Letter to my MP re immigration legislation

Stephen Crabb MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

crabbs@parliament.uk

Immigration Bill 2015 briefing and call to attend Second Reading debate - Tuesday 13th October

Dear Stephen Crabb

I am sure that you are aware of the Immigration Bill currently passing through parliament. I wish to make you aware of my distress at some of the provisions of the bill. It reaches a level of inhumanity toward children and young people that is simply unacceptable. As someone who was concerned with investigating the compliance issues with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and who researched the impact of the 1989 Children’s Act, I can only register my disgust with the proposals. No country should treat people like this. It is utterly unworthy of the best traditions of the UK, and of the Welsh people in particular. The provisions are completely incompatible with our duties and obligations toward the young. They are also a moral offence with regard to how we should treat any people regardless of age: refugees and asylum seekers are very vulnerable people and deserve better simply by virtue of being human. They should not be treated in the ways you are proposing.

Not only are you saying that “there is no room in the Inn”, but you are threatening to imprison the inn-keeper should he dare to rent out space in the stable.

To inflict destitution on anyone is immoral. We do have a right to control immigration, and we do posses the power to deport. These should be sufficient powers for any society. To make destitute those that have sought our care and protection is ruthless and pitiless. To threaten with imprisonment those who may respond to human distress and need in a positive way by providing shelter, by providing care and protection, by providing help, is simply gross. You are criminalising compassion.

May I remind you that in the 1930s in Germany people were likewise imprisoned for daring to extend help or give shelter to anyone of Jewish descent. Think well on this example.

I would be grateful if you would keep me informed of how your government will alter the legislation to ensure the humane, dignified and compassionate treatment of all refugees and asylum seekers.

Kind Regards,

Anti-austerity march speech # 3: 30/05/15

I am sure that Steven Crabb, UK Secretary of State for Wales, does not intend to be vindictive. But that is what austerity is. I am sure he does not think this policy is wrong-headed, but that is what this policy is.
Expert economists are now saying that the monetarist dogma used to justify this cruel and damaging policy is based on false premises.

He should remember too, that Wales is already one of the poorest regions in Europe.
Creating more poverty is not the solution.

So let there be not one more child in Wales or anywhere in the UK living in poverty, not one more family in Wales or anywhere in the UK going hungry, not one more household in Wales or anywhere in the UK having to choose between food or warmth, not one more benefit claimant in Wales or anywhere in the UK “sanctioned” for circumstances beyond their control, for being in hospital, being terminally ill, or attending a job interview instead of attending a fitness for work interview, let there be not one more community in Wales or anywhere in the UK stripped of its facilities. Stop punishing the poor for the excesses of the rich.

Say No to a society split between the few super-haves who will be given even more, and the many who have less, who will see even what they do have taken from them.

Barnardos, who are experts on child poverty, say, and I quote, “There are currently 3.5 million children living in poverty in the UK. That’s almost a third of all children. 1.6 million of these children live in severe poverty. In the UK 63% of children living in poverty are in a family where someone works.”
This in the world's sixth richest nation. This is Britain’s shame and Britain’s failure. It does not need to be so. We are so rich in Britain that not one child need be poor, need be homeless, need be in want. It is Britain’s shame that it is not so.

Austerity has been tried before and each time it is the young who suffered most, and each time it has failed as a policy. It was tried in the 1980s under Thatcher, in the 1990s under Major and now under Cameron, and each time austerity has made the average Briton poorer, not richer, and each time the young have paid the highest price, it is their lives that have been blighted most, whose opportunities have been stunted. Each time it has been our communities that have been weakened and that have been diminished. Once more our government will throw the young into the sacrificial fire of austerity economics, and once more lives will be blighted. Once more it will be our communities that are weakened.

Cameron claims to stand for Working Britain, but the vast majority of children in poverty are children in homes where people are working, working for poverty pay, working on zero-hours contracts, working on short-term contracts, working in out-sourced jobs without security or stability. This is Cameron's working Britain – a poverty Britain, a Food Bank Britain a working benefits claimants’ Britain. This is the Britain he intends to plunge deeper into poverty, causing more homelessness, more insecurity, more uncertainty, more reliance on food-banks.

Today we are giving Steven Crabb and David Cameron our clear message. No to austerity. Not in our name. No to blaming the poor for the excesses of the rich. Not in our name. No to punishing the most vulnerable for the losses of the wealthy. Not in our name. No to Food-bank Britain. Not in our name.

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This speech was delivered at the end of the march on 30/05/15

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A report of the event can be found at:

 Western Telegraph

Anti-austerity march speech # 2: 30/05/15

In 1945 the people of Britain came back from war and swore to defeat what Beveridge called the Five Giants of Poverty.
That was the Britain they built.
That was the Britain they were proud of.
That was the Britain I grew up in.
A Britain that aimed to be without want, without ignorance, without squalor, without disease and without idleness.
A Britain where nobody was excluded.

That was the Britain my parents built for us, their children, and which they believed would be there for their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Cameron has brought these giants back and is making sure that my parents’ great-grandchildren will not live in the Britain that they fought for.

We see the giants back in the spread of food-banks.
We see them in the numbers of unemployed.
We see them in zero-hour contracts and poverty pay.
We see them in chronic under-employment - part-time jobs at even lower poverty pay.
We see them in insecure jobs and temporary contracts.
We see them in internships that only the children of the well-off can afford to take, shutting off opportunities that used to be open to all.
We see them in the rise of homelessness and the young who cannot hope to ever have a home of their own.
We see them in student loans that most can never hope to repay – a lifetime burden of debt that will shackle and limit our young people.
We see them in the bedroom tax.
We see them in the way support for the disabled is being taken away.
We see them in the destitution that makes people have to choose between eating and keeping warm.

The giants of poverty are fast creeping back into this land. Yet it need not be so.

The bankers who caused the financial crisis tell us that Austerity is the only option.
But they don’t suffer under austerity. Bankers’ bonuses are back.

The hedge-fund managers who have pillaged our economy tell us that Austerity is the only option.
But they don’t suffer under austerity. Their off-shore accounts – off-shore to avoid paying tax - are overflowing with money.

This rich boys’ government tells us that Austerity is the only option.
But they don’t suffer under austerity. They will have lucrative seats on the boards of big companies when they leave government.

The big corporations tell us that Austerity is the only option.
But they don’t suffer under austerity. They avoid paying the taxes that would take away the excuse for austerity.

It is you and me, we who do not have mega-bonuses, seats on boards, off-shore accounts or tax-avoidance schemes, it is we who have to pay.
Pay by having communal assets that you paid for with your taxes sold to private companies who are not interested in service - only in profit.
Pay by having your services run down.
Pay by having your children's futures blighted.
Pay by seeing the dissolution of your health service.

And austerity will get worse. Austerity has failed in Greece. It has failed in Spain. It has failed in Italy. It has failed in Ireland. Austerity has simply made each of those countries poorer, and it will make this country poorer. And a poorer country can afford even less, and so must cut even more, making it even poorer and so it can afford even less, making it cut even more, making it even poorer …

Here, Round one of austerity has already brought us a double-dip recession and the slowest recovery from recession in history, and the loss of Britain's AAA credit rating.
This has all happened in the last five years – under a government that boasts about its economic competence.

Five years of austerity have only made things worse, why on earth would we believe that a second dose will make things any better?

But we can end this vicious downward spiral. We can say NO to austerity. Austerity is not the only option.

Iceland has shown that you can dump the debt. They said NO. They refused to play the austerity game, they refused to pay the bankers’ debts.

We too can find a better way. A way that remembers that the economy is about people; people doing jobs for each other, people providing goods and services for each other. People caring for each other. People building real futures for each other, for their children and for their communities; and to do that, we need not austerity but investment; investment in educational opportunities, in health-services, in infrastructure, in communities, and ultimately, in people.

Cameron has claimed that we should remember that we are a Christian country. I would remind him of the Christian ethic, clearly stated in these words:

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”

But he has turned this into, “I was hungry and you stopped my benefit, I was thirsty and you sold off my water supply, I was a stranger and you turned me away, I was naked and you mocked me, I was sick and you closed my hospital, I was in prison and you made the conditions harsher and sentences longer.”

That is Cameron's Christian ethic.

Let us send a clear message today: NO TO AUSTERITY. NO TO VICTIMISING THE VULNERABLE. NO TO FOOD-BANK BRITAIN. ------

This speech was delivered on 30/05/15 at the rest point on the march.

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A report of the march can be found at:

Western Telegraph

Anti-austerity march speech # 1: 30/05/15

The organisers would like to thank everyone who has turned out today. It really means a lot, so thank you for making the effort.

We are just one of many protests being made in many places in Britain, and I am sure we will be far from the last, for as long as people like you know that austerity is wrong, that it hurts people, that it blights the lives of the young, that it blights the lives of those less able to fend for themselves, that it blights the lives of those that depend on public services, for so long as the axe is being wielded, then people like you will come forward to be counted, to say “No – not in my name”.

That is what this protest is about, to make it loud and clear that what is being done to turn Great Britain into Food-bank Britain is not being done in my name, not in your name, not in the name of the person standing next to you, not in the name of any of us who are here today.

May I remind everyone that this is a peaceful and orderly protest, so please respect the guidance of the stewards, they are here to help us make your voice heard.

We really appreciate the co-operation of the police, who are going to be subjected to massive additional cuts. We are here for them just as much as we are for all others in public service affected by the cuts.

We are starting here by County Hall in sympathy for the Council, because it is the Council that is going to have to make so many cuts that we know that at heart they do not want to make. They will have no choice about destroying so much that they have built up over the years, and we know that that will come hard. It is not fair, it is not just, and it is not what the people of Pembrokeshire deserve.

Our route is County Hall, County Hotel, Multi-storey car park, Old Bridge, Bridge Street, Castle Square (10-15 mins) High St, into Market Street ending outside Stephen Crabb’s office.

Sadly we cannot deliver our protest to Stephen Crabb in person, because he is in London planning the very cuts to which we are objecting.

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A change of plans means this speech was not given. However, the other two speeches were. 

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A report of the march was made in the local press:

Western Telegraph