Say No to government attacks on refugees and migrants’ rights

David Landau writes: Since the turn of the century, there has been a succession of attacks on migrants and refugees by Government. But over the last three years there has been an extraordinary acceleration of attacks on migrants’ rights, one thing after another; it’s difficult to keep up.

The Rwanda Plan, the Nationality and Borders Act, the Illegal Immigration Act, accommodation on barges, the threat to erode human rights legislation and withdraw from the European Convention on human rights. Now we have Cleverly’s 5 point plan:

• Care workers will be banned from bringing family dependants to the UK
• Companies will no longer be able to pay workers 20% less than the going rate in industries with job shortages
• The annual charge for foreign workers to use the NHS will be hiked from £624 to £1,035
• The minimum income for family visas will rise from £18,600 to £38,700 from next Spring
• A review will be launched into the graduate visa route to stop “abuse”

This is focused on ‘legal immigration’ to find employment in the UK, but narrows down what is legal. It should be noted now that the 20% deal was a free gift to the employers and an attack on both migrant and non-migrant workers and was itself introduced by the Tories.

We have always said that an injury to one is an injury to all – an attack on migrants is an attack on everyone. But these latest developments threaten all of us in two specific ways:

• The erosion of human rights is an erosion of every body’s rights
• The impact of these measures will leave massive gaps in employment especially in health and social care. The government will go on the offensive in driving benefit claimants into work.

New alliances will need to be built to link the struggles.

And what is the Labour Party doing? Are they championing migrant and refugee rights? No! They complain that the Tories have stolen their ideas in an incomprehensible joke about shopping trolleys.

RELENTLESS ATTACKS? WE FIGHT BACK!