New Labour and company bosses are happy to cherry pick and exploit poor workers while continuing to perpetuate a world system which ensures a steady Over the last
and a deliberate effort has
been made to exclude the far
left.
In the past they have produced material calling for regularisation only for people
with no serious criminal convictions - ignoring the argument that deporting people • who have served sentences is to inflict a double punishment on them. They have suggested that a person would need a reference from an employer or religious leader, thus giving these forces completely unacceptable powers supply of migrants into cities and into the rich countries. to decide people's fate.
Their latest statement (which can be seen at http://www.strangersintocitizens.org.uk/) combines a call for compassion for asylum seekers who are afraid of returning to their original countries and for irregular workers whose lives are now here and do not wish to return, with arguments which Socialist Resistance completely rejects.
They use the selfish argument that Britain's economy needs their work and taxes no worries about how this
distorts the economies of third world countries), and that regularising people who have been put outside the law through no fault of their own will aid in maintaining border controls, the rule of law, and so on.
Such arguments gloss over the way in which New Labour and company bosses are happy to cherry pick and exploit poor workers while continuing to perpetuate a world system which ensures a steady supply of migrants into cities and into the rich coun tries.
They also play into the hands of Gordon Brown and John Reid, currently chief commentators on race, identity, migration etc for New Labour.
In the last month we have even heard calls for all immigrants to be forced to learn English before they even set foot in the country! This was said, with a straight face, on a TV news programme, by
someone who did not even
mention refugees and asylum
seekers, as though political persecution and flight from oppressive regimes do not actually take place - so grotesque are the attempts at brain-washing by New Labour ideologues.
Linked to Strangers into Citizens is a body called the Independent Asylum Commission, run by a former judge which is taking evidence from the public over the next few months and reporting to the government.
It may be worth asylumseekers and other anti-deportation campaigners giving evidence, in the hope that pressure can be brought to bear on the Home Office. But its deliberations will presumably take place within quite narrow parameter - accepting the right of the Home Office and courts to maintain border controls.
There is no guarantee that its work will actually help force the Home Office to ease up and at worst the governSAVE SO
Above and right: UCU lobby in
defence of ESOL services
ment could use the report as
an endorsement of some elements of current immigration
policy.
Strangers into Citizens are
holding a march on May 7 in
Central London. The march
and the demand for a regularisation programme should be
supported, but socialists
should make clear their opposition to attempts to divide migrants into "deserving" and less deserving.
The fact that the campaign
is run on such a basis shows up the weakness of the far left and of the self-organised retugee movement in this country - the self-organised movement of migrants and their allies in the anti-deportation campaigns and at the grass roots of the trade unions have not been strong enough to mount an effective fight.
It has been impossible to push the churches and the trade union bureaucracy to fight on a better platform, indeed the effort has scarcely even been made.
London No Borders and others organised a small but lively demonstration with a good proportion of self-organised migrants (including migrant cleaners organising through the TGWU and rejected asylum-seekers) on October 7 last year, with a call for regularisation and with a completely different and of course far better political perspective.
But their resources are limited and unfortunately the initiative has not really been able to build anything solid in the way of alliances from the