Locked Out and Locked Up: Experiences of asylum policy and systemic racism in the UK and northern France, Refugee Action, 2026, 31pp
The report Locked Out and Locked Up by Refugee Action exposes the systemic racism inherent to the asylum system. It documents the state violence enacted on refugees by both the British and French states, from the deliberate closing of safe routes to claim asylum, to the incessant raids on refugee camps in Calais, France, that lack basic amenities. Those that flee their own countries due to imperialist wars, extraction of their resources at gunpoint and environmental destruction, are forced to seek safety in the very nations that created the conditions forcing them to flee in the first place. Trapped inside grimy hotels, they are forbidden from working, forced to survive on pitiful allowances, separated from their families and shipped around the country with little warning. Outside, baying hordes of racist thugs gather to harass and intimidate them, sometimes erupting into pogroms fuelled by lies, scapegoating and anti-migrant hysteria.
This report examines, through interviews with refugees, NGO workers and support organisations, the harsh conditions faced by refugees trapped in a ‘hostile environment’. It correctly analyses that this environment is no accident, but a purposeful construct that ‘has roots in longer and deeper histories of systemic racism in Britain, from colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade’. Detailing a timeline of racist government rhetoric and policies throughout 2025, the report exposes the naked racism of the current Labour government. The 2025 Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act introduced in January enabled the seizure of mobile phones and created new criminal offences linked to irregular arrival. In March that year, Prime Minister Keir Starmer claimed racists ‘have a right to be angry’, blaming refugees and migrants for pressure on public services rather than austerity and the dismantling of the NHS. In May, Starmer warned Britain risked becoming an ‘island of strangers’, echoing racist Tory MP Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. From July to November 2025, the barbaric ‘one in, one out’ policy and new restrictions on settlement increased the time required to apply for permanent residence from five to 20 years.
The conclusions made by the report call on the government to end the ‘one in, one out’ policy and create safe routes for people to arrive in Britain and seek asylum. It calls for the government to immediately end the new policy of limiting refugee status to 30 months, claiming it conflicts with the Refugee Convention obligations, and for the immigration regulator to urgently launch an inspection. It also calls for politicians of all parties and media outlets to cease referring to asylum seekers as ‘illegal’.
Despite the insightful dive into the racism of the state’s asylum policies, the report is ultimately limited by the fact that it was published by a charity. It has to stop short of confronting the British state and the capitalist system that creates borders, builds detention centres and foments racist violence. Instead, it calls only for legal reform on a humanitarian basis, for fair treatment and the fulfilment of asylum obligations. It essentially politely asks the agents of the ruling class, politicians and the media, who exist to maintain this racist system, to be less callous when undertaking their tasks of demonising and criminalising migrants.
Immigration controls are tied to the labour requirements of capitalism and successive governments are tasked by the ruling class with implementing policies to tailor immigration to these labour requirements. An asylum system under capitalism cannot be transformed into a humane system. While we should fight for every reform that eases the suffering of migrants, our ultimate task is not to soften the hostile environment, but to destroy the imperialist system that upholds it.
Every migrant has the right, here to stay, here to fight!
Glenn Gilmore
Protest Against Operation Fearless – Birmingham
On 23 May, Birmingham RCG held a well-attended demonstration outside the Business Improvement District office in Handsworth, Birmingham, against Operation Fearless: an oppressive initiative that has increased stop and search on the high street and deployed immigration officers to crack down on migrants. The Operation has led to over 500 arrests since its initiation in 2025, some of which have been publicised in grotesque social media videos published by West Midlands Police. We mobilised for the event by leafleting local residents and exposing the Operation on social media. The protest was attended by outraged local residents and several groups including the Indian Workers Association, Kashmir Diaspora UK, India Labour Solidarity, Queers 4 Palestine and the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party. Protesters expressed disgust at local Green, Labour and Independent councillors backing the Operation alongside Your Party member, Ayoub Khan MP. We will continue to hold stalls and speak-outs in Handsworth to expose Operation Fearless and demand it is stopped. Racist police off our streets!
