Telling Lies About Immigration: the Far-Right and the UN Migration Pact
- January 08, 2019
- by
- Matt
When it comes to migration, far-right movements and populist governments are a lot clearer about what they want than many of their political opponents.
In Europe and America, liberal, conservative and left-of-centre governments have responded to the global ‘migration crisis’ with bureaucratic and physical obstacles that have exposed undocumented migrants to death and danger in a predatory and often pitiless world.
Even while tacitly accepting such barriers as a form of ‘deterrence’, most of these same governments have signed up to international treaties that – at least in theory – oblige them to take in refugees...
Corbyn’s Migrant Failure
- March 11, 2018
- by
- Matt
Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to the Scottish Labour Party conference last week has drawn a lot of criticism from the SNP and others, for appearing to attack and blame migrants for the UK’s economic woes. Corbyn’s defenders have naturally rejected these charges. Paul Mason has dismissed the criticisms of Corbyn to the ‘pro-SNP media’, whatever that...
Waiting for the Barbarian
- December 19, 2017
- by
- Matt
Anyone familiar with horror films will recognize the following scenario: a group of people are being terrorised by a monster/serial killer/alien. They find a hiding place and fortify it. All their attention is focused on keeping the intruder out. Not until it is too late do they discover that the monster is already inside...
Twilight in Brexitland
- September 18, 2017
- by
- Matt
Yesterday evening I shared a horrific post on Facebook about a tetraplegic woman whose disability benefits have just been cancelled, and has just been summoned to a job interview by her local job centre. As shocking as it was, this dreadful decision was a fairly typical example of the cruelty and incompetence that has...
One Day Without Us 2018
- September 04, 2017
- by
- Matt
It’s just under a year since I was part of a Facebook discussion about the alarmingly xenophobic drift of post-referendum UK society. We were people from many different nationalities, backgrounds and political persuasions. Some of us were migrants, others the descendants of migrants or British nationals who know migrants as our friends,...
Defending Free Movement
- March 02, 2017
- by
- Matt
Last night I spoke at the launch meeting of the Alliance for Free Movement, hosted by Caroline Lucas at the Houses of Parliament. The alliance is a broad-based movement of organisations, politicians, unions and NGOS, whose aim is to defend, uphold and extend the EU’s free movement rules at a time when the...
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