I am supporting Paul Bell to be Labour’s candidate for Mayor of Lewisham.
This morning he made the following statement on community and diversity.
An injury to one is an injury to all – Stand up for migrants’ rights!
I’m standing for Mayor with a clear pro-migrants, international solidarity stance and policies.
A strong stance on supporting migrants’ rights is essential for two reasons. Firstly, because as socialists we must believe in human compassion, in welcoming the oppressed, and in human rights and equality for everyone. And secondly because British and migrant workers have the same interests, and we cannot fight for these interests if we allow the elite in this country and their political representatives to divide us. We must stand together in solidarity or we will all continue to lose.
We cannot allow our migrant sisters and brothers to be targeted. That’s why, despite my disdain for the neoliberal policies the EU pursues and promotes, I voted “remain” in the referendum. I’m proud to have signed up to the Labour Campaign for Free Movement, which pledges to defend and extend free movement, and I’m pleased to see at least one of the other Labour mayoral candidates has followed me in doing so.
We must never go back to the situation pre-Corbyn where the Labour Party pandered to, and let us be honest helped create, anti-migrant feelings. A Labour Lewisham council led by me will take a clear stand for migrants’ rights. We will be a powerful voice for migrants’ rights in the Labour Party, labour movement and wider society.
And we will do our bit locally too: there will be no more applications to the Controlling Migration Fund and proposals to harass rough sleepers, many of them migrants, will be dropped. The council will do everything it can to hinder rather than cooperate with immigration raids. We will provide services by working with grassroots charities which seek to empower migrants, including those with no recourse to public funds (NRPF), instead of continuing to commission larger organisations which pay their CEOs six figure salaries and are actively collaborating with the government’s anti-migrant agenda.
An injury to one is an injury to all, that’s why my vision for Lewisham is one that will serve the needs and interests of British citizens and migrants alike.