Writing this article has been incredibly difficult. The situation is changing and deteriorating so rapidly, that each day there’s a new low to report. Being pushed through an endless chain of hotels run by private security firms, migrants live in chaos all over Britain. This is the hostile environment, not a blunder or project in disarray, but a cunning and abusive system, on your doorstep.
A few years ago, I co-founded Reading Red Corner, a socialist boxing club. What makes it socialist isn’t just the red T-shirts, but our food bank, pay-what-you-can-afford system and homeless food service on the weekends. One year ago we discovered an asylum seeking family without clothes or proper food. How could this be in a neo-liberal town that accepts something like six refugee families a year? Immediately our network of mates formed a collective, discovering 80 asylum seekers stuck in a hotel, all going without. Not long after, we realised this was a nationwide phenomenon.
People move, the profit doesn’t
At the start of lockdown, homeless people were put into B&B and hotel accommodation. The same system was put in place for asylum seekers. When asylum seekers arrive into this network of repurposed hotels, hostels and the hell-on-earth that is Napier Barracks, be it via Calais, the Channel, snatched from their jobs, grassed up for being homeless, they don’t have any notice or say in the decision, even if they have families or their own places. This accommodation is run for profit by the companies Mears, Serco and Clearsprings.
Part of this intentionally disorienting situation is its instability. Refugees are often moved at short notice, relocated to an endless chain of hotels, all run by the same firms. They are not told where they are being taken. The taxis come and they are limited to two bags, regardless of whether you’re a mum with a toddler and have a lot of extra items you need to take. It’s in these small details that you fully see how calculated this process is.
The constant fear of being moved to an unknown place, regardless of any support network you may have started to piece together, is not just disorientating, it’s cruel. The best case scenario for most is being moved to studio flat style accommodation, again owned by the same companies running the hotels. The more likely case is the one a 10-year-old Kurdish boy we supported is experiencing right now. He started primary school, had friends and had a small life here. This weekend he and his family were moved at 12-hours’ notice to a disgusting shared men’s hostel in Birmingham.
Four star hotels, bed bugs included
When Paul Golding or whatever far-right grifter of the week says ‘hotels’, you’re probably thinking of decent accommodation. A hotel room isn’t a healthy place for babies and children to grow up for over a year, let alone ones this squalid. There are bed bug reports, weekly. Food so awful that one asylum seeker’s GP came to the hotel to bring him healthier food, because it was making the man sick.
There are endless reports of staff bullying, sexual exploitation, inedible food, filthy conditions and worse. Clearsprings is set to make £1bn over 10 years through government contracts. Asylum seekers had to go to court to be allowed £8 a week.
Last year a family with two children, who desperately wanted to stay in our town, were moved on for complaining about bed bugs. The hotel wasn’t closed and fumigated, but the kids were moved to another strange place. It wasn’t until our friends self-organised a strike did we go full force in exposing the conditions, with their permission and encouragement. Four weeks after the strike began in February 2021, we had our biggest mass move: 24 were relocated to worse, grotty temporary accommodations, including one of the more vocal strikers. They have been moved to poorer, more remote towns, who boast online of their role as ‘dispersal’ towns, while we receive reports of mass Covid infection and no medical treatment. Some people are making a lot of money from this neglect.
The economy of asylum
Financial dependence is part of the process. When these private contractors say every one of the asylum seekers’ needs is covered, the Home Office finds a fantastic way to further dehumanise refugees: by not letting them work or have any money to buy shoes, clothes, tampons, baby food, medicine, shampoo, face masks, phone credit.
There are big charities, with some good people. There are some mutual aid style networks, but not enough. These are all plasters on a cancer. There must be mass revolt against the state, against foreign policy, against every single life they ruin and take. Only through genuine, hands-on solidarity can we build that revolt, alongside those seeking asylum.
Leema Muad’Dib
All testimonials and statements we publish are checked with the asylum seekers who send them
We offer 40 hot meals, groceries, toiletries, phone credit, clothes, baby items and more, and have done every single night since Reading Red Kitchen formed a solidarity group. We use a centralised hub phone to field requests from our friends; staying in touch when they move and helping anyone who messages us find a local support group. You can message us on Reading Red Kitchen’s Facebook or Instagram and we can link you up with a decent solidarity group. Right now, the need is massive in Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester.
