Cameron’s nativist policies begin with Thatcher. Thatcher’s attitude to foreigners can be summed up in two phrases: ‘people are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture’ (January 1978) and the war cry ‘Sink the Belgrano’ (May 1983) over the Malvinas. She was, without doubt, a xenophobe,
News Service
Deaths in police custody update
Over the last few months, police officers have been arrested in connection with the deaths of Sean Rigg and Kingsley Burrell, while someone died after being detained under the Mental Health Act. Sean Rigg On 27 March 2013, three police officers were arrested in connection with their evidence at the inquest into the death of
IRR News 5 April-11 April 2013
Dear IRR News subscriber, This week, Jenny Bourne analyses Thatcher’s legacy on ‘race’ in the UK, showing how she paved the way for today’s commonsense nativism. Harmit Athwal and Paul Grant provide an update on deaths in police custody. And Frances Webber reviews a collection of essays on varieties of European racism. ‘Racial violence and the
IRR News 29 March-4 April 2013
Dear IRR News subscriber, This week, the April issue of Race & Class is out and contains a special section: ‘Cuts, crime and racialisation’, which examines how neoliberalism in a time of austerity, is changing the nature of racism and criminal justice. And we publish the latest briefing paper from the European Research Programme, State intelligence
NHS takes over immigration detention health care
There are grounds for hope for improvement in detainees’ health treatment, but vigilance is still needed. The NHS takeover of immigration detainees’ health care was perhaps the only positive news on 1 April, when the coalition’s ‘great benefits reform’ was inaugurated at the same time that most housing, debt, employment, social security and immigration advice
Converging against G4S
Stop G4S campaigners will hold a second convergence in London to coordinate activities against the multinational. Human rights campaigners and activists working as a coalition have organised a second day of workshops and discussion ‘dedicated to developing the campaign against G4S and preventing them from putting profit before people.’ Workshops will be held on subjects
State intelligence and the European far Right
Can European security services and law enforcement agencies be entrusted with policing the far Right? Far-right and neo-Nazi violence – on the increase across Europe – is the subject of ongoing research by the Institute of Race Relations which releases today an interim report on the security services’ approach to the far Right in Austria,
Immigration detention: more evidence of contempt for the mentally ill
Another case of unlawful detention demonstrates that UKBA officials intent on detention and removal sometimes don’t even read psychiatric reports suggesting detention might be damaging. Previous cases involved foreign national offenders (FNOs),[1] whose detention was an important political priority for UKBA. But the hard line on detention appears to have spread to refused asylum seekers.
Far Right targets Islamic events
The far Right, using information from an anti-extremist student body, is trying to sabotage Islamic events. Casuals United, under the guise of No Platform for Islamic ‘hate preachers’, has been distributing the addresses and phone numbers of the venues, from Newcastle to Reading, Birmingham to Essex, where Islamic preachers are billed or Muslim educative days
Cuts, crime and racialisation
In the April 2013 issue of Race & Class leading UK thinkers, in a special section on Cuts, crime and racialisation, examine how neoliberalism, at a time of austerity, changes the very nature of racism and criminal justice. The young unemployed, often excluded from every institution and avenue, are unwanted. The dragnet of Joint Enterprise,