The Jungle camp in Calais has challenged the indifference of official Europe to the plight of refugees for close on two decades. It has survived previous attempts at demolition. As long as the grievances that gave rise to remain it will come back to haunt the conscience of the continent.
Read on »Don Flynn
Migrants’ Rights Network: [UK]Government agenda – Roll back the rights of all migrants
The policy pronouncements at the Conservative conference show how far the government is prepared to go to turn migration into a rights-free zone. Both EU and the third country migrants will lose out under these plans. We need a campaign that unites them all if rights are to be preserved.
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Byron Hamburgers: When employers fail to do right by migrant employees
What else could Byron’s have done? The social media world was awash with attempted defences of the hamburger chain after it collaborated in the arrest of 35 of its migrant workers earlier in July. Our answer is they didn’t have to go along with the shabby act of entrapment of its staff, and they could have done so much more to push back against punitive, anti-worker rules.
Read on »Migrant’s Rights Network: The referendum vote – what will happen to the rights of migrants?
We respond to the outcome of the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union.
Read on »Migrants’ Right Network: Saving the gains of the Schengen agreement requires European solidarity on protection for refugees
Much of the news commentary on Europe seems to assume that the Schengen open borders arrangement will vanish in the next few months. That would be a disaster. Saving it will require a reversal of the current refusal of solidarity with countries at the frontline of the refugee flows.
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: 2015 – The year when immigration became an indissolubly European issue
Halfway through December seems like a good time to sketch out some ideas on what 2015 might come to mean in a history of immigration which has yet to be written.
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Why do migrants suffer exploitation? – Some thoughts on vulnerability and globalised labour markets
Don Flynn* Migrants are bad news because they worsen wages and working conditions for the rest of us we are so often told. A new book says we have to pay far more attention to the conditions we impose on those who arrive looking for jobs if we really want to tackle
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Lessons of Paris – Borders won’t protect us: Solidarity with refugees remains the best hope
The Friday 13th attacks in Paris are being interpreted by many commentators as politicians as a watershed moment in public attitudes towards refugee policies in Europe.
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Frontier anxiety: Living with the stress of the everyday border
What happens when we bring the anxieties of life at the border into the heart of our all our communities? How can we contend with life in a space where identity is constantly checked and people subjected to the question: Why are you really here? MRN director Don Flynn asks this in an article published this month in Soundings, a journal of cultural politics and simultaneously on the website of Eurozine. The full article can be accessed here.
Read on »Migrants’ Right Network – Mrs May’s speech: An ugly intervention that at least clarifies for campaigners what needs to be done to defend the rights of all migrants
Don Flynn* Mrs May set out her stall on immigration during her speech to the Conservative conference. Its dismissal themes have already been challenged, often from surprising quarters. But we need a campaigning perspective to defeat her plans to roll back the rights of refugees and migrants. Read full opinion piece here. Home Secretary Theresa
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Calais crisis: 15 years of ‘tough cop’ policies have failed – we need a new plan
Don Flynn* The UK government has given all the indications of being badly wrong-footed by the latest developments in the refugee crisis at the French Channel port of Calais. Higher fences and brawnier policemen are not the answer. A renewal of our commitment to humanitarian solutions is. Three thousand migrants have congregated in the area
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Warning – a renewal of ‘fortress Europe’ policies is not the answer to the refugee crisis on the Mediterranean
Two high level meetings of EU political leaders in one week might encourage the belief that something positive is going to be done to address the tragedies of the last few days on the Mediterranean. But if the heads of government statement that emerged last Thursday is anything to go by it is clear that lessons are not being learnt.
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: So we are better off because of migration, but why aren’t the politicians getting that message across?
Don Flynn* The blizzard of commentary that accompanies the annual budget statement also included a memo from the OBR saying “Mr Chancellor, immigration is good for us.” So will he, and other politicians, act on this message? The news that projections for economic growth for the period ahead are being upgraded because
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Is the penny finally dropping? – Migration is a sign of how normal a society is, rather than a threat to its existence
Don Flynn* The fact that the government failed to reach its target for reducing net migration is bad news for them, but rather good news when considered as an indication of an economy not still mired in deepest recession. Read full blog entry here.
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Reasons to be cheerful about migrants’ rights in 2015
Don Flynn* When someone gets around to writing the history of the UK immigration debate, there is a good chance that they will come to see 2014 as the year when things began to turn around and, eventually, tack off in a progressive direction. Read original blog entry here. Okay, against this sunny optimism
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: “How to talk about immigration?”
Don Flynn* The thinktank British Future created a stir last week with the publication of its new book, How to talk about immigration. It is clear that, given the current febrile state of the public mood, a lot of damage can be done by talking about immigration in ways that are insensitive to many people’s
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Yes, migrants are net contributors, but they are also our partners in challenging inequality and injustice
Migrant Tales’ insight: Another fine essay by Don Flynn, which brings to mind recent claims by the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party that migration costs the country up to 2 billion euros. The estimation is only a guess by the PS and which forget to calculate that the majority of migrants in Finland work, pay taxes and consume.
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Note to Party leaders: Misleading voters about what can and can’t be done on immigration will still get you nowhere
Don Flynn* Emergency brakes and benefit caps were put on offer by party leaders this week. Both are intended to get across the message that immigration can be got back under control. But aren’t there bigger truths that we should be trying to get across, like how the movement of people is all a part
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Is migration blocking the way to post-national global outlooks?
Don Flynn* We are living in a world that is evermore global in the way it lives its daily life. So why does public opinion seem to be becoming more nationalistic? Is the experience of migration a part of the reason? An interesting new book considers these questions. Read original posting here. Here is a
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: ‘Too Many Immigrants?’, ‘Big Romanian Invasion’, or ‘Glasgow Girls’: Which got closer to the truth in telling the story of immigration?
Don Flynn* You wait for weeks for a programme that allows migrants to tell the stories of their lives, and then three come along at once. The media critic Ben Bagdikian once complained that trying to be a first class reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach’s ‘St
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: #MigrantsContribute! promises an active campaign to advance positive arguments for migrants
Migrant Tales insight: Another excellent posting by Migrants’ Rights Network on how immigrant communities challenge politicians who spread lies and reinforce prejudices about migrants. We need such a campaign in Finland. Writes Don Flynn: #MigrantsContribute! is a social media-style name for a campaign that aims to bust into the mainstream with its core message that, far
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: UKIP’s strong showing challenges supporters of migrants’ rights to do better
By Don Flynn* There’s no point hiding the fact that the right wing party made effective use of public anxieties about immigration to build its position. But all the evidence on how the argument is running shows that it can still be turned round. But we’ll need a new upsurge of activism in support
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Public moods on free movement: Should we just follow the herd?
Don Flynn* The new report on free movement in the EU from IPPR argues that pro-migration groups have to triangulate their advocacy with the antagonistic moods that currently hold sway. But do they need to go quite so stridently in the direction of arguing that they dictate the need for a ‘new
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Refusal to face the realities of migration opens the door to racism
Migrant Tales insight: This excellent piece by Don Flynn sounds very familar to what the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS) are doing in Finland to get people to vote for them in the MEP elections on May 25. PS chairman Timo Soini has spoken at Ukip gatherings on a number of occasions and are in many respects
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Why we need a new anti-racist movement if we are to secure the rights of migrants
Don Flynn* Anti-racism and the battle for the rights of migrant seem to have moved some distance apart in recent years. It is time to reverse that, and re-forge a unity between the two that will be able to take on the challenges that come from growing xenophobic moods. The coalition of groups supporting the
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Living in an Age of Migration
Don Flynn* Immigration studies has emerged as an important discipline in colleges and universities across the world, with scores of research centres being established in the UK alone over the last decade or so. Contributions have come from sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, political scientist, economists and philosophers over this time, giving anyone who
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Brokenshire vs. Cable – Is immigration good or bad for the economy?
Don Flynn* Is immigration just an accident, prompted by the selfish behaviour of the metropolitan elite, or a vital component in the functioning of a globalised economy? That was the issue at the heart of the spat between two government ministers last week. Decision on who is right will decide the future direction of immigration
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: When single markets and the inequalities of global trade provide the basis of a ‘right to migrate’ (Part 3)
Don Flynn* This is the final blog in a three part series which sets the reasons why we need a clearer and more precise idea of the rights which migrants need if they are to prosper in the modern world. Here we argue that the assertion of a ‘right to migrate’ is
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Wanted: Truth and clarity about migration to the UK today
MT comment: Is it a coincidence that the same issues but in a different context are taking place in Finland and elsewhere in Europe? Even if elections are supposed to be a time when we celebrate our democratic rights, for some, like migrants and minorities, it has come to represent a day of uncertainty, even
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: An atlas of migration that tells the story of globalisation and barriers to freedom
Don Flynn* David Cameron’s intervention during the EU leaders’ summit meeting in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius last week has made it clear enough that the issues of immigration and Europe are going to be heavily intertwined during the political debates of the coming period. Read full story here. Cameron’s claims that the
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: What is driving the ‘hostile environment’ idea (in the UK)?
By Don Flynn* The announcement of yet more changes to the immigration rules will cause anxiety to run down the spine of many a legal migrant as they struggle to understand whether it has implications for them. The government has declared that the intention behind the new Immigration Bill currently being considered
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: How society manufactured ‘them’ and ‘us’, and spread the myth that it couldn’t be anything different
By Don Flynn Here’s a book which challenges the idea that the division between citizens and migrants is fundamental and couldn’t be any other way. Bridget Anderson argues that ‘them’ and ‘us’ are constituted out of different groups in different ways at all points in history. Progress has always meant overcoming these divisions, and building
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: EU Free Movement Under Threat
Stewart Jackson’s Ten Minute Rule motion to curb EU free movement rights passed the first hurdle on its way to becoming law. Let’s hope no one in government seriously considers it as official policy. Conservative MP Stewart Jackson continues his campaign against “barking mad” European Union law which supports the free movement of people across
Read on »Migrants’ Rights Network: Border controls against Greece? Be afraid – be very afraid……
By Don Flynn The sun has been brilliant over (most) of the UK for four whole days in a row and we are all extraordinarily happy. But if there’s an inkling of truth in the weekend’s news that emergency border control plans are being prepared against the arrival of Greek citizens, abandon hope for the
Read on »Finland also locks up asylum seeker children
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- A child in the Joutseno Immigration Removal Center.
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