SCOTLAND

Humza Yousaf's wife 'not comforted' as Foreign Office work to get parents out of Gaza

Nadia El Nakla said she had barely slept after receiving a panicked 1am call from her parents, who are visiting a sick relative in the war-torn area. She told Sky News about the toll the constant panic is having on them.

Connor Gillies
Scotland correspondent @ConnorGillies
Sunday 15 October 2023


The wife of Scotland's First Minister Humza Yousaf has told Sky News the Foreign Office is working hard to negotiate her parents' escape from Gaza but she is "not comforted" by the chance of success.

The US has been trying to broker a deal to reopen Egypt's Rafah Crossing with Gaza to allow foreigners to leave and humanitarian aid to be taken in.

The border was closed because of airstrikes early in the war. Foreign Secretary James Cleverley said it is proving "incredibly difficult" to allow people through.

Nadia El Nakla said she had barely slept after receiving a panicked 1am call from her parents who are visiting a sick relative in the war-torn area.

Ms El Nakla told Sky News she and her husband, the SNP leader, had fallen asleep moments before they were alerted about a possible imminent strike on the Gaza property where her parents are staying. It turned out to be a false alarm.

Israeli forces have positioned themselves along Gaza's border, besieging the territory, ahead of what Israel says will be a broad campaign to dismantle the Hamas militant group.

Ms El Nakla, who is an SNP councillor, told Sky News her relatives were in ongoing talks with the Foreign Office.

She said: "The negotiations are happening. They said to me that, look, it's personal for them. They have stuff there and it's they desperately want people out.

"But the negotiations are ongoing. And as much as I truly believe that it's not a comfort to myself, I just want them out there as soon as possible."

Read more on Sky News:
Scotland's FM makes tearful plea over family in Gaza
Live updates on Israel-Hamas wa

Humza Yousaf's mother-in-law 'trapped' in Gaza

'That feeling of helplessness is really poignant'

Mr Yousaf's wife talked about the toll the constant panic is having on them.

She said: "My mum called at like 1am. The minute I heard Humza say 'it's your mum' I just immediately felt sick and she was just crying and she said: 'We've left the house, we don't know where we're going.'

"What was really difficult was they're very much asking me what they should do and I don't know what to do to keep them safe. So that feeling of helplessness is really poignant right now."

Earlier on Sunday the SNP conference passed an emergency motion, which calls on the UK government to back United Nations demands for a humanitarian corridor to be set up, allowing people to leave and for aid to get into the territory to "mitigate the human tragedy unfolding in Gaza".

The statement said the SNP "unequivocally condemns the terrorist attacks by Hamas, calls for the unconditional release of all the hostages and recognises the right of Israel, in commons with all nations, to protect itself from terror".

Family members 'having to say goodbye as if it's the last time'

Ms El Nakla told the SNP's conference in Aberdeen that her family members are saying goodbye to each other "like it's the last time" as civilians in Gaza are ordered to evacuate the north.

"Families like mine are having to move and they are having to say goodbye to each other as if it's the last time," she said.

"My dad yesterday - when we hoped he would leave - said goodbye to my grandmother for what we thought was the last time. Every person in Gaza is waiting to die."

Ms El Nakla told the conference an "unimaginable horror" was unfolding, adding that "every person in Gaza is waiting to die".

She added: "No food, no water, no electricity. We are seeing an attack on humanity and my heart feels like it is starting to turn to stone.

"Gaza is being obliterated like never before."

Ms El Nakla used her speech to call on the UK and world leaders to "give the children of Gaza a chance of life".

"Instead of sending spy planes, the UK should be sending supplies," she told the conference.

She added: "We are not watching a natural disaster, this can be stopped.

"This can only happen when the world leaders use diplomacy, instead of weaponising, and strive for peace over war."

Mr Yousaf embraced his wife after she spoke to the conference and then wiped away tears.

In an interview with Sky's Beth Rigby earlier this week, a tearful Mr Yousaf said he felt "powerless" to protect his family.

NORTHERN IRELAND

Barristers consider withdrawing services over legal aid payment delays


Lawyers said they were having to wait up to six months for payment in legal aid cases

 (Katie Collins/PA)
By Jonathan McCambridge, PAToday 

Criminal barristers are being balloted over withdrawing services as part of a protest over delays in receiving payment for publicly funded legal aid work.

The Criminal Bar Association (CBA) said it would hold a day of action in November.

The CBA said lawyers were having to wait up to six months for payment in legal aid cases.

The bar has highlighted that the public policy of speeding up justice and increasing throughput requires an increased budgetCriminal Bar Association

A spokesperson said: “The Bar of Northern Ireland has over many months called for urgent action from the Department of Justice (DoJ) to avoid such action taking place.

“The bar has highlighted that the public policy of speeding up justice and increasing throughput requires an increased budget.

“However, to date, no tangible solutions have been offered by the DoJ.

“The department’s policy of delaying payment for work done means that dedicated and skilled lawyers are having to wait for up to six months for payment after completing their work.

“These delays are exacerbating the difficulties caused by reductions in legal aid rates which, when adjusting for inflation, have plummeted by between 47% and 58% since 2005.”

The barristers who provide these legal services in Northern Ireland are often facing intolerable cash-flow pressures that their counterparts in other UK regions do not have to endureCriminal Bar Association

The spokesperson added: “Criminal barristers are committed professionals who work on the most serious and difficult of cases.

“The criminal justice system depends on these lawyers to apply their time and skill in the best interests of their clients and broader society.

“The barristers who provide these legal services in Northern Ireland are often facing intolerable cash-flow pressures that their counterparts in other UK regions do not have to endure.

“It is a matter of regret that, as part of a range of measures to be taken in response to this crisis in our legal aid system, criminal barristers have felt compelled to consider a withdrawal of their services.”

The Department of Justice has been contacted for a response.

Black History Month: Celebrating and Saluting our Scottish Sisters

” … remember that Black history is our collective history and that we are writing the story of tomorrow today with every choice we make. This Black History Month; let’s stand with our sisters and choose a fair and just Scotland without racism” argues Khutso Dunbar.

Black History Month is in full swing with programming and events across the country aimed at bringing attention to the often ignored and sometimes silenced voices of the Black and ethnic minority community. As Scottish society becomes increasingly diverse, this month becomes more meaningful as a time to reflect on how history has impacted the present. While we lament and learn from the past ills of slavery, colonialism and the ongoing racism that plagues our society- we must also respond and recognise the opportunities for a better future. 

Aminatta Forna

This month’s theme is: ‘Celebrating and saluting our sisters’- an opportunity to shed light on the contributions of Women of Colour. In Scotland, we have much to salute and celebrate. We start by paying homage to a lesser-known suffragist Jessie Margaret Soga, born in 1870 to a Black South African father of Xhosa heritage and a White Scottish mother. Soga was one of the key members of the Women’s Freedom League branch in Hillhead, Glasgow and known as Scotland’s only Black/mixed race suffrage campaigner. She was also a singer and music teacher performing as a soloist with the Kelvingrove United Presbyterian Choir at the Coatbridge Corporation Recitals. Soga used her music career to help fund the efforts of the Women’s Social and Political Union, a Women’s rights political group to which she belonged. Women received the right to vote in 1918 and Soga’s activism and contributions in Scotland were noted as significant.

Other figures of note include Aminatta Forna, OBE, a multi-award-winning author born in Bellshill, Scotland to a Scottish Mother and a Sierra Leonian physician father (pictured above). Along with her writing, Forna has also worked as a reporter, produced various documentaries for the BBC and is a founder of a charity to build schools in her father’s home of Sierra Leon. Jacqueline Margaret Kay, CBE, FRSE, FRSL is another celebrated author of Black heritage who was born in Edinburgh to a Nigerian father and Scottish mother and grew up in Bishopbriggs. Jackie Kay as she is widely known; is a poet, playwright and novelist who was Scotland’s Makar (national poet laureate) from 2016 to 2021.

Debora Kayembe

Three of Scotland’s universities have also added to the accolades of Black History by recently appointing Black women as rectors. The University of St Andrews appointed Leyla Hussein, OBE, as their third female rector and first woman of colour in 2020. Along with her rectorship, Hussein is a psychotherapist and social activist who heads multiple non-profits aimed at safeguarding women against violence. This historic appointment was followed by the appointment of Martina Chukwuma-Ezike in 2021 as the first Black woman rector at the University of Aberdeen. Originally from Nigeria, Chukwuma-Ezike is the CEO and founder of Scotland’s only dedicated asthma charity, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation and advocates for better awareness.  In the same year, the University of Edinburgh appointed Debora Kayembe, a human rights lawyer, linguist and political activist, who came to the UK in 2005 as an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Kayembe is currently a member of the Scottish Socialist Party and the founder of the charity ‘Full Options’ which promotes human rights and peace. In recognition of her contributions to Scottish society, she became the first African to have their portrait erected by the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2019.

Martina Chukwuma-Ezike

These exceptional women are exactly that, the exception and not the rule in Scotland. Their phenomenal achievements are even more remarkable because they sit against a backdrop of longstanding societal inequalities and racism which pose vexing barriers to achievement for most people of colour. Women of colour are further marginalised by compounding gender discrimination. In Scotland, Ethnic minorities, who make up 4% of Scotland’s population, have the worst rates of poverty in the nation, according to government statistics. While the percentage of White Scots living in poverty stayed the same between 2020 and 2022 at 18%, the disparities experienced by ethnic minorities have grown- with the percentage of Black and Mixed populations living in poverty increasing from 43% to 48% between 2020 and 2022, while the percentage of British Asian/Asian groups increased from 41% to 49% in the same period. Additionally, compared to all other priority groups, such as 28% of homes with a disabled family member and 38% of single-parent households, ethnic minority households had the highest prevalence of child poverty at 39%. Some of these vulnerabilities can occasionally coexist such as in an example of an ethnic minority, disabled, single parent who would face intersecting and compounding disadvantages.

Jackie Kaye

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that there is a gender pay gap of 18.4% and an ethnicity pay gap of 10.3% in Scotland. This means that ethnic minority Scots are paid less than White Scots in comparable positions and ethnic minority women are doubly jeopardized. Furthermore, Scotland’s ethnic minority population is much more likely to have qualifications at “degree level or higher,” at 59% compared to 35% of the White Scottish population. Yet, despite these accomplishments, employment outcomes for qualified ethnic minorities are worse, with an employment rate of 73.0% vs 86.5% for the equivalent white population. These disparate labour market conditions combine to produce poor economic outcomes for ethnic minority women in Scotland who already face lower employment rates of 64% for Black female Scots compared to 72% for White female Scots. 

These statistics show that inequality is an unconscionable stain on Scottish society. So, as October rolls on, we give a nod to all the women of colour around us who despite the challenges and injustices of prejudice and discrimination are pushing forward to build a better, more socially just Scotland. We also remember that Black history is our collective history and that we are writing the story of tomorrow today with every choice we make. This Black History Month; let’s stand with our sisters and choose a fair and just Scotland without racism.

OPINION
UK
Labour’s latest policy retreat once again exposed Starmer for the untrustworthy charlatan he is

On 11 October at the Labour Conference, shadow health secretary Wes Streeting spoke of his party’s “ten-year plan for a National Care Service”. This was a key speech which happened merely days ago. So, you’d expect it would still be part of Labour’s agenda. Those who’ve followed the party under Keir Starmer, however, won’t be surprised to learn that the “ten-year plan for a National Care Service” is reportedly now a zero year plan for nothing:

According to Sunday 15 October’s Observer:

Starmer’s party will avoid laying out a detailed plan for reform of social care, and the politically nightmarish issue of how to fund it, because it fears any proposals would be torpedoed by the Tories in the heat of a campaign.

According to senior party figures, Keir Starmer’s team – while committed to social care reform – do not want to offer the Tories a target that would invite them to attack the plans and make claims about the tax implications. Instead, there would be a general commitment to make changes when in office.

To sum up, Labour’s election plan is to offer vague promises from a man who the British public already don’t trust. This is polling from YouGov:

When Starmer first came to power, you can see the vast majority of people ‘didn’t know’ if he was trustworthy or not. 22% of those polled believed he was; 19% swung the opposite way. Over time, the ‘don’t knows’ have dropped as people have got to know the new Labour leader. However, while the number of people who trust him has risen 8 percentage points to 30%, the number who don’t trust him has risen by a whopping 24 percentage points to 43%.

As you can see below, trust in Starmer is better than trust in Rishi Sunak, but it’s also less steady. Notably, the direction of travel for Starmer is that the longer people have any awareness of him, the less they trust him:

So, what’s happened to cause this situation? Quite simply, Starmer has shown himself to be a man who’s almost pathologically incapable of sticking to his word.

Mr U-turn

In June 2023, Politico compiled an already out-of-date list of Starmer’s key U-turns. Said list includes:Abandoning several proposals to renationalise key services (despite support for such policies remaining incredibly high).
Un-abandoning his pledge to “end outsourcing” in the NHS.
Distancing himself from the trade unions he once claimed to support.
Abandoning his aim to retain EU free movement.
Not only abandoning the pledge to remove Universal Credit, but having his work and pensions secretary claim they “actually agree with the concept behind” it.
Abandoning the plan to abolish tuition fees.
Ditch any serious pretence of fighting climate change.
Abandoning his pledge to increase tax for the top 5% of earners.
Scrapping his pledge to get rid of the undemocratic House of Lords.

This isn’t even all of it. And as such, it’s plain to see why you couldn’t trust this guy as far as you could throw him.

Electioneering

Of course, the lack of trust in Starmer may be baked into Labour’s strategy for the next election. If Starmer doesn’t offer anything, then people can’t mistrust his ability to deliver it. There are two problems with this, and the first relates to this quote from the Observer article:

“We need to give ourselves cover to do reform in the manifesto, without giving the Tories a target to attack us. We can’t allow the issue to dominate a campaign again,” said a party source.

Going off how eagerly Starmer sheds policies – especially half-decent ones – most people will naturally come to the conclusion that he isn’t abandoning progressive proposals because he’s a clever political operator; he’s abandoning them because he’s a regressive politician.

If Labour promised a National Care Service in ten years, people would constantly be asking for progress updates. By vaguely hinting at one, Starmer can more easily get away with not delivering a policy he had no interest in delivering in the first place. The embarrassing U-turns have taught Starmer one thing, it seems, and that’s that you can’t U-turn on a policy which never existed.

Social care: hardly a vote-loser

The issue is that people aren’t stupid, and many will see his vague promises for exactly what they are – i.e. a big old heap of nothing.

The second problem for Labour in the next election is this: what happens if the Tories find something they can offer which the public get on board with (much like when the Tories’ 2019 Brexit stance turned the party’s fortunes around)? This is from the Observer:

In 2010, Labour’s plans for funding social care were branded a “death tax” by the Tories, and hit the party’s vote badly, while in 2017 Theresa May’s Conservative campaign suffered irreparable damage amid accusations she was planning a “dementia tax”.

This framing is bizarre, as it suggests the concept of a National Care Service is a certified vote loser. The 2017 election isn’t a good example of that, however. While May was slated for her ‘dementia tax’, Labour offered a fully-funded National Care Service, and it saw the biggest increase in vote share since 1945. While Labour’s fortunes were down to more than offering a National Care Service, it’s clearly not the guaranteed vote loser that the party is now claiming it is.

Labour isn’t caring

While Labour claims it’s shaping its policy platform to win votes, I’d argue that we’re witnessing something else entirely.

The Tories’ 13-year failure to deliver has finally caught up with them, and polling is reflecting that. Starmer knows this is down to the Tories’ mistakes rather than his own moves. However, this window of time does give him the opportunity to abandon policies without it impacting on polling too much – i.e. he can make the argument that no one cared about these policies anyway. This is giving a false impression of what will happen in the actual election when all eyes are suddenly upon both parties, and it becomes more obvious than ever that Labour has nothing to offer.

At this point, it’s entirely likely that Labour win anyway because the Tories have even less to offer. Regardless of who wins in that situation, however, it’s the public who ultimately lose.

FOR POLLING CHARTS GO HERE

Labour ditching National Care Service speaks volumes of Starmer (thecanary.co)

Labour U-turns on plans to abolish Lords in first term


Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer on stage speaking during the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, October 11, 2023

SIR KEIR STARMER is preparing to scrap social care reforms and backtrack on proposals to abolish the House of Lords in the lead up to polling day, reports claim.

Sir Keir’s initial plans to abolish the Lords, informed by Gordon Brown’s constitutional review, recommended replacing the chamber with a democratic assembly of nations and regions.

However a report in The Observer claims the party is moving away from plans of making a complete rehaul a priority.

Instead Sir Keir, who has previously described the House of Lords as “indefensible,” will reportedly look to enact far less sweeping changes, such as capping the number of peers, and empowering a body to prevent “inappropriate” people from being granted peerages.

According to the report, detailed plans for social care reform will also be omitted from the Labour manifesto.

This comes a week after shadow health secretary Wes Streeting addressed the Labour Party conference and spoke of “a workforce plan to address recruitment and retention.”

The Tories and Labour are gearing up for an election showdown with a poll required to be held before January 2025.

MORNINGSTAR  CPGB

Event held to celebrate life of adventurer who helped found Labour and the SNP

Robert Cunninghame Graham played a crucial role in Scottish and UK political history

By alistair grant
Published 15th Oct 2023, 

Robert Cunninghame Graham. Picture: contributed

His extraordinary life combined Boys' Own derring-do with a political career that spanned the births of both Labour and the SNP.

Now a special event is to be held to celebrate the life and legacy of Robert Cunninghame Graham, the first MP to ever identify as a socialist.

The inaugural Cunninghame Graham Debate will be held at Glasgow University Union next month, and promises a "challenging" and lively evening.

It will be introduced by James Jauncey, Graham's great-great nephew and biographer, whose recent book attempts to shed light on a "very complicated character".

"He's quite hard to get a handle on," Mr Jauncey told The Scotsman. "I think that's one of the reasons that he's not as well known as he ought to be."

Graham co-founded the Scottish Labour Party in 1888 with Keir Hardie and later became a founding president of the SNP in 1934.

However, it was as a Liberal MP that he represented North West Lanarkshire between 1886 and 1892, during which time he championed progressive causes such as an eight-hour working day and universal suffrage.

He was kicked out of the Commons three times for unparliamentary conduct – he is credited with being the first MP to say the word "damn" in the chamber – and was arrested during a protest in Trafalgar Square, spending six weeks in Pentonville.

But Graham's life also took in remarkable adventures overseas. He travelled in South America as a young man, gaining the nickname Don Roberto, and was later captured by a warlord in the Atlas Mountains and held to ransom for three weeks while attempting to reach the forbidden city of Taroudant in Morocco.

He was friends with some of the greatest literary figures of his day, including Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw and Joseph Conrad, and also wrote extensively himself. Graham's obituary in The Times described him as "the most picturesque Scot of his time"; "an aristocratic socialist and a cowboy dandy".

Mr Jauncey said he was a "hugely significant figure" who should be better known than he is. "My own theory here is that he died just before the Second World War, and in the austerity of the late 40s and 50s I don't think there was room in the national consciousness for someone quite so flamboyant and mercurial and multifaceted," the 74-year-old said.

"Scotland was a pretty dreich place in the 1950s. I mean, I remember it, because I was a child here then. So that's part of it.

"He's been written out of Labour Party history because he ended up as a nationalist. Well, there are two reasons Labour don't celebrate him. One is because he became a nationalist, which they can't tolerate, and secondly because of the difficulty for them of the fact that he was an aristocrat, and a landed one too."

He added: "As far as the SNP are concerned, that's a long time ago now – that's 90 years ago. They probably think of him as a sort of rather eccentric uncle."

Mr Jauncey said he did not think anybody would ever fully understand Graham. "There are lots of question marks around his life and his motives," he said. "He was also very contradictory. He could hold contradictory positions apparently without any trouble."

But he added: "Practically everything that he stood for 100 years ago is as true today as it was when he first voiced it. Universal suffrage, abolition of the House of Lords, all of those things. He was way ahead of his time.

"He's a very complicated character, there's no doubt about it. But I really feel he should be much more widely known than he is."

The Cunninghame Graham Debates, held by Scotland Street Press and the Glasgow University Dialectic Society, will take place on November 7 at 6.30pm, with topics including free speech and Scottish independence. Tickets are free.

UK

‘Bold mayors are taking control of public services. Labour nationally must follow’

Matthew Topham

 15th October, 2023

© R Heilig/Shutterstock.com

The next election will be fought on public services. Last month’s historic move in Greater Manchester to put the public back in the driver’s seat is essential for Labour to cut through: it’s time to expand public control to other key services, starting with water.

Last month saw the combined authority take its buses into public control, ending a 37-year experiment in what a former UN expert labelled “extreme” privatisation. The new system sees profits for private operators halved with the public able to hold them to account through the local authority, even raising the possibility of barring them from the region if they fail to deliver a decent service.

Burnham’s success shows the public’s desire for control of services

The journey to introduce the now iconic ‘Bee Network’ shows just how much desire there is for more control over local services. In Greater Manchester, a first of its kind local poll showed that only 5% of people disagreed with plans to take buses back into public control.

Empowered by these results, Andy Burnham ran his campaign for re-election as regional mayor in 2021 as a referendum on taking back these local services. He announced his decision to take back the buses on the day before the pre-election period kicked in and then ran against a Conservative candidate intent on stopping the change.

Against a terrible backdrop for Labour at the local elections — where they lost more than 300 councillors and saw councils like County Durham pass into no overall control for the first time in 100 years — Burnham won. He won in the first round. He won more than two-thirds of the vote. He won every council, every constituency, and even every ward.

And in his victory speech, his first messages to the public weren’t about tax and spend, economic growth, or even — as important as these may be. He was immediately committing to be back out on his first day as the newly-elected mayor to announce more plans for his publicly-controlled Bee Network buses.

Labour mayors across the country are following Burnham’s lead

Greater Manchester isn’t the only place where Labour in power is making public control and ownership a priority. Nor is it the only place they’re seeing the benefits. In West Yorkshire, Robert Peston put Tracy Brabin’s election as mayor in 2021 down to her bold policy to start the process of taking buses into public control in her first 100 days.

In Liverpool, Steve Rotheram’s publicly-owned Merseyrail trains and buses have been designed in consultation with the public.

In South Yorkshire, Oliver Coppard is taking the Supertram back under public operation as well as moving through the process to take back his buses at “record speed“.

In fact, if the rumours coming out of Bristol are true, this week may see all of Labour’s mayors moving towards public control of buses.

It is no surprise then that Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh has committed to rolling these powers out across the country to every council area that wants them.

Labour’s vision for empowering communities must go beyond transport

But confining the electoral gold dust of giving communities control over their essential services to the area of transport would leave Labour’s MPs fighting the general election with one hand tied behind their back.

Polls confirm that more than half of the electorate, including 2019 Conservative voters, will see sewage spills by private water companies impact the way they vote at the next election. Even more of the public (69%) support taking water into public hands.

The Labour Party’s current plans, to leave private companies in charge with a marginally empowered regulator, will fall short of the public’s ambition to improve services.

Around the world, taking water into public hands has been increasingly popular. Since 2000, elected governments have taken water into public hands in well over 300 places. The most striking thing about these numbers is that the places usually held up as examples to support privatisation have seen the highest levels of remunicipalisation. Take France and the US, which have seen 109 and 71 water services taken into public hands respectively.

Services that work for people – not profit – must be a Labour priority

Any concerns Labour has about the costs of promising public water can be dismissed. Powers exist under current legislation to prioritise the public over shareholders. In the tradition of the Blair government, Labour could use special administration to take over a failing public service that is putting the health of the nation at risk. Railtrack, the name of Network Rail when it was privatised, was taken into public hands through these powers and the compensation to shareholders set to protect the public purse.

Alternatively, two-thirds of the public support taking shares off water companies instead of cash fines. By taking cash-generating assets as compensation for pollution, a Labour government could begin to hand a voice to local communities by placing civil society representatives, such as Surfers Against Sewage, on company boards as happens in public water companies in Grenoble, Paris and beyond.

The Conservatives have seen the opportunities that public ownership can bring. Conservative mayors in Birmingham and Cambridge have explored taking back buses, while the Tees Valley mayor bought the local airport. Even in Westminster, Conservatives have taken back LNER, Northern and TransPennine into public operation with parts of the energy grid also being bought back.

Labour cannot afford to cede this ground. To put itself in a strong position ahead of the next election, it must learn the lessons from Burnham’s victory and put services that work for people, not profit, at the heart of its manifesto.

Matthew Topham

Matthew Topham is a campaigner at We Own It, working on Better Buses for West Yorkshire and Better Buses for South Yorkshire.

UK
Refugee charity calls for not-for-profit asylum system, as it reveals companies profiting from refugees’ ‘misery’

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead 

Left Foot Forward 

'While the government gives away billions to these companies people seeking asylum are left to live in accommodation that actively harms their health.'

Refugee Action, campaigners for a fairer asylum system in the UK, has launched a ‘Most Wanted’ campaign, which exposes the companies that are profiteering from the government’s ‘cruel’ asylum system. It says responsibility for asylum accommodation must be taken away from private companies and returned to local authorities.

According to the charity, in 2019, the government paid three contractors – Serco, Mears and Clearsprings Ready Homes – £4 billion over 10 years to provide accommodation to people seeking asylum. Additionally, these companies are paid more than £8 million a day to provide contingency accommodation in hotels. In the 12 months to March 2023 alone they received £2.28 billion, says the charity.

The campaigners describe the level of profit flowing into the companies from the asylum system as ‘scandalous.’ It warns that as private companies keep winning lucrative contracts with the Home Office, there is ‘little transparency or monitoring.’ Despite numerous complaints, fines and scandals, the companies, say Refugee Action, keep being awarded more government money.

Its ‘Most Wanted’ campaign informs how in 2020, Serco won a £45m Covid-19 test and trace contact, despite being subjected to a £1m fine for failures in its asylum accommodation contract in 2019.

The campaigners note how in their 2021 strategic report, Clearsprings Group, which prides itself in being “one of the largest providers of housing to the Home Office,” listed its principal activities as ten-year contracts held with the Home Office for the provision of asylum accommodation, support and transport services in the south of England and Wales, increased its profits £4,419,841 to £28,012,487 during the year ending 31 January 2022. The same year, dividends jumped from £7m to £27,987,262, and its three directors shared dividends of almost £28m.

In December 2021, the Guardian reported that flats provided by Clearsprings, the Home Office contractor, were rife with ‘damp, mould, water leaks and pest infestations, and deemed ‘not fit to live in.’

Housing providers the Mears Group have also been caught up in scandals and criticism over the condition of its property for refugees. In May, an asylum-seeking family raised fears about asylum accommodation after they were placed in a boarded-up block of flats on the edge of a derelict and abandoned estate. The family had been placed by the Mears Group in Port Glasgow, in a dilapidated building beside the notorious Clune Park estate, which was first earmarked for demolition in 2011. Only a handful of people still live there.

In its 2022 annual report, the Mears Group stated: “Both financially and operationally, the most significant contracts for the Group are those under which we provide accommodation and support for asylum seekers in the North-East of England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.”

In 2022, the company enjoyed a profit increase of 37 percent over 2021, with adjusted profits before tax standing at £35.2 million.

Serco, a leading provider of public services, which operates six adult prisons in Britain, runs Yarl’s Wood detention centre. The facility has been the focus of protests at reportedly poor conditions and whistleblowing revealing sex abuse, lack of engagement with mental health in relation to assessment and safeguards, and an ‘anti-immigrant culture.’

A fourth firm, Corporate Travel Management (CTM), was paid £1.6 billion this year to run some asylum accommodation services, including the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland. The barge has been beset with problems and controversy. In August, ministers were accused of playing Russian roulette with asylum seekers’ lives after it emerged that hundreds could be moved on to the Bibby Stockholm barge despite an inspection finding failings that could take months to repair.

According to Refugee Action, CTM shares surged on a $3bn contract with UK Home Office.

The charity is urging the government to to end the “for-profit” asylum accommodation system and consider other options rather than the current policy. One option would be working with Local Authorities and NGOs to house people in appropriate, high-quality accommodation in the community.

Asli Tatliadim, Head of Campaigns at Refugee Action, says that the asylum accommodation contracts have been a “licence to print money for these contractors but the gravy train must stop.”

“But while the government gives away billions to these companies people seeking asylum are left to live in accommodation that actively harms their health.

“It’s time the government funded local authorities to run the system on a not-for-profit basis and spent every penny of this public money on protecting refugees and strengthening services that all of us rely on.”

NHS waiting list surges despite Sunak’s pledge to cut backlog

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead 

‘The Prime Minister’s key pledge of reducing the size of the waiting list by March 2024 is looking more and more in doubt.’

The number of people stuck on NHS waiting lists has reached a record high, despite promises from ministers to eliminate lengthy backlogs.

Figures released on October 12, show that as of the end of August there were 8,998 people waiting for treatment for over 18 months, a sharp increase from 7,289 in July. Overall waiting list figures have reached a record high, with 7.75m people waiting for treatment at the end of August, up from 7.68m in July, marking the highest figure since records began in 2007.

The government had promised that all patients who had been waiting for 18 months for an operation in hospital would be treated by April. The following month, the health secretary Steve Barclay admitted that the government had not met its target. Failure to eliminate 18-month backlogs is embarrassing for Sunak, who made ‘cut waiting lists’ one of this five key promises. In January, the Prime Minister had said that “lists will fall, and people will get the care they need more quickly.”

Thea Stein, chief executive of the Nuttfield Trust, referred to the lack of progress as “alarming as we head into winter.”

“With another 65,000 people added to the waiting list in August and the average waiting times for patients still growing, we are not seeing the turnaround in fortunes that the government and patients would hope to see,” said Stein.

Siva Anandaciva, the chief analyst at the King’s Fund health charity, shared the same concerns.

“Today’s statistics show the NHS is running red hot as it enters the busy winter period. Despite the Prime Minister’s commitment to cut waiting lists, more and more people are now queueing for routine hospital care,” he said.

Pointing to A&E units, cancer, and mental health care services also under immense pressure, Anandaciva continued that “there are few areas of patient care that are unscathed by workforce shortages and rising demand.”

Professor Peter Friend, vice president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said that increased demand, record staff vacancies and industrial action are all continuing to “hold back recovery efforts.”

“And that is before winter pressures hit. The Prime Minister’s key pledge of reducing the size of the waiting list by March 2024 is looking more and more in doubt.”

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward

Suzy Eddie Izzard blasts U.K. conservatives for manufacturing an anti-trans “culture war”

“They’re trying to divide and conquer. They’ve always tried to do that.”

By John Russell

Sunday, October 15, 2023

Suzy Eddie Izzard at the March for Europe on September 3, 2016 in London.Photo: Ms Jane Campbell / Shutterstock


Suzy Eddie Izzard has accused UK conservatives of waging a politically motivated “culture war” against the country’s transgender community.

The British comedian, who in August announced her bid to become the next Labour Party Member of Parliament representing Brighton, attended the party’s conference in Liverpool this week. While there, she blasted members of the conservative Troy Party for ginning up anti-trans animus.

Sam Smith speaks out for trans people as UK government increases attacks

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was the latest politician to attack trans people, saying they don’t exist.

“It’s the Tories’ culture war,” she told PoliticsJOE. “There is no culture war. It’s not there. As a trans person, it’s not there.”

She described most people she encounters as accepting her identity, and accused conservative leaders of manufacturing anti-trans animus for political gain.

“They’re trying to divide and conquer. They’ve always tried to do that,” she explained. “‘Could we possibly get a culture war?’ You could hear the meeting in your mind of the Tories sitting down and saying: ‘We’ve got to stoke up people, keep saying culture war’. It’s not there.”

“There are people who are out and proud and positive, LGBTQ people have been coming out for years. I came out almost 40 years ago—40 years ago. How much notice do people need?” she added.

Izzard’s comments echo criticisms of recent anti-LGBTQ+ statements made by high-ranking members of the U.K. government.

Last week, following U.K. Health Secretary Steve Barclay’s announcement of a plan to ban transgender patients from single-sex wards at National Health Service (NHS) hospitals, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the crowd at the U.K.’s Conservative Party Conference that they “shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be. They can’t. A man is a man, and a woman is a woman, that’s just common sense.”

In an interview with Sky News, U.K. Home Secretary Suella Braverman agreed with Barclay’s proposal, saying that “Trans women have no place in women’s wards or, indeed, any safe space relating to biological women.” Braverman characterized the move as necessary to protect cisgender women’s “dignity, safety, and privacy.” However, a recent investigation by trans advocacy group Translucent looked at data from 102 NHS trusts across the U.K. and found zero complaints from cisgender women about trans women being cared for on the same hospital wards between April 2020 and June 2022.

Braverman also recently sparked outrage when she suggested that fearing persecution in their home countries due to being a woman or LGBTQ+ should not qualify refugees for asylum. Her comments drew a rebuke from the United Nations and sparked protests in London. A coalition of more than 200 human rights organizations led by U.K. LGBTQ+ nonprofit Stonewall sent a letter demanding that the government commit to protecting women and LGBTQ+ asylum seekers.

Critics, including out actor Ian McKellen, have suggested that Braverman’s comments were calculated to boost her credibility with conservative voters and her chances of succeeding Sunak should the Prime Minister lose the next general election.