If y'all haven't already, please email your MP regarding the super racist nationality and borders bill in the UK
And remember to include your postcode in the email
I am writing to ask you to oppose the nationality and borders bill. This bill criminalises the act of coming to the UK to seek sanctuary, erodes the meagre rights of those subject to immigration control and sows division in UK society. It seeks to inflame an already toxic debate about migration and seeks to further denigrate and stigmatise those who migrate.
There are countless harmful paragraphs and clauses in this bill. It disingenuously reinterprets the Refugee Convention in a restrictive way and has been found by the UNHCR to be in breach of International Law. It will criminalise people and deny them access to the asylum system solely on the basis of the route they travelled. It reintroduces a fast-track appeals system for people in detention that was previously found to be unlawful; dismantles hard-won protections for victims of human trafficking and modern slavery, and removes peopleās rights to appeal against Home Office decisions in a number of different scenarios. Many of these proposals will harm vulnerable people.
The bill marks a watershed moment in the transition from a hostile environment to full-blown social segregation. It will discriminate between refugees and leave the majority stuck in limbo for years, potentially segregated from the rest of society in isolated and unsanitary āaccommodation centresā, unable to work or participate in society. People could also be flown thousands of miles away to offshore detention centres. As with the rollout of the Hostile Environment, the profound immediate and long-term impact this will have upon the fabric of society does not appear to have been considered.
This is not just about people who come here to seek protection. The bill will change the law on detention, making it even more difficult for people to be released. This will affect everybody in detention including people with strong connections to the UK, who have families here, children here, people who themselves grew up here or were even born here, and who face removal to countries with which they have no connection.
If this bill passes, more people will be locked up, for longer. It creates new criminal offences and lengthens maximum sentences for other existing offences. It continues a trend begun by the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill. The new offences and heavier sentencing will be filtered through a criminal justice system whose racial biases are known and accepted. This will lead to more foreign nationals brought within the ambit of the UKās automatic deportation system, under which any foreign national who receives a 12-month sentence must be considered for deportation. Cases will be ācertifiedā so as to remove any right of appeal.
The bill makes it more difficult for people subject to immigration control to challenge life-changing decisions taken by the Home Office. It introduces many more hurdles in what is already an incredibly dehumanising system, punishing late evidence or behaviour deemed to be āin bad faithā and introducing demanding procedural requirements for those seeking to challenge their removal. Combined with the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill; the Judicial Review and Courts Bill; and the proposed overhaul of the Human Rights Act, we are witnessing a sinister and coordinated power grab. The government is seeking to make itself unchallengeable, silence dissent and erode the institutions of democracy.
As evidenced by the Windrush scandal, the Home Office already has excessive power that it can wield without meaningful external scrutiny. In the last 3 years, the Home Office has been found to have detained 914 people unlawfully and been required to pay out a total of Ā£24.4 million in compensation to those individuals. We should not be giving it more power.
An alternative is possible. I believe in an immigration system based on principles of justice, compassion and dignity, where no one is detained and deprived of their liberty for the sake of administrative convenience and no one can be exiled from the only home they know.
The UK must provide sanctuary to those forced to flee and give vulnerable people the opportunity to heal, it should enable families to stay together and afford everyone basic rights and the opportunity for rehabilitation. That is key to creating cohesive communities in the UK. This requires a shift in culture and attitude at the Home Office of the kind recommended by Wendy Williams in her Windrush review.
People move for many reasons, including legacies of colonialism that we have not properly reckoned with in this country. Those that are forced to flee and seek asylum are a particular target of this bill. The government assumes their anti-refugee bill is a vote-winner. I do not believe that is the case.
