The horrific deaths of 58 Chinese migrants found in Dover,
revealed to the world the monstrous effects of Britain’s immigration
regime. By making it virtually impossible for refugees and migrants
to enter this country legally, many thousands every year seek to come
here illegally. Jack Straw was quick to place the blame on Chinese
smuggling gangs called the Snake Head. Thinking people can see
through this.
The immigration laws of Britain and Europe are blatantly racist;
for example there are an estimated 40,000 Australians overstaying
their visas in Britain, compare this with 455 Chinese asylum seekers
who applied this April for asylum! Do we hear the Home Secretary
calling for the rooting out of illegal Australian migrants? Not a
word of it! All 18 million Australians are allowed to come here
without visas, as are South African and certain Commonwealth
nationals. However, we see very few black South Africans in Britain,
they are too poor to become economic migrants.
The Kosovan Refugees who arrived during the bombing of Yugoslavia
were told by the Home Secretary on June 25th that they will be
refused asylum and deported. This one year after the British helped
drop 30,000 bombs and missiles on their homes, destroying much of the
economic and social infrastructure. Journalists from across the
political spectrum have exposed that Kosovo is now under the control
of Mafia gangs. So much for Jack Straw’s determination to help
refugees escape from the clutches of criminal gangs!
Two months ago Tony Blair attended the founding meeting of Chinese
for Labour. Tony Blair supported this organisation being set up, not
in order to promote the rights of Chinese workers in Britain and
China, but as a means of access to the funds of the wealthy Chinese
business community. Many of these businessmen make their wealth on
the backs of the sweated labour of thousands of Chinese workers,
(legal and illegal) who work in appalling conditions in Soho and
other parts of Britain. The illegal Chinese migrant workers often
live 8 to a room, work 12 to 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. This in
order to raise some money to send home to their families in
ChinaÖthey have no rights.
In China, millions of workers produce everything from toys to
computers. British companies reap huge super profits from the working
classes of China, paying them in a year what a British worker gets in
two weeks. When a few thousand Chinese workers a year, seek to escape
from poverty at home, they have no legal means of entry to Britain.
Of course they will resort to illegal means, the results of which we
see in Dover. It is outrageous that some so-called leaders of the
Chinese community, instead of defending the human and labour rights
of these workers, called on the police to arrest and deport them.
The National Union of Refugee Organisations has rightly called for
an immediate amnesty for all illegal immigrants inside this country.
This call must be supported in every Labour Party and Trade Union
Branch. These migrant workers are tied into Britain’s black economy,
only if their status is legalised can they escape the control of
their criminal employers.
The Kent police are blackmailing the families and friends of the
Dover dead. They have informed them that if they come forward to
identify the bodies of the dead, they must give names and addresses
of those who helped them reach Dover. This is an absolute outrage,
which every decent human being must condemn! Trade unionists and
Labour party members must send a barrage of protest, at this
disgusting blackmail of workers families at such a tragic time.
Globalisation is creating a global wave of mass migration, but of
30 million refugees and displaced people, only 0.05% of the total
come to the UK, and only 3% come to Europe. Most languish in squalor
in poverty-stricken countries, for example 2 million Afghan refugees
eke out an existence in Pakistan. The government has tried every
means to seal up the borders in order to avoid their obligations
under the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees. The Convention compels
signatory states to accept refugees, regardless of whether they have
entered the country illegally. Now Jack Straw wants to amend the
Convention itself, and have asylum seekers apply in their own or
another ‘safe haven’ country. Imagine asking the Iranian government
for a passport so you can go to Britain to claim asylum!
The government has imposed stringent fines on carriers who bring
people to Britain without legal documentation. Airlines, fearing huge
fines, demand their workers check documents of travellers to Britain
at the airport of embarkation. For British Airways alone this regime
costs £20 million a year. The International Transport Workers
Federation has called on their members to refuse to act as
immigration officers for the British government; this resolution must
be acted upon.
Migration and asylum issues are not going away. The leaders of
international capitalism everywhere demand the free movement of
capital; it is time for the international trade union and labour
movement, and progressive people everywhere to demand the free
movement of labour!
