Dear IRR News subscriber,
The government’s immigration white paper published just before Christmas promises a ‘fair and humane’ post-Brexit immigration system where EEA nationals are treated the same as migrants from outside Europe, in accordance with principles of fairness. But in her analysis of the white paper, Frances Webber argues that the proposals will entrench hierarchies of race and class within a nativist framework of ‘economic benefit’, and will lead to more divided families, more hardship and more resisted deportations.
The stopping of such a deportation led to fifteen people being convicted in December of endangering airport security. The Stansted 15 are to be sentenced on 6 February. To mark the event, on Monday 11 February, End Deportations and Arts Action are performing a mock trial in front of the Home Office, as part of a week of action against the border regime. The mock trial will feature ‘decolonial poetry, music and theatre’ as well as testimony, while taking inspiration from the November London hearing of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal on violations of the rights of migrant and refugee peoples (PPT), whose prosecution opening speech is now available to watch here.
The PPT and the mock trial are part of the continuing surge of activism around migrant and refugee rights, including, on 16 February, a workshop from the Ella Baker School of Transformative Organising on Humanising the narratives of migration post-brexit.
Another migration narrative, that of the coloniser, is challenged in Telling the Mayflower story, by Danny Reilly and Steve Cushion, reviewed by Chris Searle, who finds in the polemical book a powerful counter-narrative of ‘land-grabbing, massacres and slavery’ to set against the celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ and their voyage to America to be held next year.
Finally, you can read the calendar of race and resistance here.
IRR News Team