Episode 38: ‘The Illegal Migration Bill is truly horrific’

Apr 21, 2023

In today's episode, we speak with migrant rights campaigner and policy expert Zoe Gardener about the UK's Illegal Migration Bill. 

 

Zoe tells us how the government plans to reject the asylum applications for anyone who enters the country irregularly, including victims of trafficking and slavery, to house them in old military bases, and to deport them to a third country. 

 

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---Show Notes---

 

You can follow Zoe on Twitter here: @ZoeJardiniere

 

Zoe's articles on Open Democracy can be found here: https://bit.ly/3Ljzsb1

 

Watch Zoe explain to British politicians how the government's Nationality and Borders Bill will not only cause suffering and injustice, but will not work in its aim to end irregular migrant journeys to the UK, here: https://bit.ly/40sF5HW

 

You can find Zoe's YouTube channel here: https://bit.ly/3AdR2qB

 

What to know more about the Overton Window? Here's a good (but very US-focused) explanation of it by Vox: https://bit.ly/3H1KrTK

 

For more of The Civil Fleet Podcast's UK-focused interviews, check out episodes 32 with journalist Bethany Rielly, 25 with Syrian refugee Hasan, 21 with Doctors Without Borders UK advocacy officer Sophie McCann, 17 with Care4Calais founder Clare Moseley, and 11 with Channel Rescue activist Kim.

 

This report in the Independent newspaper reveals how asylum seekers were forced onto the deportation flight to Rwanda and restrained: https://bit.ly/3H2cEKg 

 

Read this Guardian report on Privilege Style airline pulling out of the UK government's scheme to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda: https://bit.ly/3Ait6lS

 

Check out this story in Huck Magazine on how a campaign led by ex-torture survivors and refugee organisations left the Tories with no planes to carry out their Rwanda deportations: https://bit.ly/3N20gxz

 

For more on the UK government's deportation deals with private airlines, see this excellent expose https://bit.ly/41rAEyC 

 

On the topic of asylum seeker hotels, The Civil Fleet exposed how deaths in the Home Office's asylum-seeker accommodation more than doubled in 2022: https://bit.ly/3or2tZf 

 

The Illegal Migration Bill was launched in March 2023. You can follow its process through Parliament and the House of Lords (the UK's unelected upper chamber of government) here: https://bit.ly/3KXxifx 

 

For more on the UK's Hostile Environment policies, see this report by left-wing think tank IPPR: https://bit.ly/41stESa

 

Zoe briefly mentions Britain's Windrush scandal in this episode. For more on that, see this excellent explaination by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, here:  https://bit.ly/3Aib96X 

 

She also mentions the UK's rivers, lakes and beaches being covered in raw sewage. Read Surfers Against Sewage's summation of the scandal, here: https://bit.ly/3AeRvZs

 

UK will give France nearly half a billion pounds in major push to solve small boats crisis: https://bit.ly/40HJ18d 

 

The full quote by the late David Graber that Ben paraphrases at the end of the episode is this: “The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.”

 

Finally, here's a short video report I worked o the Illegal Migration Bill for the Morning Star newspaper: https://bit.ly/3LgzQH4