When the Conservative/LibDem coalition government took power in May 2010 it inherited a massive immigration policing machinery constructed over the previous 13 years by the Labour government. Labour had brought in a complex series of laws, each more punitive than the last, and built up an infrastructure that included 12 immigration detention centres, 25 reporting centres, five coastal patrol boats and the capacity to effect mass deportations on specially chartered aeroplanes to countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo. Nicki Jameson reports.
When Labour came to office in 1997 its task was to modify immigration policy to meet the immediate needs of British capital, restructuring the workforce to make it more flexible and – because more European – more white, a move that conveniently pandered to the most racist sections of the electorate. Draconian immigration laws, accompanied by increasingly strident racism and hostility, were used to regulate the supply of cheap migrant labour, encouraging temporary immigration when needed and expelling it when no longer required by capitalism, and to eliminate the flow of asylum seekers, who are the victims of Britain’s imperialist wars and plunder. In 2008, now disgraced (as a racist and a liar) Labour Immigration Minister Phil Woolas boasted the government was deporting one person every eight minutes and in March 2009, now also disgraced (as an expenses cheat) Labour Home Secretary Jacqui Smith stated: ‘The message is clear – whether you’re a visa overstayer, a foreign criminal or a failed asylum seeker, the UK Border Agency is determined to track you down and remove you from Britain.’
In 2010 the new government’s task was to maintain, increase and speed up this repressive apparatus and to do so at a reduced cost. Following the October 2010 Spending Review it was announced that the budget for the UK Border Agency (UKBA) will be reduced by 20% over the next four years.
In their May 2010 Coalition Programme for Government, the ConDems pledge to:
• Introduce an annual limit on the number of non-EU economic migrants.
• End the detention of children for immigration purposes.
• Create a dedicated Border Police Force to ‘enhance national security, improve immigration controls and crack down on the trafficking of people, weapons and drugs’.
• Support E-borders and reintroduce exit checks.
• Apply transitional controls for all new EU member states.
• Introduce new measures to ‘minimise abuse of the immigration system, for example via student routes’, and tackle human trafficking.
• Explore new ways to speed up asylum applications.
The immigration ‘cap’
In November 2010 Home Secretary Theresa May announced the first limits on migration to Britain from outside the EU. In the year from April 2011, a maximum of 1,000 ‘highly skilled’ migrants (Tier 1 of the Points-Based System introduced by Labour) will be permitted to enter Britain, with applications in this category restricted to entrepreneurs, investors (ie the very wealthy) and ‘people of exceptional talent’. Successful applications from skilled workers (Tier 2) will be restricted to 20,700 per annum. Plans to reduce the number of students coming into Britain (Tier 4) will be announced in the spring. Theresa May has said that the government’s overall aim is to ‘scale back net immigration to the levels of the 1990s’.
Locking up children
Following repeated protests inside and outside immigration detention centres and a plethora of damning reports from inspectors, doctors and international bodies, the LibDems promised that if elected they would end immigration detention of children. Unlike other pre-election promises (abolishing university tuition fees, in particular) they continued to argue for this after the election and the pledge was repeated in the Programme for Government. In May 2010 the ConDems announced the phased ending of child detention at Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) in Scotland and a ‘review’ into detention of families at Yarl’s Wood IRC in England. The review concluded in December, with UKBA announcing an immediate end to child detention at Yarl’s Wood.
Whilst this is a victory for all those who have campaigned on the issue, in particular for detainees who have protested in Yarl’s Wood, the announcement was accompanied by plans for what appears to be a form of house arrest: ‘family friendly, pre-departure accommodation, where we will allow children to have the opportunity to leave the premises subject to a risk and safeguarding assessment and suitable supervision arrangements’. The struggle on this front is far from over.
Policing the borders
The plan for a 3,000-strong dedicated border police force is not new. It was announced by Labour Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in 2008; at the time the Tories accused Labour of copying their proposal and then ‘dithering’ about implementing it. Although the post-election Queen’s Speech said that the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill would include the creation of a ‘Dedicated Border Police Force… to enhance national security, improve immigration controls, and crack down on the trafficking of people, weapons and drugs’ the ConDems are now doing their own ‘dithering’, presumably on cost grounds, and the Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, does not include this proposal.
Labour, Tory, just the same: they both play the racist game
Whichever government is in power, it is capitalism that calls the tune. All Britain’s ruling parties aim to reduce immigration to a tap that can be turned on and off, as the markets dictate how much labour is required. However, no amount of draconian border policing, immigration capping and child detention (‘family friendly’ or otherwise) will achieve this to the degree they are aiming for. As long as imperialist nations like Britain continue to impoverish, plunder and wage war on the rest of the world, people in the countries that are under attack will resist the onslaught and refugees and economic migrants will seek sanctuary in the oppressor nations. Whichever party is in power, the fight against Britain’s barbaric and racist treatment of immigrants remains intrinsically linked to the struggle against imperialism.
FRFI 219 February / March 2011
