While immigration controls are a relatively recent phenomenon, Britain taking land, resources and exploiting people across the world, from Australia, to Africa, to Asia, to the Americas, is centuries old. The wealth of Europe is built on the colonisation of the countries from which migrants come. Our message to Britain is: We are here because you were there.
Over 130,000 people were deported from Britainin the last ten years. As migrants flee underdevelopment, war and climate change that they did not cause, justice doesn’t mean border controls, it means reparations for slavery and colonialism, and safe passage.
We must challenge the anti-immigration consensus which tells us that everything that’s broken in Britain is caused by immigration, rather than a deliberate disinvestment in our working class communities and public services.
We want:
- Immediate end to immigration enforcement, raids, detention and deportations (including charter flights)
- An end the ‘hostile environment’ and any provision which turns housing, employment, education, healthcare or any other public service into border agencies
- An end the ‘no recourse to public funds’ policy
- An end to all charging in the National Health Service and reverting to a principle of equal access to all, as well as an end to NHS data sharing practices
- Full equal access to education, welfare and the right to work for all migrants and people seeking asylum
- Equal status for all undocumented and under-documented people living in the UK via an accessible regularisation programme
- Repatriation and reparations for all deportees, including those deported as part of the ‘Windrush Scandal’
- The removal of obstacles to safe passage (including restrictions on airlines)