Then prime minister Rishi Sunak (left) and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX in-conversation in central London, November 2, 2023
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They [the UK Conservative Party or ‘Tories’] disregard the evidence of the inquiry they set up, which noted that child abuse was endemic in England and Wales (a separate inquiry is ongoing for Scotland); was enabled, covered up or ignored in multiple contexts from churches to schools, council-run care homes and when organised by criminal gangs; and is on the increase because of the rise in online pornography, grooming and pimping.
They instead frame the question in racist terms. Shadow home secretary Chris Philps asks for an inquiry to ask why grooming gangs are “overwhelmingly of south Asian background.” Shadow safeguarding minister Alicia Kearns calls on Phillips to release the “ethnicity data.”
They hype up a far-right trope about Asian, and specifically Muslim, grooming gangs that their own government reports disproved. Musk seizes on this too, retweeting claims Phillips is refusing to open an inquiry into “Muslim grooming gangs.”
Musk’s role is novel and dangerous. The richest man on Earth is incendiary, attacking Phillips as a “rape genocide apologist” and demanding that the King dissolve Parliament to protect children from the Labour government.
So far so Musk, but the Conservatives seem happy to take attack lines from the toxic tech tycoon and turn his transient fixations into British political weather.
Musk is soon to be a high-ranking member of the US government, which Keir Starmer is as ready to fawn on as his predecessors. Labour should stand up to this abuse or it will be humiliated, to the benefit — as Musk intends — of the British far right he openly supports.
That means rejecting the racist weaponisation of the issue.
Starmer announces plan to stop the boats in May 2024 | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
The UK immigration system is racist by design. The Border Security Bill will make it worse
Over the past few years of increasingly hostile migration policies, many in the migrant, including refugee, charity sector have looked to the dawn of a new government with eager anticipation. Surely, a Labour government would undo so many of these cruel anti-migration laws and mark a more ‘progressive’ chapter in migrant rights?
While the new government wasted little time in scrapping the infamous Rwanda Plan (and rightly so) it has diverted funds from that scheme into yet another anti-migrant policy in the form of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. The announcement of this bill proves our caution was completely justified. It’s simply a continuation of the UK’s track record of enacting immigration policies that disproportionately impact people of colour.
We only have to look at the record of the last Labour government to see that they are no different to the Conservatives in embedding anti-migrant policies and rhetoric. Let’s not forget it was a Labour home secretary who first coined the term ‘hostile environment’ and it was New Labour that brought in the restrictive Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 and Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, which laid the foundation for the hostile environment policies of the past 14 years.
In the past year itself, now-prime minister, Keir Starmer, has made plenty of not-so-subtle signs indicating what approach his government would take towards people seeking safety, including a promise to treat so-called ‘smugglers’ like “terrorists”.
Fast forward one year and these ideas have materialised in the form of the new Border Security Bill. The bill was announced as part of the King’s Speech and is part of a turn towards approaching migration through counter-terror, making space for even greater surveillance of and denial of rights for migrants, including refugees.
This dangerous bill would introduce powers previously been confined to alleged terror offenders, including travel bans and restrictions in the UK and abroad, restrictions on access to the internet and banking, and the ability to apply these measures before someone is even convicted of smuggling offences.
UK’s immigration policy has always been racist
Successive UK governments have essentially tried to ‘outdo’ each other when it comes to making the lives of migrants, including refugees, and racialised communities unbearable. In fact, these rafts of policies stem from a long history of targeting ‘unwelcome’ groups based on colonial constructions of the ‘threat’ and who are considered to be of ‘good character’.
In the Migrants’ Rights Network’s new Hostile Office report, we demonstrate that from the 1905 Aliens Act to the inhumane Migration Act 2023 (Illegal Migration Act), as well as the suffering of the Windrush victims and the government’s ability to deprive people of their citizenship, it should be evident to all of us that immigration laws are underpinned by a desire to limit the presence and freedom of racialised people in the UK.
Proposed powers in the new Border Security Bill would enable border force officers to search people and examine and seize their belongings, including copying data from and retaining people’s mobile phones, without a requirement for reasonable suspicion. It mirrors Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, where someone can be arrested and convicted for refusing to hand over sensitive and personal information, including passcodes to devices, in addition to failing to answer all questions or refusing to provide biometric data – all without the need for reasonable suspicion.
However, implementing counter-terrorism policies into immigration is hardly surprising or new. It marks just another chapter of an increasingly cruel, racist and Islamophobic trajectory in the immigration system.
Take citizenship laws, for example. Deprivation of citizenship and counter-terror laws are linked: most cases of deprivation on ‘public good’ grounds have been justified using counter-terror legislation. We have been campaigning against the expansion of deprivation of citizenship powers and highlighting the racist, Islamophobic nature of them.
Since the 2003 ‘Hamza amendment’ to the British Nationality Act 1981 (an amendment that was passed specifically to deport one man, Abu Hamza, a naturalised British citizen), of those who have had their citizenship revoked since 2002, the majority of people affected have been British Muslims.
Our findings show that between 2002 and 2022, 85% of those stripped of their citizenship had, or were deemed to have, nationalities of countries in Africa, South Asia or West Asia (the Middle East) and 83% were from former British colonies. Of this, 41% were South Asian, all being Pakistani or Bangladeshi.
It is, therefore, not a huge leap to understand that the presence of counter-terror measures serves to limit the freedom, security and sense of belonging for racialised people in the UK, particularly those from a Muslim background.
Meanwhile, in December 2023, the Home Office published an Independent Review of Prevent’s report and the government’s response by William Shawcross (Independent Reviewer of Prevent) in which he recommended the Government explore extending Prevent into the immigration and asylum system. Make no mistake, linking the racist criminal (in)justice and counter-terror systems will further the harm and punishment to people seeking safety and a new life. It will do nothing to target the true roots of why people migrate and are forced to make dangerous border crossings.
The answer to a lack of safe routes is not further criminalisation through the introduction of counter-terror powers, which are often opaque and almost impossible to challenge. This lack of safe routes is why brokers exist, to capitalise on people’s desperation.
The Border Security Bill, and the counter-terrorism approach as part of a package deal, will just continue a long tradition of punishing people of colour at the UK border.
Pilgrims using umbrellas for shade as they arrived at the base of Mount Arafat, also known as Jabal al-Rahma or Mount of Mercy, during the hajj. Photograph: Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images
Saudi authorities said they sent away unregistered pilgrims but many appear to have taken part without access to cooler spaces
The death toll from this year’s hajj has exceeded 1,000, with more than half of the victims unregistered worshippers who performed the pilgrimage in extreme heat in Saudi Arabia.
The new deaths reported on Thursday included 58 from Egypt, according to an Arab diplomat who provided a breakdown showing that of 658 Egyptians who died, 630 were unregistered pilgrims.
About 10 countries have reported 1,081 deaths during the pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam which all Muslims with the means must complete at least once.
The hajj, whose timing is determined by the lunar Islamic calendar, fell again this year during the oven-like Saudi summer.
The national meteorological centre reported a high of 51.8C (125F) this week at the Grand Mosque in Mecca.
A Saudi study published last month said temperatures in the area were rising by 0.4C each decade.
Each year tens of thousands of pilgrims try to join the hajj through irregular channels as they cannot afford the often costly official permits.
Labour leader Keir Starmer at the launch of Scottish Labour’s General Election campaign at City Facilities in Glasgow, May 24, 2024
LABOUR campaign chiefs are scrambling to shore up support in some of the party’s safest seats as fears grow of a collapse in its vote among Muslim communities.
Deep alienation over party leader Sir Keir Starmer’s pro-Israel position on Gaza has meant campaign resources being sent to seats with huge Labour majorities on paper, notwithstanding Labour’s 20-point lead in the polls.
Labour has been telling activists that “we need your help to hold this seat” in at least 16 constituencies with large Muslim electorates currently held by the party.
Labour remains mired in candidate chaos, with a complaint of sexual harassment laid against one controversial rightwinger, while another was chased out of the constituency he was imposed upon.
Seats the Labour hierarchy regard as vulnerable include Leicester South, held by shadow cabinet member Jonathan Ashworth, Birmingham Ladywood, where the sitting member is shadow justice secretary Shabana Mahmood and Stepney & Bethnal Green, represented by frontbencher Rushanara Ali.
All face strong challenges from independent pro-Gaza candidates rooted in their communities.
Zionist Keir Starmes is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
