far left and the base of the trade union movement, and it does not look as though they will be able to mobilise in any strength for this year's May Day demonstration.
The last Respect conference did actually pass a resolution broadly welcoming the calls for regularisation and agreeing to have a speaker on regularisation at the Respect trade union event, but it did not prove possible to get such a speaker, so the resolution remained on paper with no follow-through.
This leaves a situation that is dangerous for migrants who will mostly continue to be at risk of deportation and the dangers entailed by that, and dangerous for anyone in Britain who about equality, human rights etc, as the debate around migrants shifts ever further to the right.
This is of course one of many debates around the sort of society that Britain is turning into where the terrain has shifted rightwards, including the battles around anti-terrorist legislation, persecution of Muslims, the sharp increase in surveillance in recent years.
The emphasis by Strangers into Citizens most recent statement on "decent" immigrants is all of a piece with the increasing pressure throughout society on people to conform to New Labour's rules, whether through being a hard-working docile migrant worker eager to pay taxes (including for Trident no doubt, through accepting privatisation of the NHS, or through not expecting from now on, if they are overweight, to be able to access NHS services already paid for via taxation, through accepting to work the longest
The government
has just
announced a staggering list of vicious new antimigrant measures
which the
movement will
need to address hours in Europe without complaint.
What else can be said briefly on the positive side about campaigning relevant to the regularisation debate and to the struggles on the ground that it reflects?
Every year thousands of people, with the help of their relatives and friends and sometimes their lawyers, survive in the often hostile environment of Britain and resist deportation, some successfully, and the National Coalition of AntiDeportation Campaigns continues to support them.
Some national or ethnic communities such as the Zimbabweans and the Iraqi Kurds have in the face of considerable difficulties been able to keep up a certain level of self-organised campaigning, and campaigners from Democratic Republic of Congo are also raising their profile at the moment.
Steady campaigning continues in and around many detention centres, and it is quite common for trade unions to support members facing deportation.
The campaign against cuts in teaching of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), which is being run by the University and Colleges Union, and does have some other trade union backing, held a lobby of Parliament this month, and may have some success in fending off the cuts in ESOL provision if the pressure is kept up.
No One is Illegal organise periodic conferences around the question of how to work towards the abolition of immigration controls, and their members are some of the most active in anti-deportation campaigns and campaigns to close detention centres.
Their March 31 conference in Liverpool has been given unexpected prominence by the attempts to deport one of its keynote speakers in advance of the event (see page 10 overleaf) The day should provide an interesting opportunity to discuss strategy as well as share practical experiences of campaigning.
But it seems likely that the far left and the trade union activists have thrown away their best chance of having a strong influence on the way the debate on regularisation has gone.
Indeed it is not even clear whether the Strangers into Citizens campaign will even result in anything that could formally be called a regularisation programme. Instead the government has just announced a staggering list of vicious new anti-migrant measures which the movement will need to address.
But the Home Office deportation machine will roll on, and those fighting discrimination and deportation will still welcome any new allies in their continuing battle with the Home Office and its New Labour cheerleaders. There will be pilots in three NHS trusts using data from the
Immigration and
Nationality Directorate (IND) to
ensure that
migrants who do not have the "right" to free care have to
pay before receiving it. Workers in the NHS will be required to act as an arm of the immigration service Making Michael Howard and the Tories look like liberals - Reid to identify and combat illegal immigration. This will include identifying those illegal immigrants applying for licences fraudulently, will be denied a licence and targeted for enforcement action;
• piloting how IND data can be used to prevent fraud against the financial services industry by illegal migrants who are likely to disappear.
And a comment from Bill Rammell, Minister of State for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education hated for his role in the cuts to English as a second language teaching, shows why this is likely to be an increasing issue for students:
"There are many positive benefits from inward migration, as the enforcement strategy recognises.
"International students bring very significant economic, social and cultural benefits to the UK. We warmly welcome genuine international students to this country. At the same time, we want to prevent abuse of the student route, by those who attempt to use it to enter the UK for other purposes - for example to work illegally."
So you can come if you are rich - but otherwise don't bother.
All of this means the March 31 conference called by No One Is Illegal in Liverpool could not be more timely and will provide an important opportunity to discuss how to respond, especially within the public sector trade unions, to these pernicious and racist measures.