Tag: refugees-are-welcome-here

Racism is Whipped-up on Purpose to Divide Us

Tony StauntonLeave a comment

My weekly published Comment column in the daily Plymouth Herald (4.8.26), responding to the previous day’s outrageous press conference staged by Reform UK detailing the use of naval warships to prevent refugees crossing the English Channel “by all means possible”. They had the audacity to invoke the European Human Rights Charter in defence of their proposed military challenge to asylum seekers, all the while pledging to delete human rights laws the moment they gain office. RUK must be stopped! Prior to their announcement I had planned to publish commemoration of the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and the peril we face with continued nuclear proliferation and threats. We have a stall on Saturday 8th challenging the nuclear weapons manufacturer, Babcock, in Plymouth City Centre (Armada Way Piazza, 11-2pm). But that has to wait – the immediate challenge to the far-Right has to remain paramount. Expose the threat of fascist rule.

The full text below, or expand the pic for the published version (much the same):

There can be no such thing as an illegal human being. Our individual actions may break a nation’s laws, and different countries have different laws, making The Law different from universal human conditions. But no-one can be called “an illegal”. 

Those who choose to label others as illegals are dehumanising the person and devaluing life. It suits those who seek power and privilege and status in the pecking order of class society. Creating division through proffering privilege and entitlement does a job for class rule. Identifying a group as unworthy, undeserving or illegitimate has been an overused and ancient ploy of those seeking or wielding power.

So calling refugees “illegals” has a big job to do for the far-Right everywhere. Trump deploys his power through his ICE thugs kicking down doors to seize “illegals” from their beds or workplaces. The neo-Nazi AfD in Germany organise street gangs to burn migrants homes. The far-Right nationalists, Reassemblement National, rabble-rouses for xenophobia and antisemitism. Spanish fascist groups smash-up migrant meeting places. 

In Britain, Reform UK and their fascist breakaway, Restore Britain, utilises all the lessons from the far-Right across the globe to build hatred and division here, targeting Black people seeking refuge by undertaking one of the ostensible perilous sea journeys across the English Channel. 

On the surface, “Stop the Boats” is a very sensible suggestion. No-one should need to risk their life to reach safety. And no-one should profit from another person’s misfortune. But the boat campaign is a cover for ultra-nationalism, white-supremacy and racism. 

The call of reform UK for a “Fortress Britain”, pledging to launch ‘the biggest military operation in the Channel since World War Two’ to end migrant crossings. They picture British warships capsizing small boats and dumping survivors back on “foreign” shores. Engaging the UK military against Africans and Asians is designed to evoke a mythical and fanatical patriotism from a British Empire that was always questioned and can never exist again. 

In truth, they seek power for themselves by blaming and scapegoating the most powerless and stateless of human beings for all the ills of the society. 

Be clear, an immigrant is someone who has crossed a border and can still go home in safety if they choose. A refugee is someone who has crossed a border because home is no longer safe at all. Asylum seekers are simply refugees waiting for that truth to be recognised on paper. 

Confusing, misnaming or bad-mouthing these categories is a purposeful and deceitful lie with the intention of “othering” the “foreigner” and people-of-colour in its broadest racist incarnation. It is the tip of the ice-berg of propaganda aimed at putting a white-supremacist government into power to protect big business and the billionaire financiers of this bile.

The people on boats are homeless and stateless. Those seeking refuge come mainly from countries where UK-based corporations have sold arms for the wars over extraction of fossil fuels or rare metals, wars that have pulverised entire regions. And they escape regions rendered no longer habitable for human communities because of the climate catastrophe scorching and deluging their lands with floods and famine. Should we expect them simply to die, presumably because we view them as lesser humans, inferior to us?

Let them in! Refugees are Welcome Here! 

Britain can afford to help. Our NHS is not in crisis because of migrants – it depends upon them. Our housing is not in crisis because of migrants – rents and mortgages are too high and property speculators only invest in high short-term returns. Our water is not overpriced and rivers wholly polluted because of migration – it’s the avarice of private shareholders! Our low wages are not caused by immigration – Capitalist, large and small, always seek to pay the least to gain the most private income from their business.  

Racism is whipped-up intentionally to divide the working class one from the other and prevent collective opposition to the profiteering, landlordism and exploitation of the ruling class. We should not be fooled. Trade unions will openly expose and challenge racist and fascist organisations targeting Plymouth.

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Say it Loud – Refugees are Welcome Here!

Tony StauntonLeave a comment

My weekly comment column in the daily Plymouth Herald, challenging the racists in this city. In the wake of the huge anti-racist demonstration against fascist-led racist gatherings in Glasgow and Epping, the call has to be to confront the racist mobs everywhere – Whose streets? Our Streets! Thanks to Julie for timely research on the facts. Keep on protesting – join Stand Up To Racism! https://standuptoracism.org.uk/

My unedited version below:

Say it Loud – Refugees are Welcome Here!

There is something worse than despicable about people who want to assault and abuse refugees. Yet there they are, forming-up to rage in protest outside squalid buildings, some of them trying to burn them down with the people trapped inside.
These buildings, hardly passing as “hotels” – never improved, never refurbished, never invested in – now being used as cheap accommodation and a fast-buck for the tax-cash grabbing owners, cramming-in people who have foot-slogged across continents to risk their lives in flimsy rubber boats to get here.
These people are refugees – between 60 and 80% of people in those small boats are granted asylum -they are refugees as a class. They don’t get given jobs here – they cannot work for ages until their applications are processed and successful. They don’t come here to hang around shopping centres, they come here to contribute to the economy, have a life and pay taxes.
Asylum is a human need and a human right. When you’re being attacked by military or armed gangs, your family raped and killed, your homes and lands destroyed either by war or extreme weather, you should be helped.
And we should be incredibly proud of helping. Thankfully, most people in every city, every town, from student through to pensioners, are ready to help those in need. But now, with violent racist thugs seeking to take-over our streets, anti-racists need to come out and challenge them, to Stand Up To Racism!
The fascist-led thugs attacking the hotels across the country, throwing bricks and attacking Police this Summer are more than ready to be treated in hospital by the migrant workforce on which the NHS and many other public services depend. Immigrant doctors are saving lives, immigrant teachers are teaching our children, immigrant workers are cleaning our buildings and driving our public transport.
But rampaging racists don’t care about facts. Not least, asylum-seekers in the UK get no privileges. Asylum seekers cannot choose where they live. People seeking asylum receive little financial support and are not allowed to work, usually getting £49.18 a week to pay for things like food, clothing and toiletries, but if the accommodation provides meals this is reduced to £9.95 a week. The UK is not overrun with asylum seekers. In a country of 66,000,000 people, 32,345 refugees were living in so-called “hotels” last year.
The UK is home to just 1% of the world’s refugees. As of 2024, the number of refugees in the world stands at 27.1 million. Last year, 108,000 applied for asylum in the UK, which is 1/3 the number in Germany and only 1/10 of the total applications in the EU.
Net migration to the UK last year was about 450,000, with small boat migrants a tiny proportion of that. Here, 1 in 6 (or 16%) of the population were born outside the UK. The idea that Black people are taking over the UK is an impossible racist lie. More than 90% of land across the UK has no buildings on it – hardly overcrowded! Britain is comprised of at least 55million white-skinned humans out of a population of 66 million – hardly “taken-over” – as if that should matter! Do you really think that a human born with darker skin pigmentation is inferior to “white” or lighter skin – are you stupid or just ignorant or lazy-minded or just fooling yourself that you’re more important than other people?
And those who say Black men are sexual abusers need to look at the list of paedophile celebs, politicians and royals who are White, including many of the racists’ own heroes. In fact, the vast majority of child sexual abuse happens inside the family, and the vast majority of families in Britain are White – you don’t see the racists protesting against white gangs organising child sexual exploitation. The racists don’t really care about children, they just use them to exploit racist ideology.
So who is raping and pillaging our country, exactly? The top 50 richest families (that’s just 2,000 people) in the UK now hold more wealth than the poorest half of the population (33 million of us). The greed and avarice of the super-rich, their exploitation and maltreatment of the UK’s working class dwarfs any misbehaviour of any migrant.
It is the super-rich who are funding the fascist-led far-right racist demonstrations and their vile racist propaganda, and given the oxygen of publicity by the politicians and media led by those who are actually responsible for our housing crisis, our crumbling NHS and schools – the big landlords and corporate executives who deserve all our bile.
Stand up and clear our streets of the racists. Say it loud and proud – Refugees are Welcome Here!