I've said it before and I'll say it again:
the enemy of the working class travels by private jet,
not migrant dinghy.
Priti Patel's new policy of deporting refugees
to Rwanda is disgusting.
The tories would treat all of us like this
if they knew they could get away with it.
Priti Patel shows the limitations of representation politics,
Priti Patels family fled from Uganda and found refuge here in the UK.
She is actively pushing policies that would stop people
like her family from being able to seek asylum here.
What this shows is that we have to look beyond
someone's skin colour, their gender or their background
but the policies and the politics that they are promoting.
This policy would be wrong whichever country migrants
were being shipped off to but Rwanda has a shocking human rights record.
Migrants in refugee prisons in Rwanda protested
against their food rations being cut.
In response the authorities fired live ammunition at those protesting
killing 12 people these people were only asking for more food.
And even our own government has highlighted
the human rights violations in Rwanda;
"At the U.N. last year the UK demanded investigations into alleged killings,
disappearances and torture."
And we're accepting those seeking asylum
from there only last year.
Other countries across the world including Australia
have tried policies such as this.
They have proven to be ineffective and expensive
but the economic argument isn't something
that we should be proudly championing.
This is deeply unethical and doesn't treat people
like the human beings that they are
deserving of dignity and respect.
this isn't the only racist anti-migrant policy
Priti Patel and the Tories are pushing.
The nationality and borders bill is a full-on attack on refugee rights.
It will treat people who are desperate and fleeing war
and persecution as criminals and also criminalise
those who are rescuing people at sea.
It also gives the government the power to strip citizenship
from people who are dual citizens which will of course
disproportionately affect people who are black and brown.
This bill is so bad that even the U.N. have said
it will break our commitment to the U.N. refugee convention.
In parliament I've seen first hand how selective
the Tories are with their compassion.
Just the other day I saw Tory MP Sir Edward Leigh justify
deporting people to Rwanda and then an hour later
asked MPs to show compassion not with refugees,
but with a lying law-breaking Prime Minister.
It is no coincidence that Priti Patel and the Tories
announced this cruel policy just as the cost of living crisis
has intensified.
And we know that the Prime Minister
broke the law, lied about it and got caught.
Announcements like this are a deliberate strategy to divide
our communities and to stop us from focusing
on this Tory government that is causing so much harm.
And it's important to remember successive governments
have created the conditions for people to be displaced
and seek refuge.
From invading and bombing Afghanistan and Iraq,
to selling billions of pounds of arms to the Saudi regime
for its war in Yemen.
Our governments share a responsibility in displacing
people and then we see them do the bare minimum
in supporting those people when they seek refuge.
At the end of the day the difference between us and people who are
seeking refuge is luck and the lottery of where we were born,
and what passports we happen to carry.
Climate breakdown is already causing mass displacement
across the world and we know that this is going to get worse.
What we have in front of us are two choices,
a world where we build walls and have navy ships shooting at migrants.
Or we have a world where we treat people with dignity and respect
and offer refuge and a safe home to those who are fleeing
the most desperate of situations.
The UK's response to the Ukrainian crisis shows that we can
treat refugees with compassion and kindness and open our homes.
We should also extend that kindness to those
who are fleeing from Afghanistan and Syria, Yemen
and other parts of the world as well.
Very few media outlets will portray refugees
and migrants in a humane way.
DDN is definitely one of those so please support their Patreon.
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