Month: October 2020

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SNN statement: Open safe pathways to UK, prevent more deaths in the sea

27 October 2020: Once again, people travelling in desperation have died in the Channel trying to find a safe place to live because there is no legal way to come here, while members of the UK Government talk of creating wave machines, and employing people to send the boats back, and make no secret of the crass, racist, hostile and heartless policies that they have put in place.

Why people are left to die in this way?

SNN member organisation RAPAR delivered a letter to the UK Government in 2015 on behalf of leaders in the Calais ‘Jungle’, offering the chance to listen to the people directly affected if they really wanted to do something humane, and that offer is still on the table. The Government had this opportunity five years ago and did not take it – how many lives have been lost in the interim? Read the report here: http://www.salfordnow.co.uk/2016/04/28/manchester-letter-calais-jungle/

It is outrageous, and terribly sad that we as a relatively comfortable country think it OK to treat others this way.

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Open safe pathways to UK, prevent more deaths in the sea

27 October 2020: Once again, people travelling in desperation have died in the Channel trying to find a safe place to live because there is no legal way to come here, while members of the UK Government talk of creating wave machines, and employing people to send the boats back, and make no secret of the crass, racist, hostile and heartless policies that they have put in place.

Why people are left to die in this way?

SNN member organisation RAPAR delivered a letter to the UK Government in 2015 on behalf of leaders in the Calais ‘Jungle’, offering the chance to listen to the people directly affected if they really wanted to do something humane, and that offer is still on the table. The Government had this opportunity five years ago and did not take it – how many lives have been lost in the interim? Read the report here: http://www.salfordnow.co.uk/2016/04/28/manchester-letter-calais-jungle/

Continue reading “Open safe pathways to UK, prevent more deaths in the sea”
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Today marks one year since 39 Vietnamese migrants were found dead in a lorry in Essex.

Our signatory organisation ‘diakon’ writes: Today marks one year since 39 Vietnamese migrants were found dead in a lorry in Essex.

Join us in a show of remembrance and solidarity: post a photo with the words ‘#RemembertheEssex39‘ and tag @remember.resist (Instagram) / @remember_resist (Twitter)

📖 Read the “Remember the Dead: Justice for the Living” zine featuring writings that attempt to recentre a structural analysis to understand the broader conditions that led to the deaths of the Essex 39 https://issuu.com/daikonzine/docs/essex_39_zine

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Risk Assessing Hotels And Barracks Housing Displaced People In The UK

Updated 23.10.2020 with BBC report, below.

20 October 2020: Risk assessing hotels and barracks housing displaced people in the UK: Statement from StatusNow4All

We note that the role of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration is to help improve the efficiency, effectiveness and consistency of the Home Office’s border and immigration functions through unfettered, impartial and evidence-based inspection.   

We note, in contrast, that the Home Office is attempting to side step this transparent system by hiring  a private risk management company, Human Applications (https://ergonomics.org.uk/humanapplications)  to provide a ‘rapid review of initial accommodation for single adult asylum seekers, including hotels and former military barracks, and provide assurance of compliance with public health guidelines to prevent the transmission of Covid 19.’   Hastily arranged with minimal, non-transparent and selective third sector involvement, the Home Office have stated that they do not intend to make this report public.  

Living conditions have the potential to compromise the physical and psychological health of people.  Those displaced people currently accommodated by the Home Office in hotels and barracks around the UK are not being offered thorough assessment, especially in relation to the safeguarding concerns that arise from the Covid-19 pandemic.  The Home Office is failing to demonstrate either an appropriate duty of care, or any transparent process.   Similarly, the meaningful exercise of duty of care cannot be realised until there is a comprehensive test- track- trace and quarantine system that enables EVERYONE to participate, with confidence, throughout the UK. 

Alongside our call for StatusNow4All https://statusnow4all.org/about-status-now/ to enable everyone to share equal access to healthcare, housing and food, we call for the  Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration  to conduct an immediate and independent inspection that ‘provides assurance of compliance with public health guidelines to prevent the transmission of Covid 19’.

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Risk assessing hotels and barracks housing displaced people in the UK

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20 October 2020: Risk assessing hotels and barracks housing displaced people in the UK: Statement from StatusNow4All

We note that the role of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration is to help improve the efficiency, effectiveness and consistency of the Home Office’s border and immigration functions through unfettered, impartial and evidence-based inspection.   

We note, in contrast, that the Home Office is attempting to side step this transparent system by hiring  a private risk management company, Human Applications (https://ergonomics.org.uk/humanapplications)  to provide a ‘rapid review of initial accommodation for single adult asylum seekers, including hotels and former military barracks, and provide assurance of compliance with public health guidelines to prevent the transmission of Covid 19.’   Hastily arranged with minimal, non-transparent and selective third sector involvement, the Home Office have stated that they do not intend to make this report public.  

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Fair Immigration Reform Movement

For your consideration: The Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) unites a call for humane immigration and inclusion policies that can truly reflect our society’s democratic values, and that draws on a distinguished history in Britain of standing for the dignity and justice of all.

The Charter emerged as a result of conversations with those who face the sharp end of current policies: with their family and friends, campaigners, politicians, journalists, case workers, volunteers, and many others who support everyone who has been affected by the increasingly brutal immigration policies in Britain.

[Read more: https://firmcharter.org.uk/]

You can sign up to this Charter

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12 Oct 2020 Vigil – lives destroyed by the hostile environment

2020 October 10: There was a Vigil this evening commemorating lives destroyed by the hostile environment, and remembering the death ten years ago of Jimmy Mubenga at the hands of G4S guards as he was being removed from UK; and others who have died due to this hostile environment … #SolidarityKnowsNoBorders

From the event:

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A model motion for promoting and supporting StatusNow4All

We offer this as a model motion for promoting and supporting StatusNow4All. Please feel free to use it in your Unions, or elsewhere as appropriate:

This branch/committee/ organisation notes

The deliberate misrepresentation by Politicians and media relating to Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Economic Migrants which has led to an alarming rise of racism, Islamophobia and Antisemitism in our communities and workplace.

A recent TUC call for evidence found:

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