Labour Campaign for Free Movement called Yvette Cooper's announcement 'disgraceful'
Labour Party members are set to stage a protest outside their own party’s conference in September over the government’s plans to increase the deportation and detention of migrants.
The protest, coordinated by Labour Campaign for Free Movement, was announced after the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper confirmed that the government will re-open two closed immigration detention centres and seek to deport 14,000 additional people by the end of the year. Cooper said that the plans were designed to tackle ‘the chaos that has blighted the system for far too long’.
The Labour Campaign for Free Movement protest will take place on Sunday 22 September at 1pm.
Speaking on the decision to hold the protest, Sacha Marten, a spokesperson for the Labour Campaign for Free Movement, said: “Yvette Cooper’s call to lock up and deport more migrants is a disgraceful and cruel way to approach the issue of border policy.
“This is a sop to the far right. Just weeks after the far right ran riot around Britain’s towns and cities, targeting mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers, a Labour government is giving them what they want – crueller, nastier measures aimed at migrants.
“It’s Tory austerity and big business who have driven down wages, wrecked communities and driven our public services into the ground – not migrants. Labour must tell the truth and offer hope, not pander to lies and hatred.
“We hope that all Labour members able to do so will join our protest outside Labour conference on Sunday 22nd September at 1pm.”
The Labour Campaign for Free Movement describes itself as “a network of Labour members and supporters, campaigning in Labour and the trade union movement to defend and extend free movement and migrants’ rights.” The group says that “free movement is a workers’ right” and that “attacks on the rights and freedoms of migrants don’t protect British workers – they undermine all of us”.
"Detention & deportation are brutal & useless for anything but enriching private companies that enact it."
The government has now announced the latest part of its immigration policy following the cancellation of the Tories’ Rwanda scheme. The Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said she wanted to introduce a ‘better controlled’ immigration system in order to tackle ‘the chaos that has blighted the system for far too long’.
As part of the plans, Cooper has set a goal of deporting 14,000 more people by the end of 2024.
To deliver its plans to ramp up deportations, the government has confirmed it intends to re-open two immigration detention centres – Campsfield in Oxfordshire and Haslar in Hampshire. This would provide an additional 290 beds in the UK’s detention estate.
Cooper’s announcement has faced heavy criticism from experts on migration and campaigners.
Zoe Gardner, a migration expert, said: “Yvette Cooper’s borders announcement today is a betrayal of everyone who voted for change. Ten days since racists attacked asylum seekers & mosques & today Labour announce they’re ramping up the failed narrative that we can just get rid of the people we don’t want here.
“Over last decades we vastly increased immigration detention capacity. More & more people locked up, while we try to get rid of them, although in most cases we don’t do that. They experience that brutality. We pay the immense cost. And what changes? Absolutely nothing.”
She went on to suggest that the government should instead be introducing safe and legal routes for asylum seekers to make claims in order to reduce the number of people making unsafe journeys to the UK, for instance by crossing the English Channel by small boats.
She later added: “Detention & deportation are brutal & useless for anything but enriching private companies that enact it.”
Local campaigners in Oxford have also criticised Cooper’s announcement. The Coalition to Keep Campsfield Closed have called an emergency protest in the city later today in response to the confirmation that the government intend to re-open the Campsfield detention centre.
Bill MacKeith, from the Coalition to Keep Campsfield Closed said: “The re-opening of Campsfield was expressly stated in summer 2022 to be in order to meet the need for additional detention places arising from the Rwanda flights plan announced in Boris Johnson’s in April 2022 speech. With the end of that plan, the need for additional detention places ceases to exist.
“Immigration detention centres are not full. Derwentside, near Durham, has never held even a half of its capacity of 90. Extra places are not needed even if the number of deportations was to increase. The ‘detention estate’ should shrink, not expand.
“The misery that is immigration detention is well evidenced locally, and most recently by the inspection report on the two detention centres at Heathrow (‘the worst that HMI Prisons has found in its IRC inspections’).
“Alternatives to detention exist and we call for the government to continue the programme of pilots that was introduced with the support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.”
Cooper’s announcement has also faced criticism from within the Labour Party. Sheffield Labour Councillor Minesh Parekh accused the government of ’emboldening the far-right’ with the plans.
Parekh said: “Expanding immigration detention and deportations – a few weeks after far-right riots calling for that – emboldens the far-right. Millions voted against the cruelty of the previous government and its mistreatment of people seeking sanctuary. They should not be so quickly disregarded.”
Other political parties have also joined the criticism. The Green Party’s migration spokesperson Benali Hamdache said: “For 14 years the Tories eroded the right to asylum in this country. After many bills in parliament, many rightful refugees are being rejected.
“Labour, rather than looking at the unfair system, are doubling down More hostile environment. More deportations. It’s not right or just.”
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
Image credit: Simon Dawson / Number 10 – Creative Commons
Yvette Cooper announces crackdown on illegal migration with plans to increase deportations
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced a clampdown on illegal migration, including recruiting 100 new investigation and intelligence officers to target organised crime networks.
The measures also include plans for a large surge in enforcement and returns flights, with the aim of putting removals at their highest level since 2018, as well as increasing detention capacity and implementing sanctions against employers who hire workers illegally.
The plans come after hundreds of refugees came to the UK via small boats over the last week alone.
Cooper said: “We are taking strong and clear steps to boost our border security and ensure the rules are respected and enforced.
“Our new Border Security Command is already gearing up, with new staff being urgently recruited and additional staff already stationed across Europe, working with European enforcement agencies to find every route in smashing the criminal smuggling gangs organising dangerous boat crossings which undermine our border security and putting lives at risk.
“By increasing enforcement capabilities and returns, we will establish a system that is better controlled and managed, in place of the chaos that has blighted the system for far too long.”
Charity accuses government of ‘reheating’ Tory immigration rhetoric
The government’s proposals have attracted criticism from Amnesty International UK, which accused Labour of “reheating” Conservative rhetoric over border security.
Steve Valdez-Symonds, refugee and migrant rights programme director at the charity, said: “People in urgent need ‒ including those fleeing war and persecution in places like Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria and Iran ‒ will keep coming to the UK and other countries, and the government needs to establish safe routes that reduce the perils of dangerous border crossings and the risk of exploitation by ruthless smuggling gangs.
“This ‘securitised’ approach to asylum and immigration will simply deter and punish many of the people most in need of crossing borders, people who are therefore often most vulnerable to criminal exploitation.
“Increasing immigration powers ‒ including to detain people ‒ rather than making sure existing powers are only used where that is necessary and fair has for decades rewarded Home Office inefficiency and injustice.
“A new set of ministers promoting an age-old message of fear and hostility regarding some of the most victimised and traumatised people who may ever arrive in the UK, means that smuggling gangs and racist and Islamophobic hate-mongers at home are likely to feed off this to everyone’s detriment.”
The Home Office has been approached for comment.
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