for. This may be beyond our control." This interestingly contradicts the CgMs letter to Pease Pottage residents about the first such 'pre-departure accommodation' facility which states that "(i)n exceptional cases they might be held for up to one week but linked to a specific date when they will leave the UK." [3]
And just how much compulsion is involved in all this? Well the government has carefully chosen its language and has given a number of mixed messages, such as: "there will be some circumstances where families will be REQUIRED to move to temporary NON-DETAINED accommodation facilities prior to removal" [our emphasis] and claimed that "(o)pen accommodation is a non-detained residence where families will be FREE TO COME AND GO AS THEY PLEASE". [4] Yet careful reading of all the documents and of the plans for the Pease Pottage facility clearly show that compulsion is de facto a central factor in this scheme and that this form of accommodation is far from being 'open' in any meaningful use of the word.
That Sarah Teather, the Minister of State for Children and Families, has the gall to claim that this policy "shows real progress on our commitment to reform the returns process for families", "putting compassion and children's welfare at the heart of these new arrangements", only shows how much the Coalition has swallowed their own propaganda hock, line and sinker.
[1] Chapter45 of the latest version of the UK Border Agency Enforcement Instructions and Guidance, the manual for UKBA immigration operations, has been updated to include the new Family Cases strategy and that continues to expressly states that: "All family members, including children, SHOULD BE ARRESTED AS A WHOLE UNIT and the arrest should be made as soon as practicable, TO ENSURE THAT THE FAMILY IS LEGALLY IN IMMIGRATION CUSTODY FOR CONVEYANCE TO THE PORT OF DEPARTURE OR TO PRE-DEPARTURE ACCOMMODATION. It will normally be that arrests in such circumstances will be under administrative powers contained in paragraph 17 of schedule 2 of the 1971 Act and not under criminal powers." [Section 45.10 Control and Restraint] [our emphasis]
[2] "It may be the case that some families will argue that termination of their existing accommodation support will leave them destitute. However, we are not proposing denying access to support. Accommodation support remains available – but only within an open accommodation facility."
[3] However, the 'Open Accommodation' document only refers to the Thornton Heath pilot scheme, which differs in significant areas such as security and accessibility from the planned Pease Pottage facility.
[4]NB: The CgMs letter to Pease Pottage residents on behalf of the Arora/Home Office consortium planning the first 'pre-departure accommodation' only make reference to children being "permitted to leave the facility for short periods" and that "(s)taffing levels, their expertise and the environment of the accommodation [providing] the appropriate security for the facility."
Friday, 25 February 2011
Help Stop This Coaltion Fudge On Child Detention
The Liberal Democrats went into the last election with a manifesto promise to end the detention of children for immigration purposes, something labelled by their party leader as "state-sponsored cruelty". This commitment was enshrined in the Coalition agreement. Initially the Coalition fudged the issue, ending the holding of children at Dungavel IRC in Scotland in May 2010 but continuing to use Yarl's Wood and Tinsley House at Gatwick Airport pending the outcome of a 'review'. Basically they dragged their heels and those of us opposed to the detention of children had to up the pressure on the government.
As a consequence Nick Clegg was forced in December last year to announce the end of the holding of children in immigration detention and the closure of the families unit at Yarl's Wood by 11 May this year. Instead they would be held for a maximum of 72 hours in something called "pre-departure accommodation" or "open accommodation"[Update: UKBA have removed this document but it is available here]. A planning application for the first of these facilities at Pease Pottage near Crawley, designed to hold up to 8 families of up to 6 members at any one time, is currently being rushed through the planning stage to meet this deadline.
Having examined the plans in details, a number of No Borders groups have come to the clear conclusion that this new form of Home Office operation does not in any way constitute a practical solution to the government's promise to end "the detention of children for immigration purposes" and that the Home Office are taking ever precaution to see that this proposed facility is sped through the planning process with the minimum of fuss and opposition.
Firstly, the project has been subject to none of the EU Procurement procedures necessary, with no restricted pre-qualification questionnaires issued or open tendering documents released. When officials were questioned as to why at a recent UKBA stakeholders meeting they claimed there was not enough time to do so. This clearly breached EU Procurement Directives.
Secondly, given that prevailing narrative surround this new type of immigration facility is that it is merely a form of temporary accommodation [see below] and not a new form of detention centre, it is rather strange that the Home Office has invoked paragraphs 24 & 25 of the Memorandum to DCLG Circular 02/2006 Crown Application of the Planning Act (concerning the possibility that an important infrastructure development that may be under terrorist or other threat if planning details were widely available) in order to restrict public access to parts of the planning application itself. Whilst we understand that the invoking of this provision is the norm for many government projects, it still appears a bit 'excessive'.
Then we come to the Change of Use application itself. The current facility is a residential school for children with behavioural and learning difficulties. Under the planning regulations this is classified as Class C2 [Residential institutions - Residential care homes, hospitals, nursing homes, boarding schools, residential colleges and training centres]. The Home Office is arguing that the "pre-departure accommodation" falls into this category, rather than the normal Class C2A [Secure Residential Institution - Use for a provision of secure residential accommodation, including use as a prison, young offenders institution, detention centre, secure training centre, custody centre, short term holding centre, secure hospital, secure local authority accommodation or use as a military barracks] classification used for all other immigration detention facilities.
This is patently absurd. All the adults accommodated in this facility, with its 2.5m high security fences, CCTV and electronically-operated gates, will be held under a secure status; they will no doubt arrive (after being detained in dawn raids) handcuffed to a Reliance Secure Task Management security guard (the firm taking over immigration removal escort contracts from G4S at the beginning of May); they will not be allowed to leave the facility and they will leave handcuffed to a Reliance security guard; plus the children will only be allowed to leave the facility "subject to a risk assessment and suitable adult supervision" (effectively another security guard employed by the firm running the facility on UKBA's behalf, even if not in uniform at the time. All these detainees will continue to be held under the provisions of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, exactly the same provisions used to hold them prior to 'ending' of "the detention of children for immigration purposes" and there appear to be no new legislative provisions planned to make statutory provision for this new for of facility in Law.
Additionally, it could in fact be argued (as the Home Office will no doubt chose to when challenged on the substance of this area of objection) that this 'open' "pre-departure accommodation" is a wholly new Class of use and falls outside the current scheme of classification. Again, this is patently absurd for the same reasons.
When the Home Office and UK Border Agency (UKBA) unveiled this "new, compassionate [sic] approach to family removals", the deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg claimed that it marked "an enormous culture shift within our immigration system." It clearly is not. The Home Office continues to insist that "open accommodation is not detention", yet these children, all of whom the government readily admits "have committed no crime", will still be locked up for 'immigration purposes", depriving them of their liberty. It therefore follows that these new provisions completely fail to live up to Nick Clegg's promise and the Coalition Agreement's pledge to end "the detention of children for immigration purposes".
You can stick a label saying 'Open' on a closed and locked door, but it does not change the fact that it is still locked.
We urge all concerned members of the public to email either the Council's District Planning Committee which will examine the application or all the 54 Mid Sussex District Councillors listed below with the attached letter to show your complete opposition to this attempt by the Coalition to backtrack from their promise to end the detention of ALL children with this glorified PR exercise. Together we can hold the Coalition to their promise and force them to end the detention of children once and for all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Letter Of Complaint:
I wish to express in the strongest possible terms my objections to the planned "pre-departure accommodation" facility in Pease Pottage. Not only does the proposed facility completely fail to fulfil the Coalition's pledge to end "the detention of children for immigration purposes", the whole planning application and the process so far followed by the Home Office is fatally flawed.
Firstly, in seeking to expedite the project in order to meet the Coalition's self-imposed deadline of 11 May 2001 for the ending of the detention of children in immigration facilities, it has been subject to none of the EU Procurement procedures necessary, with no restricted pre-qualification questionnaires issued or open tendering documents released. When officials were questioned as to why at a recent UKBA stakeholders meeting they claimed there was not enough time to do so. This clearly breached EU Procurement Directives.
Secondly, the planning application for a Change of Use itself is flawed. The current occupant of the site is residential school for children with behavioural and learning difficulties. Under the planning regulations this is classified as Class C2 [Residential institutions - Residential care homes, hospitals, nursing homes, boarding schools, residential colleges and training centres]. The Home Office is arguing that "pre-departure accommodation" falls into this category, rather than the normal Class C2A [C2A Secure Residential Institution - Use for a provision of secure residential accommodation, including use as a prison, young offenders institution, detention centre, secure training centre, custody centre, short term holding centre, secure hospital, secure local authority accommodation or use as a military barracks] classification applied to all other immigration detention facilities.
Yet, all adults accommodated in this facility, with its 2.5m high security fences, CCTV and electronically-operated gates, will be held under a secure status; they will arrive and leave in secure transport and they will not be allowed to leave the facility whilst there. Additionally, their children will only be allowed to leave the facility subject to a risk assessment and under suitable adult supervision. All will continue to be held under the provisions of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, exactly the same provisions currently used to hold families and children for immigration purposes, exactly the same form of 'administrative detention' as was introduced in the Immigration Act 1971.
This clearly falls into Class C2A and as such the application should be rejected. Additionally, the provision of "pre-departure accommodation" in no way fulfils the Coalition's pledge to end "the detention of children for immigration purposes" and the very fact that a residential school for children with behavioural and learning difficulties, a much needed community resource, is being closed in order to accommodate this new species of detention centre only adds insult to injury, both to the current child residents and to the potential future residents, none of whom have committed any crime yet will be deprived of their liberty here in Pease Pottage.
I therefore urge you to do all you can to voice opposition to this plan.
Yours
[your name and address]
Downloadable versions with email addresses: notepad version / word doc / open office doc / pdf
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mid Sussex District Planning Committee
[Copy and paste into the To: pane]
andrew.macnaughton@midsussex.gov.uk; bernard.gillbard@midsussex.gov.uk; stephen.barnett@midsussex.gov.uk; andrew.barrett-miles@midsussex.gov.uk; richard.bates@midsussex.gov.uk; liz.bennett@midsussex.gov.uk; sophia.harrison@midsussex.gov.uk; sue.hatton@midsussex.gov.uk; janice.henwood@midsussex.gov.uk; chris.hersey@midsussex.gov.uk; anne.jones@midsussex.gov.uk; jane.keel@midsussex.gov.uk; susanna.kemp@midsussex.gov.uk; edward.king@midsussex.gov.uk; graham.knight@midsussex.gov.uk; edward.matthews@midsussex.gov.uk; julian.thorpe@midsussex.gov.uk; mike.watts@midsussex.gov.uk
All 54 Mid Sussex District Councillors:
[Copy and paste into the To: pane]
andrew.macnaughton@midsussex.gov.uk; gary.marsh@midsussex.gov.uk; stephen.barnett@midsussex.gov.uk; susan.seward@midsussex.gov.uk; jacqui.landriani@midsussex.gov.uk; andrew.barrett-miles@midsussex.gov.uk; mandy.thomas-atkin@midsussex.gov.uk; eileen.balsdon@midsussex.gov.uk; julian.thorpe@midsussex.gov.uk; heather.ross@midsussex.gov.uk; mike.livesey@midsussex.gov.uk; sophia.harrison@midsussex.gov.uk; dorothy.hatswell@midsussex.gov.uk; ian.pearce@midsussex.gov.uk; mike.watts@midsussex.gov.uk; robert.salisbury@midsussex.gov.uk; edward.king@midsussex.gov.uk; liz.bennett@midsussex.gov.uk; peter.reed@midsussex.gov.uk; bernard.gillbard@midsussex.gov.uk; andrew.brock@midsussex.gov.uk; chris.jerrey@midsussex.gov.uk; ian.dixon@midsussex.gov.uk; jean.glynn@midsussex.gov.uk; heidi.brunsdon@midsussex.gov.uk; james.joyce-nelson@midsussex.gov.uk; edward.matthews@midsussex.gov.uk; peter.martin@midsussex.gov.uk; sue.hatton@midsussex.gov.uk; gordon.marples@midsussex.gov.uk; richard.bates@midsussex.gov.uk; brian.hall@midsussex.gov.uk; irene.balls@midsussex.gov.uk; garry.wall@midsussex.gov.uk; john.demierre@midsussex.gov.uk; sue.ng@midsussex.gov.uk; jonathan.ash-edwards@midsussex.gov.uk; john.belsey@midsussex.gov.uk; jane.keel@midsussex.gov.uk; chris.hersey@midsussex.gov.uk; simon.mcmenemy@midsussex.gov.uk; anna.defilippo@midsussex.gov.uk; susanna.kemp@midsussex.gov.uk; jack.callaghan@midsussex.gov.uk; margaret.hersey@midsussex.gov.uk; andrew.lea@midsussex.gov.uk; christopher.snowling@midsussex.gov.uk
As a consequence Nick Clegg was forced in December last year to announce the end of the holding of children in immigration detention and the closure of the families unit at Yarl's Wood by 11 May this year. Instead they would be held for a maximum of 72 hours in something called "pre-departure accommodation" or "open accommodation"[Update: UKBA have removed this document but it is available here]. A planning application for the first of these facilities at Pease Pottage near Crawley, designed to hold up to 8 families of up to 6 members at any one time, is currently being rushed through the planning stage to meet this deadline.
Having examined the plans in details, a number of No Borders groups have come to the clear conclusion that this new form of Home Office operation does not in any way constitute a practical solution to the government's promise to end "the detention of children for immigration purposes" and that the Home Office are taking ever precaution to see that this proposed facility is sped through the planning process with the minimum of fuss and opposition.
Firstly, the project has been subject to none of the EU Procurement procedures necessary, with no restricted pre-qualification questionnaires issued or open tendering documents released. When officials were questioned as to why at a recent UKBA stakeholders meeting they claimed there was not enough time to do so. This clearly breached EU Procurement Directives.
Secondly, given that prevailing narrative surround this new type of immigration facility is that it is merely a form of temporary accommodation [see below] and not a new form of detention centre, it is rather strange that the Home Office has invoked paragraphs 24 & 25 of the Memorandum to DCLG Circular 02/2006 Crown Application of the Planning Act (concerning the possibility that an important infrastructure development that may be under terrorist or other threat if planning details were widely available) in order to restrict public access to parts of the planning application itself. Whilst we understand that the invoking of this provision is the norm for many government projects, it still appears a bit 'excessive'.
Then we come to the Change of Use application itself. The current facility is a residential school for children with behavioural and learning difficulties. Under the planning regulations this is classified as Class C2 [Residential institutions - Residential care homes, hospitals, nursing homes, boarding schools, residential colleges and training centres]. The Home Office is arguing that the "pre-departure accommodation" falls into this category, rather than the normal Class C2A [Secure Residential Institution - Use for a provision of secure residential accommodation, including use as a prison, young offenders institution, detention centre, secure training centre, custody centre, short term holding centre, secure hospital, secure local authority accommodation or use as a military barracks] classification used for all other immigration detention facilities.
This is patently absurd. All the adults accommodated in this facility, with its 2.5m high security fences, CCTV and electronically-operated gates, will be held under a secure status; they will no doubt arrive (after being detained in dawn raids) handcuffed to a Reliance Secure Task Management security guard (the firm taking over immigration removal escort contracts from G4S at the beginning of May); they will not be allowed to leave the facility and they will leave handcuffed to a Reliance security guard; plus the children will only be allowed to leave the facility "subject to a risk assessment and suitable adult supervision" (effectively another security guard employed by the firm running the facility on UKBA's behalf, even if not in uniform at the time. All these detainees will continue to be held under the provisions of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, exactly the same provisions used to hold them prior to 'ending' of "the detention of children for immigration purposes" and there appear to be no new legislative provisions planned to make statutory provision for this new for of facility in Law.
Additionally, it could in fact be argued (as the Home Office will no doubt chose to when challenged on the substance of this area of objection) that this 'open' "pre-departure accommodation" is a wholly new Class of use and falls outside the current scheme of classification. Again, this is patently absurd for the same reasons.
When the Home Office and UK Border Agency (UKBA) unveiled this "new, compassionate [sic] approach to family removals", the deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg claimed that it marked "an enormous culture shift within our immigration system." It clearly is not. The Home Office continues to insist that "open accommodation is not detention", yet these children, all of whom the government readily admits "have committed no crime", will still be locked up for 'immigration purposes", depriving them of their liberty. It therefore follows that these new provisions completely fail to live up to Nick Clegg's promise and the Coalition Agreement's pledge to end "the detention of children for immigration purposes".
You can stick a label saying 'Open' on a closed and locked door, but it does not change the fact that it is still locked.
We urge all concerned members of the public to email either the Council's District Planning Committee which will examine the application or all the 54 Mid Sussex District Councillors listed below with the attached letter to show your complete opposition to this attempt by the Coalition to backtrack from their promise to end the detention of ALL children with this glorified PR exercise. Together we can hold the Coalition to their promise and force them to end the detention of children once and for all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Letter Of Complaint:
I wish to express in the strongest possible terms my objections to the planned "pre-departure accommodation" facility in Pease Pottage. Not only does the proposed facility completely fail to fulfil the Coalition's pledge to end "the detention of children for immigration purposes", the whole planning application and the process so far followed by the Home Office is fatally flawed.
Firstly, in seeking to expedite the project in order to meet the Coalition's self-imposed deadline of 11 May 2001 for the ending of the detention of children in immigration facilities, it has been subject to none of the EU Procurement procedures necessary, with no restricted pre-qualification questionnaires issued or open tendering documents released. When officials were questioned as to why at a recent UKBA stakeholders meeting they claimed there was not enough time to do so. This clearly breached EU Procurement Directives.
Secondly, the planning application for a Change of Use itself is flawed. The current occupant of the site is residential school for children with behavioural and learning difficulties. Under the planning regulations this is classified as Class C2 [Residential institutions - Residential care homes, hospitals, nursing homes, boarding schools, residential colleges and training centres]. The Home Office is arguing that "pre-departure accommodation" falls into this category, rather than the normal Class C2A [C2A Secure Residential Institution - Use for a provision of secure residential accommodation, including use as a prison, young offenders institution, detention centre, secure training centre, custody centre, short term holding centre, secure hospital, secure local authority accommodation or use as a military barracks] classification applied to all other immigration detention facilities.
Yet, all adults accommodated in this facility, with its 2.5m high security fences, CCTV and electronically-operated gates, will be held under a secure status; they will arrive and leave in secure transport and they will not be allowed to leave the facility whilst there. Additionally, their children will only be allowed to leave the facility subject to a risk assessment and under suitable adult supervision. All will continue to be held under the provisions of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, exactly the same provisions currently used to hold families and children for immigration purposes, exactly the same form of 'administrative detention' as was introduced in the Immigration Act 1971.
This clearly falls into Class C2A and as such the application should be rejected. Additionally, the provision of "pre-departure accommodation" in no way fulfils the Coalition's pledge to end "the detention of children for immigration purposes" and the very fact that a residential school for children with behavioural and learning difficulties, a much needed community resource, is being closed in order to accommodate this new species of detention centre only adds insult to injury, both to the current child residents and to the potential future residents, none of whom have committed any crime yet will be deprived of their liberty here in Pease Pottage.
I therefore urge you to do all you can to voice opposition to this plan.
Yours
[your name and address]
Downloadable versions with email addresses: notepad version / word doc / open office doc / pdf
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mid Sussex District Planning Committee
[Copy and paste into the To: pane]
andrew.macnaughton@midsussex.gov.uk; bernard.gillbard@midsussex.gov.uk; stephen.barnett@midsussex.gov.uk; andrew.barrett-miles@midsussex.gov.uk; richard.bates@midsussex.gov.uk; liz.bennett@midsussex.gov.uk; sophia.harrison@midsussex.gov.uk; sue.hatton@midsussex.gov.uk; janice.henwood@midsussex.gov.uk; chris.hersey@midsussex.gov.uk; anne.jones@midsussex.gov.uk; jane.keel@midsussex.gov.uk; susanna.kemp@midsussex.gov.uk; edward.king@midsussex.gov.uk; graham.knight@midsussex.gov.uk; edward.matthews@midsussex.gov.uk; julian.thorpe@midsussex.gov.uk; mike.watts@midsussex.gov.uk
All 54 Mid Sussex District Councillors:
[Copy and paste into the To: pane]
Do We Look Worried?
It appears that the Arora Group/Home Office/UKBA/CgMs Consulting axis is indeed extremely worried that their little plan to convert an insignificant little school in the small sleepy Sussex village of Pease Pottage, where the only excitement is the busy A23 running through it and its more famous Service Station, is about to go pear-shaped. So worried are they that they operated a full court press last night at a meeting of the lowly Slaugham Parish Council and planning meeting, no doubt surprised that their little back door deal, turning a residential school for children with behavioural and learning difficulties into something euphemistically called Pre-Departure Accommodation (i.e. the latest form of immigration detention centre for families and children) [Update: UKBA have removed this document but it is available here], has become so public and that the 13 or so nearby residencies have had the audacity to question their plans.
So, instead of the usual discussions about house extensions, tree cutting and the siting of litter bins, the heavy squad (including Surinder Arora himself and his trusty sidekick Tim Jurdon, both of Mercure Hotel fame) arrived armed with a full set of plans, the very same ones that they are studiously denying the rest of us, the general public, access to under the catch-all of a government infrastructure security directive. In fact, when challenged on this very issue, as to why what they maintain is merely a form of temporary hostel for people waiting to leave the country is being given this degree of security to prevent details of it falling into the hands of terrorists, they had absolutely no answer. Strange that.
Other issues that they failed to adequately address included the key stumbling block as to whether the new facility can genuinely be classified Class C2 under the planning regulations, given that some if not all of those arriving at the centre will be held under what amounts to secure conditions [see: ]. Then there is the time-line for the submission of this project, which appears to be being sped through the planning process with undue haste. Leaving aside the issue of why the Home Office has signally failed to open the process up to any form of public tendering as required under EC legislation, the is the problem of exactly when this course of action was initiated; when the Mid Sussex District Council were first approached about the plans and why the retrospective planning application for the current perimeter fence that the current occupiers of the site Crawley Forest School put up illegally went in only a couple of days before the formal application for the Change of Use.
And the outcome of this attempted damage limitation exercise on behalf of the Arora/Home Office team was that the Parish Council came down firmly against the planning application, submitting 8 formal objections to the proposal. Round one to the objectors.
So, instead of the usual discussions about house extensions, tree cutting and the siting of litter bins, the heavy squad (including Surinder Arora himself and his trusty sidekick Tim Jurdon, both of Mercure Hotel fame) arrived armed with a full set of plans, the very same ones that they are studiously denying the rest of us, the general public, access to under the catch-all of a government infrastructure security directive. In fact, when challenged on this very issue, as to why what they maintain is merely a form of temporary hostel for people waiting to leave the country is being given this degree of security to prevent details of it falling into the hands of terrorists, they had absolutely no answer. Strange that.
Other issues that they failed to adequately address included the key stumbling block as to whether the new facility can genuinely be classified Class C2 under the planning regulations, given that some if not all of those arriving at the centre will be held under what amounts to secure conditions [see: ]. Then there is the time-line for the submission of this project, which appears to be being sped through the planning process with undue haste. Leaving aside the issue of why the Home Office has signally failed to open the process up to any form of public tendering as required under EC legislation, the is the problem of exactly when this course of action was initiated; when the Mid Sussex District Council were first approached about the plans and why the retrospective planning application for the current perimeter fence that the current occupiers of the site Crawley Forest School put up illegally went in only a couple of days before the formal application for the Change of Use.
And the outcome of this attempted damage limitation exercise on behalf of the Arora/Home Office team was that the Parish Council came down firmly against the planning application, submitting 8 formal objections to the proposal. Round one to the objectors.
Monday, 21 February 2011
Celebrate International Women's Day At Yarl's Wood
Come and celebrate International Women's Day by showing solidarity with the migrant women imprisoned at Yarl's Wood!
Saturday, 5th March 2011, 1pm
Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre, Twinwoods Road, Clapham, Bedfordshire, MK41 6HL
Directions: UKBA website
Please organise your own transport.
The coalition government has skilfully employed he "end" to child detention to avoid talking about the brutal and inhumane detention regime of detention in general. Yet, over the years, countless reports and accounts have documented the plight of women locked up at Yarl's Wood: indefinite detention without charge or judicial oversight, overcrowded cells, mistreatment and abuse by private security guards, lack of privacy, restrictions on visits and phone calls, inadequate medical provision and the lack of facilities to address healthcare issues. And it's getting worse.
In her 2009 inspection report on Yarl's Wood, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers reported that “the focus on improving the environment and activities for children appeared to have led to a lack of attention to the needs of the majority population of women. 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.”
End the detention of migrant women!
Close Yarl's Wood now!
Saturday, 5th March 2011, 1pm
Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre, Twinwoods Road, Clapham, Bedfordshire, MK41 6HL
Directions: UKBA website
Please organise your own transport.
The coalition government has skilfully employed he "end" to child detention to avoid talking about the brutal and inhumane detention regime of detention in general. Yet, over the years, countless reports and accounts have documented the plight of women locked up at Yarl's Wood: indefinite detention without charge or judicial oversight, overcrowded cells, mistreatment and abuse by private security guards, lack of privacy, restrictions on visits and phone calls, inadequate medical provision and the lack of facilities to address healthcare issues. And it's getting worse.
In her 2009 inspection report on Yarl's Wood, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers reported that “the focus on improving the environment and activities for children appeared to have led to a lack of attention to the needs of the majority population of women. 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.”
End the detention of migrant women!
Close Yarl's Wood now!
Italy Feeling The Refugee Pressure
Over the past couple of weeks one of the most amusing sights has been renown Northern League xenophobe Roberto Maroni virtually frothing at the mouth over the sudden appearance of boat loads of migrants in Lampedusa. So comfortable had he and his cronies become since they struck their 'push-back' deal with their best friend Muammar Gaddafi that they thought that this modern form of gunboat deplomacy had solved all their problems.
That is until the edifice of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's Tunisian regime fell, feeing desperate political and economic refugees to try the perilous crossing to promised lands of Fortress Europe. First stop Lampedusa, a small island closer to Tunisia itself than anywhere else but currently Italian territory after a long and torturous history where it has been traded between the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Spanish until it was finally purchased by the Italians (in the guise of the Kingdom of Naples) in C17th, going on to become a penal colony.
Latterly it served as a useful offshore detention centre for the Berlusconi regime until the Gaddafi deal was struck in 2009. Not that Libya was the only source of migrants that ended up on Lampedusa as there has always been a steady trickle of Tunisian refugees arriving on the island, many of whom were involved in the riot and mass breakout from the internment camp there in January 2009. Admittedly, Maroni's rhetoric about a "biblical exodus that has never been seen before" coupled with demands that Italy be allowed to send its own troops to Tunisia to prevent more migrants trying to make the crossing has prompted the interim government to deploy its military in the coastal belt and agree to its own 'push-back' deal with Italy.
Now with the situation in neighbouring Libya poses another potential headache for the Italian government. With the widespread street fighting and massive repression of the population, the claims that foreign mercenaries (sub-Saharan Africans) are being used by the Gaddafi regime as part of that repression, in turn adding to the threats posed to an already vulnerable and marginalised migrant population trying to use the country as a stepping stone to Europe, all this will inevitably lead to a significant increase to the numbers of people trying to cross the Mediterranean.
It will be interesting to see if the push-back deal will hold and whether the Italian-funded patrol boats will prevent a new wave of migrants to Europe, many of whom will inevitably arrive on Lampedusa, adding further fuel to Maroni's spat with the rest of the EU and sending his blood pressure even higher.
STOP PRESS:
According to Reuters the Libyan authorities are threatening to suspend cooperation with the EU over migration issues unless European governments stop giving vocal support to pro-democracy protesters in its country.
EU concerned about situation in Libya and "the violence and death of civilians" but are in fact more worried about Libya's threat to end co-operation in the fight against irregular migration, not to mention Italian Foreign Minister Frattini's Islamophobic fears over the "really serious threat" posed by "the self-proclamation of the so-called Islamic Emirate of Benghazi."
That is until the edifice of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's Tunisian regime fell, feeing desperate political and economic refugees to try the perilous crossing to promised lands of Fortress Europe. First stop Lampedusa, a small island closer to Tunisia itself than anywhere else but currently Italian territory after a long and torturous history where it has been traded between the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Spanish until it was finally purchased by the Italians (in the guise of the Kingdom of Naples) in C17th, going on to become a penal colony.
Latterly it served as a useful offshore detention centre for the Berlusconi regime until the Gaddafi deal was struck in 2009. Not that Libya was the only source of migrants that ended up on Lampedusa as there has always been a steady trickle of Tunisian refugees arriving on the island, many of whom were involved in the riot and mass breakout from the internment camp there in January 2009. Admittedly, Maroni's rhetoric about a "biblical exodus that has never been seen before" coupled with demands that Italy be allowed to send its own troops to Tunisia to prevent more migrants trying to make the crossing has prompted the interim government to deploy its military in the coastal belt and agree to its own 'push-back' deal with Italy.
Now with the situation in neighbouring Libya poses another potential headache for the Italian government. With the widespread street fighting and massive repression of the population, the claims that foreign mercenaries (sub-Saharan Africans) are being used by the Gaddafi regime as part of that repression, in turn adding to the threats posed to an already vulnerable and marginalised migrant population trying to use the country as a stepping stone to Europe, all this will inevitably lead to a significant increase to the numbers of people trying to cross the Mediterranean.
It will be interesting to see if the push-back deal will hold and whether the Italian-funded patrol boats will prevent a new wave of migrants to Europe, many of whom will inevitably arrive on Lampedusa, adding further fuel to Maroni's spat with the rest of the EU and sending his blood pressure even higher.
STOP PRESS:
According to Reuters the Libyan authorities are threatening to suspend cooperation with the EU over migration issues unless European governments stop giving vocal support to pro-democracy protesters in its country.
EU concerned about situation in Libya and "the violence and death of civilians" but are in fact more worried about Libya's threat to end co-operation in the fight against irregular migration, not to mention Italian Foreign Minister Frattini's Islamophobic fears over the "really serious threat" posed by "the self-proclamation of the so-called Islamic Emirate of Benghazi."
Monday, 14 February 2011
New Business Opportunities: Deportation Hostels
"In May 2010, the new coalition government committed to ending child detention for immigration purposes. The 'commitment' had to wait another few months to materialise (only last week reports revealed that a 11-year-old girl had been detained at Tinsley House detention centre, near Gatwick, over Christmas). Meanwhile, the UK Border Agency has been experimenting with a new deportation process for families, spun as "a new, compassionate approach to family removals." Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg went as far as claiming that this marked "an enormous culture shift within our immigration system." But while many serious concerns regarding the rights and welfare of migrant families remain, the new system appears to have created a new market for detention and deportation profiteers."
Given the interest raised by the current planning application by the Home Office to build yet another detention facility in our back yard (except the government PR machine calls it "Open Accommodation"), we recommend anyone interested in the Crawley forest School issue and the Coalition's 'commitment' to 'ending the detention of children' read this Corporatewatch article: New Business Opportunities: Deportation Hostels.
Given the interest raised by the current planning application by the Home Office to build yet another detention facility in our back yard (except the government PR machine calls it "Open Accommodation"), we recommend anyone interested in the Crawley forest School issue and the Coalition's 'commitment' to 'ending the detention of children' read this Corporatewatch article: New Business Opportunities: Deportation Hostels.
Monday, 7 February 2011
Sunday, 6 February 2011
Condemnationalism
At last the fluffy PR-friendly mask of the LibCon Alliance has slipped to reveal their true face: Condemnationalists. Cameron's confused gibberish this weekend:
"state multiculturalism ... encouraging different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream" - just like the British ex-pat communities abroad then.
"We have failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong" - so the solution is yet another PR campaign then?
"We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values" [see point one].
"So when a white person holds objectionable views – racism, for example – we rightly condemn them. But when equally unacceptable views or practices have come from someone who isn't white, we've been too cautious, frankly even fearful, to stand up to them." - that's why the non-white prison population is so large [27% compared to only 11% of the general population] and ethnic minorities are much more likely to be subject to stop and search then?
So what's Cameron's solution to a situation where only white people are ever accused of being racist? "We need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism." So he's suggesting a little more than a PR campaign then and is aiming for a full-scale monoculturalism as the answer then [One Culture Conservatism anyone?] - if we all think and behave exactly like all true blue Brits do in his rose-tinted vision of a neo-Victorianist world and if everyone coming to this country adopted Cameron's way of speaking/dressing/thinking/voting/etc. then all would be well with the world. Utter tosh.
So we should all stop eating filthy foreign foods like curries, spag bol, chow mien...; stop drinking all those filthy foreign drinks like tea, coffee, Chateau la Fete and coca cola; stop wearing Armani suits, Chanel couture, Adidas, Nike, etc. and stop worshipping those awful foreign gods [surely everyone knows that God is an Englishman and his son was born in Blighty?] and be just like ... well, not like Cameron and his ilk at least.
So, here's the Condemnationalist view of the Good Foreigner:
They must have enough money [c.f. Tier 1 visas] of the right skill that the country can exploit [everyone else] before they are allowed into the country, only then will we behave in anything approaching a 'colour-blind' manner towards them [a hefty donation to the political party of their choice always goes down well and may even end up with the ultimate seal of approval - a knighthood]. That is, until they are no longer useful and then they better bugger off back to where they came from tout suite or we'll lock you up in an internment camp [detention centre] for as long as we see fit.
Then there is the good foreigner who is willing to still be exploited but has the good manners to stay in their own countries. You know the sort: they work for low wages in multinational companies or their subcontractors producing the sort of cheap goods that we think that it is our right to buy at low prices in high street shops and supermarkets; that produce the vital resources that end up in the latest must have consumer goods that within months end up as landfill. And all the while their environment is to be degraded and sold off to the highest bidder and their subsistence farms turned into massive pesticide and fertiliser-guzzling monocultures under World bank and IMF 'free trade' rules.
And the Bad Foreigner? Well, everyone else surely is a 'bogus' asylum seeker/religious fundamentalist/extremist/dago/wop/terrorist/coolie/etc. - legitimate targets all for Jeremy Clarkson's [the ur Brit] xenophobia.
Not that Cameron's 'Little Englander' rhetoric has been the only inane drivel sprouted by a politician this weekend. There was also Miliband's 'British promise' i.e. the expectation that children will have more opportunities than their parents, which roughly translates as: it is our god-given right to continue to expand the economy, and at the inevitable expense of the rest of the world.
"state multiculturalism ... encouraging different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream" - just like the British ex-pat communities abroad then.
"We have failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong" - so the solution is yet another PR campaign then?
"We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values" [see point one].
"So when a white person holds objectionable views – racism, for example – we rightly condemn them. But when equally unacceptable views or practices have come from someone who isn't white, we've been too cautious, frankly even fearful, to stand up to them." - that's why the non-white prison population is so large [27% compared to only 11% of the general population] and ethnic minorities are much more likely to be subject to stop and search then?
So what's Cameron's solution to a situation where only white people are ever accused of being racist? "We need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism." So he's suggesting a little more than a PR campaign then and is aiming for a full-scale monoculturalism as the answer then [One Culture Conservatism anyone?] - if we all think and behave exactly like all true blue Brits do in his rose-tinted vision of a neo-Victorianist world and if everyone coming to this country adopted Cameron's way of speaking/dressing/thinking/voting/etc. then all would be well with the world. Utter tosh.
So we should all stop eating filthy foreign foods like curries, spag bol, chow mien...; stop drinking all those filthy foreign drinks like tea, coffee, Chateau la Fete and coca cola; stop wearing Armani suits, Chanel couture, Adidas, Nike, etc. and stop worshipping those awful foreign gods [surely everyone knows that God is an Englishman and his son was born in Blighty?] and be just like ... well, not like Cameron and his ilk at least.
So, here's the Condemnationalist view of the Good Foreigner:
They must have enough money [c.f. Tier 1 visas] of the right skill that the country can exploit [everyone else] before they are allowed into the country, only then will we behave in anything approaching a 'colour-blind' manner towards them [a hefty donation to the political party of their choice always goes down well and may even end up with the ultimate seal of approval - a knighthood]. That is, until they are no longer useful and then they better bugger off back to where they came from tout suite or we'll lock you up in an internment camp [detention centre] for as long as we see fit.
Then there is the good foreigner who is willing to still be exploited but has the good manners to stay in their own countries. You know the sort: they work for low wages in multinational companies or their subcontractors producing the sort of cheap goods that we think that it is our right to buy at low prices in high street shops and supermarkets; that produce the vital resources that end up in the latest must have consumer goods that within months end up as landfill. And all the while their environment is to be degraded and sold off to the highest bidder and their subsistence farms turned into massive pesticide and fertiliser-guzzling monocultures under World bank and IMF 'free trade' rules.
And the Bad Foreigner? Well, everyone else surely is a 'bogus' asylum seeker/religious fundamentalist/extremist/dago/wop/terrorist/coolie/etc. - legitimate targets all for Jeremy Clarkson's [the ur Brit] xenophobia.
Not that Cameron's 'Little Englander' rhetoric has been the only inane drivel sprouted by a politician this weekend. There was also Miliband's 'British promise' i.e. the expectation that children will have more opportunities than their parents, which roughly translates as: it is our god-given right to continue to expand the economy, and at the inevitable expense of the rest of the world.
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