The Nationality and Borders Bill
The Nationality and Borders Bill has passed its Second Reading and is now in the Committee Stage. Throughout a time of gross and growing inequality, this Bill works to cement the narrative on which the Conservatives sustain their power- the idea of ‘the Other’, of migrants coming to the UK and causing an economic meltdown. The Conservatives are practicing divide and rule. Whilst 31% of British children live in poverty, still the Tories blame mothers seeking asylum who are raising their own families on just £35 per week. Overlooking the highly racialized nature of poverty in the UK, these Tory narratives ignore the 65% of Bangladeshi British families below the poverty line. They ignore the ever-growing number of families that the Government leaves with no recourse to public funds, families who are forced into dependency on charities and food banks for basic sustenance. And they ignore mothers like Mercy Naguma, who was living in extreme poverty after the expiration of her leave to remain, and who was found dead next to her crying baby in Glasgow just last year.
In a time of crisis, nationhood is offered as the thing that will get us through, a myth around which to ‘pull together’. The focus of nationhood is, inevitably, our borders, used as a crux of nationalistic propaganda. And so we have seen a spike in right -wing reporting of channel crossings with fascists waiting in Dover to livestream the faces of the people who have been rescued. Meanwhile Priti Patel promises to spend £54.2 million on defending the Calais border after the £28.2 m deal last November failed to achieve anything. And now the cherry on top, the new Nationality and Borders Bill, the final step in ‘taking back control of our borders’.
This Bill is abhorrent. It was released just weeks after a sham consultation and is a huge document spanning 64 pages and written in legalese making it a very inaccessible read. You can read Free Movements summaries here -
https://www.freemovement.org.uk/?search=search&s=Nationality+and+Borders+Bill
Borders are active, our government creates what it terms ‘illegal’ immigrants and this bill will see people labelled as such increase tenfold. The Bill states that any asylum-seekers who have travelled through a “safe country” will be sent back there. Said “safe countries” quickly made it clear that they hadn’t agreed to this. Instead, we’ll likely see people left in camp-like accommodation with no access to state support for extended periods of time. Or even worse housed on disused oil rigs or ferries. There is real danger in this removal of people from communities. We know that the quality of current housing provision is terrible and people are deliberately scattered with the policy of dispersal. But we know what happens in detention centres and we can extrapolate out from there the very real risks of camp accommodation. Sexual assault in the women's detention center, Yarl’s Wood was prolific and the perpetrators never held accountable. Detention centres are hotbeds of exploitation where people are forced to work for £1 an hour while private contractors profit. They are also sites of systemic neglect where people all too often lose their lives. Christine Case, for example, died in the arms of her roommate in Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre at the end of March 2014, after being denied appropriate medical assistance.
Taking back control of our borders is a myth and a deadly one. We will not be a richer nation for it. This bill will profit the elite, including men like Roper Soames, Churchills grandson and brother of a former Conservative MP. A man who profits from detention centres like Yarl’s Wood where Christine Case was left to die. A man whose fortune is explicitly propped up by the exploitation and incarceration of people seeking safety. Even before the Bill, the Conservatives announced plans to build a new women's detention centre in Hassockfield. Mitie has been awarded the £166 million contract despite the numerous reports of disgustingly low standards of hygiene and overcrowding in their detention centres, but of course they have a Conservative peer on the board.
The chances of stopping this bill all together are slim. The Conservatives have 363 seats to Labour’s 199. With Labour being led by Keir Starmer, whose stance on immigration is at best weak and at worst dangerous, party politics is certainly stacked in favour of this new bill. It's pretty hard to see a victory in parliament on an island plunging deeper into inequality surrounded by increasingly violent, racialised borders.
We held an event to discuss the bill in Hulme Park last weekend. One of the women attending commented that the problem was people were not angry enough, that if they were born here and had status without even thinking what that meant they might not feel this bill matters. But of course it does, it should matter to all of us. Because this bill is about race, it's about inequality and poverty, it's about gender and it's about capitalism and of course it's based on the back of imperialism. It is going to make the one percent very rich at the expense of thousands of people's lives.
We are going to need a huge community resistance to work against this bill and whatever bits of it they get through. We are going to be holding workshops across the city where you can learn about the bill in more detail and be part of building a community of resistance both before this bill goes through and beyond! Please drop us a message if you are interested in coming along or if you want to link up in any way. We are really keen to be building networks and conversations around this terrifying bit of legislation so please do reach out - nobordersmcr@gmail.com
In solidarity
No Borders MCR
Links to other resources -
Global Women Against Deportation’s template letter for contacting your MP https://womenagainstrape.net/action-alert-oppose-the-nb-bill/
BID’s response - https://www.biduk.org/articles/850-bid-s-response-to-the-nationality-and-borders-bill