Fighting the Nazi Threat Today

Britain: scapegoating immigrants and refugees

NAZI groups like the National Front and the British National Party, and their counterparts in Europe, are very clear that the solution to all kinds of social problems is an end to immigration and the ‘repatriation’ of immigrants to where they supposedly belong. By immigrants they mean anyone who is not white, despite the fact that of the approximately 2. 5 million blacks and Asians (about 5.6 percent of the total population) living in this country, 45 percent were born here, and 75 percent have British nationality. This is the basis of their ‘white Britain’ policy. Unfortunately, while few mainstream politicians in Britain have endorsed the idea of repatriation, many have been ready to attack immigrants and refugees, and this has been endorsed by much of the press.

Racist myths

In December 1998 several newspapers reported that Kosovan refugees were staying in a hospital ward in Kent, and suggested that local people were being deprived of medical care; what they failed to mention was that the ward was closed in 1996, as a result of funding policies under the previous Tory government. This barbaric scapegoating led one refugee from Romania, who had already lost her home and country because of racist persecution to comment, ‘I have the same blood as other people. Why do people treat me like an animal?’ (Socialist Worker, December 1998).

The outrage and hysteria in the popular press surrounding the recent arrival of Kosovan and Roma refugees into this country is nothing new. Racist myths and widespread reports in the media about ‘floods’ of immigrants rushing into the country to ‘sponge’ off the state and take jobs from local people have been common since the nineteenth century. The arrival of Irish people in the 1830s, and of Jews in the 1890s, sparked off racist hysteria in the newspapers. This increased with the beginnings of mass immigration into Britain in the 1950s. People from the Caribbean and later Asian people, including Asians expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin in 1976, were met with hostility and discrimination reinforced by streams of racist propaganda.

This press induced hysteria over ‘immigrants’ and refugees ignores the fact that many immigrants originally came here because they were needed to fill jobs--and usually the worst, most ill paid ones. It also ignores the positive additions black and Asian people have made to our economy, culture and way of life. And, even though far more white people--Australians, South Africans, people from the European Community, Americans--come into the country each year, ‘immigrants’ are almost always referred to as black or Asian.

Refugees and asylum seekers: some facts and figures

To talk of floods of immigrants coming into this country is totally inaccurate. Primary immigration (people coming here to work and settle) virtually stopped after the Immigration Act of 1971, and in fact immigration went down from about 80,000 a year in the mid-1970s to a low of 45,300 in 1987. Some people enter the country each year as ‘dependants’. Most of the rest are refugees often fleeing murder, persecution and torture. In 1997 the percentage of people seeking asylum was 0. 07 percent of the population. In 1998 there were just over 30,000 applications for asylum status, according to the Refugee Council. This compares with over 100,000 applications in Germany. The Refugee Council also points out that between January and September of 1998, 35 percent of asylum seekers received permission to stay in Britain on their first application, and more then appealed. This is despite press reports claiming that ‘only 6 percent of asylum seekers are genuine’ (Sunday Times, 7 June 1998). They also point out that most asylum seekers cannot even claim benefit, since the Asylum and Benefit Act of 1996, and that claims of refugees scrounging billions of pounds are fabrications. The government itself puts the total cost of asylum seekers per year at £10.5 million (The Refugee Council: Press Persecution, 6 January 1999).

Deportations

This prejudice and ignorance surrounding asylum seekers has been reflected in the increasingly brutal treatment of refugees and asylum seekers in this country, and in a huge rise in the number of deportations. Often this has involved dividing families. In July 1993 Joy Gardner, a Jamaican woman resident in London with her son, died after police attempting to deport her put 15 feet of sticky tape over her mouth and suffocated her. The Onibiyo family from South London fought for over two years after their father Abdul Onibiyo was deported to Nigeria where, as a known pro-democracy activist, he was tortured and imprisoned. His son Ade, threatened by a similar fate, took refuge in Guyana. The family were finally reunited in November 1997 after a long and determined campaign. Abdul Onibiyo had been resident in this country since 1964, and was given permanent permission to stay in 1972; two of his children were born here. However, with the tightening of immigration rules, periods of working abroad led him to lose this status.

Jeremy Corbyn MP and Rodney Bickerstaffe, general secretary of UNISON, join members of the Onibiyo family to protest against the deportations

The Asylum Act

The Asylum Act of 1992 has criminalised asylum seekers, and this has been accompanied by a barrage of stories about ‘bogus asylum seekers’. Asylum seekers’ legal rights (for example, to appeal) have been drastically cut, and, not allowed to work, they are also not allowed to claim benefits. Many have been imprisoned for months in Campsfield Detention Centre, though they have done nothing wrong. There have been hunger strikes in protest against degrading conditions. A Kurdish refugee, in an interview, stated, ‘In Turkey we think of Britain as a country where there is respect for human rights. We were arrested without questions being asked.’ Since then Group 4, the private security firm, has taken over the running of the detention centre. Protests against forcible removal of detainees to prison led to the trial of the Campsfield Nine on charges including riot and assaulting and threatening staff. The trial collapsed after evidence against detainees was shown to be contradictory and a tissue of lies. The Labour government plans to ‘tighten up’ on asylum seekers by removing entitlement to cash payments.

‘I don’t know if they have been tortured, I’m not concerned, it’s not my responsibility--detainees’ welfare is not part of the procedure’--John Graham, Chief Immigration Officer, giving evidence at the trial of the Campsfield Nine (quoted in Campaign Against Racism and Fascism, No 45, August/September 1998).

Dover: press persecution and National Front activity

Dover has been the point of entry into Britain for Roma asylum seekers, and, most recently, for refugees fleeing the civil war in Kosovo in former Yugoslavia. This has led to a flood of racist propaganda in the local and national press. The Dover Express headlined its front page ‘We Want To Wash Dross Down Drain’. It went on: ‘Illegal immigrants, asylum seekers, bootleggers and the scum of the earth--drug smugglers--have targeted our beloved coastline for some unwanted attention. We are left with the backdraft of a nation’s human sewage and NO CASH to wash it down the drain’ (November 1998). There were in fact 350 refugee cases in the area at this time, including families, out of a total population of 107,000 in Dover district.

This fuelled both a national press campaign, and a racist campaign in Dover. The Daily Mail ran a series of ‘investigations’ into the ‘flood’ of asylum seekers in Dover, and published the address of a refugee family. They had already had a brick through the window and, after this article, were attacked again and forced to move. Dover, like much of Kent, suffers from high unemployment (9.4 percent); in Folkstone it is 25 percent. There are reports that up to 5,000 jobs may be lost in the car ferries and on the docks. The press coverage helped unleash a right wing campaign which attempts to scapegoat refugees for these and other problems, such as long waits for council housing and the closure of local services. A local ‘Residents Group’ was set up, and in November 1998 produced a leaflet, Dover, The Land of Plenty. It went on to give ‘33 reasons why we should send them back and close the door’.

Parallel to this, the National Front, one of Britain’s two main Nazi organisations, has attempted to organise four demonstrations in Dover in order to whip up racial hatred and violence and tried to march on a refugee hostel. The Nazis only marched with massive police protection. One of their organisers, Terry Blackham, has over 20 convictions for violence and served a four and a half year prison sentence for gun running. Each time they have been vigorously opposed by the Anti Nazi League and other protesters. Nonetheless, the risk remains that they, or the British National Party, can begin to build more influence by peddling racist lies and propaganda. The experience from East London and elsewhere is that this will lead to a further increase in racist attacks. It will do nothing to solve the problems of ordinary people in the town.