A few weeks ago, as thousands queued outside Westminster Abbey to catch a glimpse of Kate’s wedding bouquet, hundreds of others gathered nearby in Central Hall for another kind of celebration. The event was organised by Citizens UK, which has over 240 member organisations – churches, mosques, synagogues, trade unions, community groups, from all over
Theme: Extreme-Right politics
The wages of fear
A new report on undocumented workers reveals the violent consequences of immigration clampdowns for migrant workers. ‘Illegal’ labour keeps many of us alive – providing so many vital services from the trimmed vegetables in our supermarkets to the care in residential homes. Such labour is almost by definition cheap and plentiful. The defining force being
Jayaben Desai 1933-2010
On 23 December 2010, 77-year-old Jayaben Desai, the militant leader of the Grunwick strike (1976-1978) passed away. ‘There was another powerful political lady with a handbag other than Thatcher in the 1970s’, wrote Jenny Bourne when reviewing a DVD on the struggle at the factory, ‘A tiny woman, usually swathed in a bulky cardigan, almost
Domestic workers campaign for recognition and protection
IRR News reports on a recent meeting to organise migrant domestic workers. The RESPECT network, the European network supporting the rights of migrant domestic workers, recently held its annual conference in London and a forum to meet colleagues in the British trade union movement, migrant organisations and NGOs working to support migrants’ rights. RESPECT stands
£280,000 raised for families of Morecambe Bay victims
The Morecambe Bay Victims Fund recently celebrated the success of its sponsored walk, which raised £280,000 for families of the Morecambe Bay victims. The sixty-mile walk, which took the group from Liverpool to Morecambe Bay over the course of two days in February, was organised by Sir David Tang and his family. Other walkers included
Hands Off My Workmate
At a conference in London last week, a campaign was launched to organise for the rights of migrant workers. The Hands Off My Workmate conference was organised following a high profile raid at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in June 2009 when nine cleaners were detained by immigration officers in full riot
Legal reversal on highly skilled migrants
Home Office policy restricting settlement rights for highly skilled migrants has been quashed in a recent ruling. In another twist to what is becoming a long-running saga, a High Court judge has ruled that the Home Office acted illegally in not complying with an earlier court ruling. That ruling had struck down rules making it
‘Citizens for Sanctuary’
On 13 January, over four hundred Zimbabweans gathered in Westminster to demonstrate for permission to work legally in the UK. The event publicly launched the Citizens for Sanctuary campaign, organised to implement the findings of the Independent Asylum Commission which recommended that Zimbabweans currently seeking sanctuary in the UK be allowed to work and pay
Remembering Grunwick
A superb DVD on Grunwick’s recalls not just the details of that long dispute but also the flavour of workers’ solidarity. There was another powerful political lady with a handbag other than Thatcher in the 1970s. A tiny woman, usually swathed in a bulky cardigan, almost always seen with a megaphone. An Asian lady in
Revival of the numbers game?
The new Migrationwatch report is dissected by immigration lawyer Frances Webber. From the press reports greeting the launch in September 2008 of Balanced Migration: a new approach to controlling immigration, it sounded as though this was an official or at least authoritative report by a cross-party group of MPs, perhaps under the House of Commons