Anti-racists must demand safe passage for migrants and refugees (Photo: Guy Smallman)
Anti-racists have demanded that the new Labour government breaks with racist Tory policies after four refugees drowned in the English Channel.
Four migrants drowned after a boat with over 60 people capsized off the coast of northern France in the early hours of Friday morning.
This is the first drowning under Keir Starmer’s Labour government—and it’s promising policies that will make more death inevitable.
Weyman Bennett, co-convenor of the Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) campaign group, slammed politicians for “turning the Channel into a graveyard of migrants”. “They want to divert attention away from their failed policies,” he told Socialist Worker.
“There are desperate refugees seeking safety in Britain, but there are no safe passages for them to come here.
“The anti-racist, trade union and socialist movement welcomes them—and Britain, as the sixth richest country in the world, has a duty to support people.”
Labour home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said, “Criminal gangs are making vast profit from putting lives at risk.
“We are accelerating action with international partners to pursue and bring down dangerous smuggler gangs.”
People smugglers are small-time gangsters whose business model relies on the British state’s and European Union’s racist immigration rules. If migrants had safe and legal routes to Britain and Europe, they wouldn’t be forced into the hands of organised criminals.
Every time politicians have ramped up border security, it has only forced people seeking a new life to use deadlier means. And every time refugees drown or freeze in the back of a lorry as a result, politicians respond with calls for a tougher security—which only ensures yet more deaths.
Samira Ali from SUTR told Socialist Worker, “These deaths are avoidable—instead of Starmer making empty promises to ‘stop the gangs’, he should be pledging to provide safe passage and routes for refugees.
“You cannot deter people fleeing war, famine or climate change, but you can make sure they don’t drown in the process of trying to come to safety in Britain. Without safe passage, we will continue to see more people dying in the Channel.”
The drownings come after a general election where politicians competed over who could be “toughest” on immigration.
The only winners here are the billionaires, bankers and bosses—the real culprits behind low pay, sky high energy bills, crap jobs and an NHS that’s falling apart. The losers are all working class people, whether they’re born in Britain or overseas, who politicians want to keep divided.
As Samira said, “The Tories continued with their racist policies and rhetoric, and Nigel Farage of Reform UK pledged to drive refugees back to the beaches. Starmer’s Labour didn’t provide an alternative—instead it spoke of ‘sending back’ Bangladeshi migrants.
“But the idea that refugees are a pressure or burden on our public services is a lie used to scapegoat from the real cause—migrants have built our NHS.”
Now, with a Labour government that offers very little change, the danger is that racist, far right and fascist forces will grow out of the disillusionment. We face a Tory party that’s radicalising to the right, five far right Reform UK MPs in parliament and the Nazi Tommy Robinson trying to build a street movement.
Samira said, “We have seen the racist attacks on refugees and migrants creating a toxic environment, where the far right feels legitimised and that it has ripe ground to grow.”
She called on people to mobilise for the SUTR counter-protest against the Nazi Tommy Robinson in London on Saturday 27 July. “His supporters must be opposed on the streets, and we need to commit to take on racism from the government and politicians which fuel them.”
“Anti-racists will not stop campaigning to stop the scapegoating of refugees, to shut down abhorrent detention centres and the Bibby Stockholm prison barge,” she said
Weyman added, “If we unite against all attacks—on working class people and on refugees—we have a chance to change the situation.
“We can increase living standards and welcome refugees—we have to do both.”
Everyone on the left has to stand against the scapegoating of migrants, refugees and Muslims and build the anti-racist movement. Racism is a scourge that blights millions of people’s lives—and the working class will never beat the bosses and win so long as it’s divided.
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