The Home Office has been defeated in its attempt to deport 100 people to Rwanda on a charter flight on 14 June, after a wave of protests and legal challenges. RCG/FRFI branches around the country organised and joined in protests at courts, government institutions and detention centres to oppose the plans. On the day the flight was due to depart, direct action by protesters at the airport delayed the take-off long enough for a judgement from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to be issued. In a last-minute intervention, the ECHR judged in the case of an Iraqi asylum seeker that he should not be deported to Rwanda until a full decision has been reached by domestic courts on the legality of the Rwanda outsourcing scheme. A full High Court review is expected in July. This is a humiliating setback for the Tory government. Below we report on the protest in London a day before the flight was scheduled.
On 13 June, over 1,000 people gathered outside the Home Office in London to protest against the planned racist deportation of migrants to Rwanda on a charter flight scheduled for the next day. The protest was called by SOAS Detainee Support (SDS), and co-hosted by Solidarity without Borders and Care4Calais, which held a speakers’ platform in the street and led chants of ‘stop deportations’ and ‘refugees are welcome here!’. RCG/FRFI branches joined this demonstration to support the demand to stop the charter flight as a gross example of state-organised human trafficking.
Following an upsurge of protests around the country and a barrage of legal challenges, by the time of the SDS protest the number of detainees expected on the flight was already down to a handful. The SDS rally was scheduled to gather from 5.30pm outside the Home Office but the SWP (in its guise of Stand Up to Racism) tried to divert people to Downing Street by calling a separate protest. It was apparent on the day that people ignored the SWP’s call in favour of the SDS protest at the Home Office, where a large crowd took up chants and slogans against deportations. The SWP approached the SDS organisers to ask for a group of Labour MPs to be allowed to speak on the platform. The hypocrisy of this is stunning: the SWP claims that ‘Johnson, Truss, home secretary Priti Patel… are helped by a Labour Party that offers no clear opposition to deportations’ (Socialistworker.co.uk, 14 June), yet they tried to centre the event on Labour MPs including Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Zarah Sultana and Nadia Whittome. The SDS organisers had stipulated that no MPs would be allowed to speak and at around 6pm, they announced the platform of speakers would begin and asked for the crowd to gather around them. At this point, an SWP activist using a megaphone attempted to drive a wedge through the protest by calling for people to gather and listen to MPs from the openly racist Labour Party.
A large majority of the crowd ignored the Labour MPs; around 50 people stood and listened to their sideshow. Many were clearly baffled at the SWP’s intervention; their announcer made no audible attempt to justify it. By the time the fourth MP, John McDonnell, took his turn, the RCG began heckling: ‘under Corbyn and McDonnell’s leadership, Labour promised 500 more border guards! Labour built the detention centres! The Labour Party is racist!’ Once McDonnell stopped talking, the SWP’s announcer immediately called an end to the sorry affair, and they departed before all the MPs had spoken. Rarely has the Labour Party’s utter irrelevance to the anti-racist struggle been so humiliatingly exposed.
SDS’s platform continued to lead the event for more than an hour, with speakers from organisations including Solidarity without Borders, Care4Calais, Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants, Women’s Strike and the PCS union. After SDS called an end to the demonstration, and it was apparent that the crowd was not dispersing, RCG/FRFI started an open microphone, inviting others to speak, and called on those who are ready to organise against the racism of the British state to join our local supporters’ groups.
At this moment, an individual known to us as a reactionary NATO supporter attacked the RCG stall, attempting to overturn it and throwing pamphlets and newspapers to the floor. Just minutes earlier the same provocateur had snatched newspapers out the hands of an FRFI supporter in the crowd. His attack on the stall gave the police the excuse they needed to intervene violently in the protest: around 15 police thugs piled onto him and dragged him away. The police then formed lines and started demanding the protesters leave the area, to which the crowd furiously reacted by attempting to de-arrest the individual, chanting ‘all cops are bastards’. A police officer asked RCG comrades if we would press charges against the man, which we declined to do. The police then requested that the RCG help them defuse the situation they had created by announcing our decision on the microphone – we refused. He was released after several minutes. The actions of the provocateur and police brutality succeeded in confusing and dispersing the crowd.
Johnson has promised to ‘deliver’ on the government’s human trafficking scheme despite the setback that has been inflicted on it. The fight must be stepped up. The anti-racist movement cannot afford to be sabotaged by agents of the Labour Party or by provocateurs who work in the interests of the racist British state and its police.
Stop all the flights! Not one deportation!
