Opposing Anti-Migrant Terror

David Landau writes: We are living in dangerous times. There is a global resurgence of anti-migrant terror. The richest and most powerful people in the world (generally men) are driving far-right and fascist movements. Britain is no exception. The emergence of the Reform Party as the most popular party in the country is truly frightening. The violence directed towards hotels where refugees are being held can only be described as terror. Ironic that when the Government is proscribing left and anti-imperialist movements such as Palestine Action, the real terrorists around Tommy Robinson and Reform can carry on regardless.

The heart of this ideological and emotional onslaught is immigration. The centrality of immigration is nothing new. Way back in the late 1800s, the British Brothers League were marching around the country saying that Britain will sink, it cannot take any more. Well we haven’t sunk yet!

Grooming Gangs, Sexual Violence and Harassment

A particularly nasty feature of the attack on migrants has been the tying together of grooming gangs, sexual violence and harassment. Let us be clear – there is an appalling record of failure by the authorities to address the severity of this issue. There was and still is a culture of denial. The young women and girls were not listened to – their dreadful stories were ignored. But this not the fault of refugees or migrants. Indeed the Casey Report into this failure indicates that statistically white people are more likely to commit child sexual abuse and exploitation than Asian people. This was in turn based on the Complex and Organised Child Abuse Database.

Another report from the Home Office in 2020 found that “group-based child sexual exploitation offenders are most commonly white”.

But this has not got past the anti-migrant narrative which has such a pernicious effect.

Another twist to this sorry tale is that some professionals involved in this have stated that they did not follow this up because they were frightened of being accused of racism.

The Labour Party

You might think that the Labour Party would oppose the anti-migrant racism of Reform and the Tories. No. On the contrary – as the party of government it took on the role of guardian of Britain’s borders. Starmer made a speech in which he talked about Britain becoming an island of strangers – echoing Enoch’s infamous rivers of blood speech. This might have come as a shock to some. But the Labour Party has form on this. The phrase ‘Hostile Environment’ – it was Liam Byrne who coined the phrase which was taken up by other Home Secretaries such as Charles Clark and David Blunkett and throughout the time the Tories were in power, Yvette Cooper continually chastised them for being inefficient!

So, no surprise when they are easily pushed to the right when faced with the rise of the Reform Party and Forage.

Hotels

Why are Asylum seekers living in hotels anyway? This is a consequence of not being allowed to work and have an income. Now we have a conflict between local authorities and the Home Office. Epping Forest District Council took the Home Office to court and the council won and the Home Office is legally obliged to move migrants and refugees. As far as we know at this point, the Home Office is not appealing. This gives a green light to other local authorities where people are being housed in hotels.

Kemi Badenoch – Tory leader of the opposition – has called on other councils to follow Epping’s example, as has Farage. This is likely to lead to further violent protests to ‘prove’ to the courts that is unsafe for refugees to remain in the hotels.

A central plank of our position on immigration controls is that there can be no fair or non-racist controls. This is an illustration. The result is clearly a victory for the racists. But what about the refugees? They are stuck with nowhere to go. But if the Home Office had won, they would have remained in harm’s way.

So what should refugees, migrants and their supporters demand? It has to be for provision of proper housing, which in turn implies access to benefits and the right to work and getting rid of immigration controls altogether.

Community Defence

The level of violence against refugees and migrants, especially around the hotels is frightening and intolerable. They cannot live with that danger. So we must demand support from the police and other appropriate bodies. However we cannot trust the authorities. So we have to develop networks of support so people can call out for support. This is difficult, dangerous and time consuming. It also requires non-sectarian co-operation – a united front. Crucially, we must step up our work together.