On economic migrancy

On economic migrancy

The dirty secret that makes a non-racist immigration policy difficult is that economic migrancy is demand led. Post Brexit, we are short of farm workers, lorry drivers, hospitality workers, and health workers because they’ve gone home and aren’t allowed back in or don’t want to come because of the xenophobia. All of this is causing food shortages, price increases and reduced and delayed health delivery.

On the whole immigrants are younger and of working age; as our population ages we need more people of working age, to produce stuff, deliver services and pay for the pensions of our old and education of our children. The quid pro-quo must be that we offer them citizenship and treat them as neighbours, not to harass them using the hostile environment laws.

A further problem is that the work not being done reduces the tax income of the treasury.

Migrants and young workers pay old people’s pensions.

I salute those who made the single market and freedom of movement the centre of their opposition to Brexit; the facts on the ground today show them to be right, and this is before we consider those Brits in Europe who’ll have to give up their homes and jobs, and those people who travel to Europe for work, such as musicians and actors and others, it’s not just building workers anymore.

If it’s in our interests to welcome migrants, then there’s only one reason for behaving as our government is!

ooOOOoo

The ageing of the global north, and its funding sustainability was observed and publicised by the IMF in the paper,  “Immigrant Swan Song”. For more, from me see tag:immigration

I was thinking of linking to a video clip from “Auf Wiedersehen, Pet”, but the quality on youtube is not good and it’s probably not as funny or insightful as I remember. …

Rachel Reeves on Immigration

While doing some reading while writing the last article I had reason to have a look at Rachel Reeves views on immigration. She made a speech in 2016 which the independent reports, with a headline of “Labour MP Rachel Reeves: Riots could sweep streets of Britain if immigration is not curbed after Brexit” [my mirror]; this is pretty much exactly what Enoch Powell said in his infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech, which led to his political exile and while I predicted a vicious debate on immigration in the wake of Conference 2016, I didn’t expect anyone in the Labour Party to go this far. If accurate, it’s unacceptable. …

London Labour and the hostile environment

Yesterday, at Lewisham Deptford’s General Committee, we took the decision as to what we should propose as policy for Labour’s London Regional Conference. We passed the following motion on the use of “On-Site Immigration Officers” by local authorities working beside the teams responsible for financially supporting children under the Children’s Act. As the motion states, many local authorities prioritise the safe guarding of funds, and the location of Immigration Officers in the local authority teams was originally proposed by Hostile Environment Working Group.

The words of the motion are presented below and further evidence as to both the iniquity of the policy, and Labour’s collusion is presented. 😆

I would ask any London Labour activists to ask/mandate their conference delegations/clps to support this motion in the priorities ballot.

Download –> LewDept Lab NRPF Motion for London Labour Conference …

This has also been reported by the Labour Campaign for Free Movement.

The text is also below/overleaf. … …

Innocent until proved guilty: Revoked

I have been considering the Windrush story. Basically, the British Government asked citizens form the West Indies to come to the UK to help rebuild the country after the war. They arrived to a sickening racist welcome, they brought their children, settled, married and started families. In 1972, the then Tory Government removed the right of Commonwealth citizens to arrive and stay with “indefinite right to remain”. In 2010, Theresa May became Home Secretary with the target of reducing net migration to 10,000’s, and passed two immigration acts, the 2nd of which legitimised a hostile environment including the racist “go home” vans. In addition, it made employers, landlords and horrendously teachers and hospital workers adjuncts of the immigration service. It also produced a duty to prove status i.e. they abolished innocent until proven guilty. In late 2010, the Home Office in a building move destroyed the immigration records of the Commonwealth Citizens which left many of their children in an undocumented state. They became unable to prove their rights of residency and in some cases have lost their jobs and access to benefits. Some have been illegally deported; Under Amber Rudd, May’s successor, the Home Office also set targets for deportations; Parliament is now rowing about the facts.

People that have lived here all their lives are being denied benefits, medical treatment, being fired and deported. It’s just not right.

I have, with comrades being campaigning to ensure that my local council does not support the hostile environment and not work with 3rd sector organisations that co-operate with the Home Office in this area of enforcement. Lewisham Labour’s Council Manifesto states,

Lewisham will become a Sanctuary Borough, protecting the rights of all migrants, asylum seekers and refugees.

There is a problem for Labour though, only 6 MPs voted against the Immigration Act 2014 which introduced the “hostile environment” and revoked innocent until proved guilty for the purposes of immigration law. It’s an example where the clock has turned, and I followed the whip is no longer a good enough excuse. Public officials must always consider what’s right, not the line, nor electoral success.

My final comment is about the new Data Protection Act. They are proposing that immigration record processing is exempted from the DPA. This means that proving a right to remain will become almost impossible as the organisation responsible for keeping records does not have to issue subject matter access requests and an effective defence, a proof of rights becomes impossible. We should also note that the Tory’s abolished legal aid for immigration cases and if we leave the EU, we may increase the numbers of those vulnerable to this appalling treatment by two factors of magnitude.

Many of the fact quoted above come from this article at freemovement.org. …