The Taliban’s rapid seizure of power across Afghanistan threatens the rights and lives of millions. The left and the workers’ movement here and around the world have a duty to fight for rights and protections for refugees. That means raising the issues below at every level of our trade unions, the Labour Party, and other community and campaign groups.
Much focus has been on those at risk due to their work with Western militaries or embassies, or with the previous government. We cannot limit our solidarity to a transactional relationship between individual workers and the British state – we stand with every single Afghan facing violence or curtailed rights under the Taliban’s misogynistic, racist, LGBTphobic and theocratic regime.
The crisis shines a light on the appalling records of successive British governments. From 2008 to 2020, the UK deported more than 15,000 people to Afghanistan – more than any other European state. Even though homosexuality remained illegal under the non-Taliban government, in 2017 the UK government issued guidance that gay men could be deported to Afghanistan, claiming they would be safe if they moved to Kabul and stayed in the closet – neither true, nor an acceptable situation to force on a person. Even as the Taliban swept across the country, the UK Home Office continued to insist that refugees could be refused and sent to Kabul.
Migrants’ rights organisations are already demanding emergency measures as an immediate response. We need to mobilise the labour movement to the front lines of the battle to win those measures, including:
• Immediately regularise the status of all Afghans already in the UK: grant all outstanding asylum applications (The Join Council for the Welfare of Immigrants says
• Ensure fresh claims from Afghan asylum seekers are swiftly approved, and in the meantime guarantee no Afghans will be evicted from asylum accommodation or denied asylum support.
• Expand the family reunion route, so that Afghans already here can quickly and easily bring the rest of their family to join them, including parents and siblings.
• Dramatically expand the insultingly inadequate plans that the UK government has announced for resettling Afghan refugees – so far, they have only planned to resettle a minuscule 5,000 this year.
• Internationally-coordinated emergency evacuation-and-resettlement schemes, including the logistics and protection necessary for refugees to safely board planes at Kabul airport.
To these, we would add that the (small) costs of refugee protection must be borne by taxing and expropriating the rich and big business. Anti-migrant propaganda has deeply embedded two falsehoods – that the resources available to immigrant and UK-born workers are both limited and zero-sum. But our society contains enormous wealth. There is more than enough to go round, if we take it from the hoarded coffers of the capitalist class.
But, as the same campaigners have also pointed out, official resettlement schemes and emergency measures are not enough.
News media have broadcast the distressing scenes at Kabul airport, of hundreds and thousands desperate to flee. Rightly, many have demanded that our governments evacuate them, and stop placing bureaucratic hurdles in their way. But others around Afghanistan are at risk too, away from the cameras and far from evacuation routes that our governments could facilitate. And others, as we write, will have already left.
Understandably, they will flee danger by any means necessary. Because our governments restrict safe routes and place harsh obstacles in their way, this often means undertaking dangerous sea crossings, dodging violent border guards, placing themselves at the mercy of smugglers, and other desperate actions.
The Nationality and Borders Bill that the Conservatives are currently pushing through parliament is an extreme assault on such already-beleaguered people. If it passes, only those arriving through the extremely limited “official” resettlement routes will be allowed permanent residence and the stability to rebuild their lives.
The two-tier system will penalise refugees who had no choice but to flee by irregular routes. They may be imprisoned in offshore camps for processing. The government may seek to deport them to third countries, and at best, they may get limited and temporary status. They will have reduced rights, and even those rights will be subject to repeated review, so that the possibility of refusal and deportation hangs over them for life.
The crisis in Afghanistan therefore demands that we seek not just emergency measures, but also redouble the campaign against the Borders Bill. And ultimately that we fight for unconditional welcome and support for every single person fleeing persecution, violence, destruction, and destitution. We stand for open borders and solidarity, against the inhumanity, racism and division of capitalism’s bordered world.
Resources:
• Refugee Action’s petition against the Nationality and Borders Bill
• The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants has a briefing, and a joint letter to the Home Secretary backed by more than 100 organisations
• Another Europe Is Possible has a write-to-your-MP tool
• 28 August day of action demanding airline TUI stop assisting deportations
• Suggested wording to adapt for motions in trade unions and the Labour Party.
Watch this space for more protests and other actions.
