ELECTORAL POLITICS| GOVERNMENT POLICY

26 November: Gavin Robinson, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, is criticised by a Jewish woman for saying that pro-Palestinian graffiti should be removed from the wall of the Royal Victoria hospital in Belfast on the grounds of ‘Jewish safety’. The graffiti is removed. (Belfast Media, 26 November 2024) 

27 November: Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch promises that if the party returns to power, its immigration policies will include a strict numerical cap on immigration visas, revival of the plan to deport migrants who arrive on ‘small boats’ and review of the ECHR and Human Rights Act. (Guardian, 27 November 2024)

28 November: Following allegations that TikTok gave ‘preferential treatment’ to far-right presidential candidate Calin Georgescu, Romania’s Constitutional Court orders a recount of the first round of the election. (BBC News, 28 November 2024)

28 November: The prime minister pledges to prevent engineering and IT companies from hiring workers abroad, as he accuses the Conservatives of using Brexit to conduct ‘an experiment in open borders’ resulting in net migration of over 900,000 in 2023. (The I paper, 28 November 2024)

1 December: In the Irish general election, the far-right National Alliance (National Party, Irish People, Ireland First and several independents) fails to win a single seat, though independent anti-immigration candidates, such as Carol Nolan and Mattie McGrath, top the polls in Laois-Offaly and Tipperary, while Independent Ireland increases its TDs from three to four. (Irish Times, 1 December 2024)

2 December: Following Elon Musk’s reported pledge of £79m to Reform UK, Labour ministers examine ways to tighten regulations around donations in UK politics. (Guardian, 2 December 2024)

5 December: Prime minister Keir Starmer pledges to ‘reduce immigration – legal and illegal’ in his Plan for Change ‘relaunch’ speech, but sets out no rationale, targets or specific measures. (Standard, 5 December 2024)

6 December: In the Netherlands, a petition is launched to reverse a parliamentary motion   to ‘keep details of cultural and religious norms and values of Dutch people with a migration background’, a measure that the government claims is necessary to track ‘cultural integration’. (Guardian, 6 December 2024)

6 December: A top Romanian court annuls the first round of Romania’s presidential election after declassified intelligence alleges that Russia coordinated an online campaign to promote the outsider far-right candidate who won. (Guardian, 6 December 2024) 

ANTI-FASCISM AND THE FAR RIGHT

With anti-migrant, anti-Muslim, anti-equalities, anti-abortion, misogynistic and anti-LGBTQI activities increasingly interlinking, we now incorporate information on the Christian Right as well as the religious Right generally.

1 December: In Vienna, a Haredi Jewish man who walked past a demonstration by the Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) is attacked by a group of men, alleged members of the neo-Nazi Vienna Dance Brigade. (YNetNews, 1 December 2024)

3 December: Research by Power to Change finds that 23 of the 27 towns where far-right riots took place in the summer have a ‘torn social fabric’ due to economic deprivation, recommending more investment in the community. (Guardian, 3 December 2024)

3 December: Spanish opposition party Partido Popular (PP/EPP) allows a Senate chamber to be used to host the VI Transatlantic Summit which, organised by Political Network for Values (PNfV) and attended by 300 right-wing and far-right representatives from 45 countries, launches an anti-abortion offensive. PSOE ministers and campaigners protest at the attack on women’s rights and violation of the neutrality of the chamber. (Euractiv, 3 December 2024) 

4 December: Italian police arrest 12 members of the neo-Nazi Werwolf Division group on charges including forming a criminal organisation with terrorist intent. (AA, 4 December 2024)

6 December: In Finland, around 400 counter-protesters shut down a far-right book reading held at the Helsinki library by the Blue-Black movement. (YLE, 6 December 2024)

7 December: Janusz Waluś, who murdered South African Communist Party leader and anti-Apartheid activist Chris Hani, is welcomed by members of Polish neo-Nazi group Bad Company following his deportation from South Africa. Waluś, who became a hero for Polish nationalists while in prison, is accompanied by Grzegorz Braun, a leader of the far-right Confederation party.(Notes From Poland, 7 December 2024) 

COUNTER-TERRORISM AND EXTREMISM 

9 December: A report by former counter-terrorism commissioner Dame Sara Khan finds that inflammatory language and the peddling of conspiracy theories by politicians undermine the tackling of extremism in the UK. (Guardian, 9 December 2024)

POLICING| PRISONS| CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

25 November: The mother of two Traveller children complains that a police dispersal order resulted in them being forced onto a train that took them to Grimsby, 100 miles from their home. (Mirror, 25 November 2024)

27 November: The IOPC calls for urgent measures to stop the ‘adultification’ of Black, Asian and ethnic minority children during interactions with officers, including in cases of stop and search, strip search and use of force. (Reuters, 27 November 2024)

27 November: Seven people are arrested for what the Met Counter Terrorism Command claim is suspected support for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), following raids on eight addresses including the Kurdish Community Centre in Haringey, north London, with the search expected to last two weeks and involving an increased police presence in the area. (Guardian, 27 November 2024)

28 November: At a press conference held close to the Kurdish Community Centre, it emerges that police dogs and helicopters were used to impose a ‘military-like occupation’ of the area outside the centre. Haringey’s airspace was closed and cases of police brutality are reported, including striking a child and beating elderly community members. (Labour Hub, 29 November 2024)

30 November: It emerges that Türkan Budak and Agit Karataş, respectively co-chair and foreign relations representative of the Kurdish People’s Democratic Assembly in Britain (KPDA), and writer and politician Ali Poyraz, were amongst those arrested during the dawn raids on the Haringey Kurdish community. Poyraz has had no contact with his family since his arrest. (Medya News, 27 November 2024; Medya News 30 November 2024)

Imprisoned Kurdish writer Ali Poyraz goes on hunger strike to protest against the police raid in London that led to the arrest of seven Kurdish activists.
🔗https://t.co/ugV4V52hIhhttps://t.co/ugV4V52hIh

— MedyaNews (@medyanews_) December 1, 2024

2 December: Emma Kamio, mother of a Palestine Action activist accused of offences against an Israeli arms company, launches an action against South Wales police due to the   ‘psychological torture’ she alleges following her arrest in August under the Terrorism Act, including being held incommunicado in a filthy cell for five days, before being released without charge. (Guardian, 2 December 2024)

2 December: The Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner warns that police still retain and use images of people arrested but never charged or convicted of any crime, despite a 2012 High Court ruling that the practice is unlawful. In 2017 the government reported there were over 16 million faces in a searchable ‘facial recognition gallery’ on the police database. (Observer, 8 December 2024)

5 December: In his Plan for Change speech at Pinewood Studios (see electoral politics and government policy above), the prime minister focuses on crime and antisocial behaviour, pledging to create 13,000 more neighbourhood police, PCSOs and special constables by 2029, with an additional £100m of funding. (Guardian, 4 December 2024)

5 December: Police use of force statistics from April 2023 to March 2024 show an overall 13% increase in force reports. The general rate of use of force is 3.2 times higher for those from Black ethnic groups compared with those from White ethnic groups, and was 3.7 times higher in the Met. Disproportionality for other BME groups, including in taser and CED use, is also recorded. (Gov.uk, 5 December 2024)

5 December: The inquest opens into the death of 29-year-old Sali Byberi, who died in November 2022 after police officers were called out to a disturbance at a flat and discharged a taser. (Essex Live, 5 December 2024)

6 December: Following criticism of the use of a dispersal order to police Gypsy Traveller children attempting to attend a Christmas market in November, around 200 people attend a demonstration in Manchester city centre organised by the Gypsy Traveller League (Manchester Evening News, 6 December 2024)

6 December: After being challenged for obtaining information through breach of data protection and privacy laws, the CPS offers no evidence on two racially aggravated public order charges against a vulnerable young Black girl for using Black British English/African American Vernacular English (AAVE) terns ‘N*gga’ and “Cracka’. (Garden Court Chambers, 6 December 2024)

6 December: Following clashes between far-right marchers and counter-demonstrators in Helsinki, Finnish police detain around 30 counter-demonstrators. The organisers of the demonstration, Helsinki without Nazis, express their disappointment with the conduct of the police. (YLE, 6 December 2024)

ASYLUM | MIGRATION| BORDERS|CITIZENSHIP

Asylum and migrant rights

29 November: Following a judicial review challenging the failure to increase legal aid rates since 1996 and a 10% cut in 2011, lord chancellor Shabana Mahmood announces a 10% increase in rates for immigration and housing work, subject to a consultation in January 2025. (EIN, 29 November 2024)

1 December: Despite a court ruling that failure to provide people awaiting renewal of their visa with digital proof of status was unlawful, the Home Office admits that many people in this situation who applied for an eVisa are unable to access them, as campaigners say this may lead to a Windrush-style scandal. (Guardian, 1 December 2024)

2 December: As officials point out a series of problems and hundreds of UK residents struggle to access the eVisa system from abroad, Seema Malhotra, minister for migration and citizenship, reportedly postpones the full rollout scheduled for 1 January. (Guardian, 2 December 2024)

4 December: The Italian senate passes the Migrant Flows decree, including the ‘Musk rule’ giving appeal courts the power to rule on migrant detention, to get round rulings from specialised tribunals. The judicial branch refuses to approve the rule in a non-binding opinion, arguing that it would create delays. (InfoMigrants, 6 December 2024)

9 December: The UN High Commissioner for Refugees urges European countries to be ‘patient and vigilant’ as governments including the UK, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Norway announce a freeze on Syrian asylum decisions in the wake of the Assad regime’s fall. France considers a suspension, while Austria and Greece prepare deportation programmes. (Al Jazeera, 9 December 2024; Le Monde, 9 December 2024)

Borders and internal controls

26 November: The government introduces changes to visa requirements for all visitors from Colombia (from 26 November) and requires all Ukrainians to provide biometrics before they travel (from 18 December), with a new Ukraine Permission Extension opening from 4 February 2025 for an additional 18-month stay in the UK. (Free Movement, 26 November 2024)

29 November: A coroner finds that ‘gross failures’ by ‘dehumanising’ social workers contributed to the death of two-year-old Mazeedat Adeoye, who drowned in informal care after being refused foster care while her undocumented mother Balikis Adeoye was in hospital with her sick baby, due to her ‘no recourse to public funds’ status. (Guardian, 29 November 2024) 

29 November: Despite the regular headlines commenting on irregular arrivals, ONS data shows that of the 58.9 million non-Britons who arrived in the UK in the year to October 2024, only 0.06 per cent (37,000) arrived irregularly, and almost all of these claimed asylum. (InfoMigrants, 29 November 2024)

4 December: Over 500 police from the UK, France and Germany make coordinated raids in German and French cities, arresting Iraqi Kurds accused of running smuggling operations bringing migrants across the English Channel. (Guardian, 4 December 2024) 

4 December: A special investigation reveals that the Greek authorities knew within a month that the nine Egyptian survivors of the June 2023 Pylos shipwreck were not smugglers but, ignoring critical information from the Egyptian authorities, allowed the men to be accused and detained for over a year, facing potential sentences of hundreds of years, before the court ruled lack of jurisdiction and they were released. (Solomon, 4 December 2024) 

5 December: As the IOM reports that nearly 21,000 migrants have been intercepted in 2024, sometimes at gunpoint, and ‘pulled back’ to detention and possible torture by the Libyan coastguard with EU support, calls by international organisations and civil society groups to disengage are ignored as it emerges that initial sightings by Frontex led to several interceptions. (InfoMigrants, 5 December 2024; EU Observer, 4 December 2024)

9 December: The Netherlands institutes increased border measures on its borders with Belgium and Germany in the form of random checks and mobile controls of vehicles and travellers on international trains. (Deutsche Welle, 9 December 2024)

Reception and detention

26 November: The controversial asylum accommodation barge Bibby Stockholm is emptied as the last residents are relocated to dispersal housing across England and Wales. It is understood that most of the 400 residents have been granted asylum. (InfoMigrants, 27 November 2024)

29 November: Unsafe levels of legionella bacteria, which can cause severe and sometimes fatal illness, have been found in up to 15 asylum hotels in sites run by Mears, Serco and Clearsprings in the past three years, it is reported. (The I paper, 29 November 2024)

Deportations

28 November: The home secretary signs an agreement with Baghdad to ensure the speedy return of people to Iraq, as concern is raised over reports of unlawful killings and the torture of detainees by Iraqi state agencies. (Guardian, 28 November 2024) 

1 December: The Home Office deports more than 600 Brazilians, including 109 children, many of whom were settled in schools and have spent most of their lives in the UK, on three secret flights, as Latin American organisations express concern over the barriers faced by Brazilians accessing information and legal advice, especially among women facing gender-based violence. (Observer, 1 December 2024)

3 December: A 25-year-old Somali man is protected from removal to Finland, where he first entered the EU, by a hundred-person-strong resistance in a church in Bremen, Germany. (InfoMigrants, 3 December 2024)

Crimes of solidarity

4 December: Eight search-and-rescue NGOs condemn Italy’s new Migrant Flows Decree, which they say adds additional obstacles and further criminalises rescues at sea while weakening the legal duty to report vessels in distress. (Médecins sans Frontières, 4 December 2024)

HUMAN RIGHTS AND DISCRIMINATION

2 December: In a test case, five mixed-heritage Belgian-Congolese women receive compensation for their abduction by the Belgian colonial authorities as children, which the Brussels Appeal Court rules a ‘crime against humanity’. Between 5,000 and 20,000 such children were snatched, some to be adopted in Belgium, as their existence was seen as undermining white supremacy and colonial rule. (Al Jazeera, 3 December 2024)

EDUCATION

28 November: Government data on A Level results show an increase in the disadvantage gap between state and private schools and between regions in England. Although the disadvantage gap is smallest among Black or Black British students, this group had an average points score (APS) at least 2.5 points lower than that of any other major ethnic group and nearly 4 points lower than White students. (TES, 28 November 2024)

29 November: A Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) survey finds that the share of children’s books published in 2023 featuring characters who are racially minoritised fell to 17% from 30% the year before. The number of racially minoritised main characters has dropped by half, to 7% in 2023, compared to 14% in 2022. (Guardian, 29 November 2024)

4 December: The Committee on Administration of Justice in Belfast links far-right tropes, stereotyping and false claims about gangs circulating on social media to a crisis at Belfast Model School for Girls, where three young Muslim students have been told that it is ‘not safe’ for them to return to school. In November, when 200 parents held a protest outside the school, the girls, who say that they were the victims of racism, were accused of racial bullying. (BBC News, 4 December 2024)

7 December: Hackney’s independent child safeguarding commissioner says that allegations by 140 parents, students and teachers of ‘systemic’ and ‘lasting emotional harm to children’ stretching back two decades at two schools in Hackney run by the Mossbourne Federation, will be investigated. Allegations include teachers being trained in the use of ‘healthy fear’, and unfairly punishing children with special needs and pushing them out to other schools. (Observer, 7 December 2024)

10 December: Leading academic publisher Elsevier reviews its decision to publish research papers by the late professor Richard Lynn, a prominent ‘race science’ proponent accused of systematically distorting data to produce ‘ludicrously bad science’ used in online race science propaganda, following calls from academics and publishers to retract the papers. (Guardian, 10 December 2024)

HOUSING| POVERTY| WELFARE

6 December: A six-month pilot by the Home Office doubles the period of time newly recognised refugees have to find accommodation to 56 days, responding to soaring homelessness among refugees and tenacious campaigning. (Guardian, 6 December 2024)

HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE

6 December: A study of 30,000 patients receiving NHS stem cell transplants finds racialised minorities significantly less likely to survive than white patients, with ‘complex genetic, socioeconomic and systemic factors … intersect[ing] with ethnicity to affect outcomes’ according to the study’s lead researcher. (Guardian, 6 December 2024)

EMPLOYMENT| EXPLOITATION |INDUSTRIAL ACTION

4 December: A TUC survey finds that 65 per cent of Black women have experienced sexual harassment at work, with many comments rooted in racism. (Morning Star, 4 December 2024)

7 December: AG Recruitment, once the largest supplier of migrant labour to British farms, has its licence revoked by the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority after revelations that workers it recruited had paid unlicenced brokers in Indonesia up to £5,000 in illegal fees. (Guardian, 7 December 2024)

CULTURE| MEDIA|  SPORT 

26 November: The European Roma Rights Centre publishes Voices of Online Hate, based on data collection by young Roma volunteer digital activists in several countries, which warns of the alarming volume of online hate against Roma people. (ERRC, 26 November 2024)

In a new ERRC report, #RomaRightsDefenders sound the alarm about the volume of #onlinehate content targeting #Roma and spell out what needs to be done to combat online antigypsyism.

Read more: https://t.co/8ZMUMlGv6K pic.twitter.com/bj15ZcEXxI

— European Roma Rights Centre (@ERRCtweets) November 26, 2024

27 November: The Telegraph, citing Reform UK London mayoral candidate Howard Cox,  attacks the mayor of London for giving taxpayers’ money to abolitionist workshops run by Migrants in Culture. (Telegraph, 27 November 2024)

27 November: Romania’s telecomms regulator calls for the suspension of TikTok amid concerns that Călin Georgescu’s viral TikTok campaign was partly driven by bot-like activity. (Guardian, 27 November 2024)

29 November: Belfast’s high court declares unlawful Kemi Badenoch’s decision to block an arts grant to the Irish band Kneecap, citing their anti-British politics. The trio, who said that London ignores the working class of both communities, will donate the grant to two organisations that work with the two communities to create a better future for young people. (Guardian, 29 November 2024)

4 December: Viewing figures show that in November, GB News overtook Sky News for live TV viewing, partly owing to its coverage of the farmers’ protest. (Guardian, 4 December 2024)

9 December: A report from the Centre for Media Monitoring finds that GB News broadcast half of all news stories about Muslims over a two-year period, its ‘negative’ focus, which included disinformation, bordering on an ‘obsession’. Stories on Islam in all media are ‘overwhelmingly negative’, the report finds. (Guardian, 9 December 2024) 

RACIAL VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT

28 November: According to Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS), antisemitic incidents in Berlin, including ‘questioning the legitimacy of Israel’average seven to eight incidents a day, with the majority related to abusive behaviour. (Deutsche Welle, 28 November 2024)

This calendar is researched by IRR staff and compiled by Sophie Chauhan, with the assistance of Graeme Atkinson, Sam Berkson, Margaret McAdam and Louis Ordish. Thanks also to ECRE, the Never Again Association and Stopwatch, whose regular updates on asylum, migration, far Right, racial violence, employment and policing issues are an invaluable source of information. Find these stories and all others since 2014 on our searchable database, the Register of Racism and Resistance.