All Campaigns subcategories:
Anti-war keywords:
War
Highlight keywords |
Print this article
Search site for keywords: Homeless - War - Government - European - Eastern - Detention - Homelessness - Human rights - Accommodation - Austerity - Eastern Europe
Victory against government's war on eastern European homeless
The Tory government has conducted mass arrests of homeless eastern Europeans, photo by Garry Knight (CC) (Click to enlarge)
Paul Heron, solicitor, Public Interest Law Unit (personal capacity)
For the past year and a half the Tory government has been waging a war against European Economic Area (EEA) nationals, including locking up those citizens en masse, without charge and indefinitely. Not in the mainstream news? Of course not, those affected were largely from eastern Europe and were homeless.
I became involved in these cases after campaigners and those directly affected contacted me. What became clear is that civil liberties and human rights were thrown out of the window. To make matters worse, a scheme designed by the Home Office to sweep up homeless people was aided by leading homelessness charities.
The Home Office policy designated those European nationals sleeping rough as breaking the law - or rather by sleeping rough they were breaking European laws on the right of workers to free movement.
For the Home Office and their new policy that provided a green light to confiscate the documents of EEA nationals sleeping rough - demanding that they leave the UK within 28 days. In addition, it allowed the arrest and the detention of those who were homeless pending removal from the UK.
The Home Office argued it was necessary in order to target migrants who came to the UK 'with the intention of sleeping rough.'
In the run up to the legal challenge in the High Court I visited dozens of people trapped in detention centres across the UK. Many of those visited, prior to being detained, had full-time jobs, or had been working for years, been caught in a perfect storm of illness and austerity, leading to them losing their jobs.
In one case, a client who was between accommodation, sleeping in a van, and waiting for his wages that week to put a deposit down on a room in a flat, was detained for seven months.
Needless to say after we obtained an interim injunction, he was released with no money and found that he had lost his job. He had been in the UK for three years, and been working for that whole time!
High Court victory
The case I brought was a test case involving three people. Two from Poland, one from Latvia. The High Court found in our favour. It ruled that the Home Office policy was unlawful, that the policy was discriminatory and that they were guilty of 'systematic verification' - in effect the government was guilty of orchestrating sweeps of homeless people without distinction.
That decision, on 14 December was a victory against the Home Office policy, but most significantly a policy developed when Theresa May was the home secretary.
As a socialist lawyer it feels like a constant battle for peoples' rights, and a battle against draconian laws.
For workers who become homeless it is an absolute disaster on many levels. No one should be criminalised for a problem that has been created and conceived by this government.
Freedom of movement should not be a preserve of the rich, and neither should a home!
Donate to the Socialist Party
Finance appeal
The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.
The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.
The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.
- The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
- When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.
Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.
We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to donate to our Fighting Fund.
LATEST POSTS
12 May Stop Israeli state brutality
 |
9 May Post-election meetings
15 May Birmingham Socialist Party: How can we fight for socialist change and a new workers' party?
17 May Oxfordshire & Aylesbury Socialist Party: The role of the state
18 May Bristol North Socialist Party: Liverpool - history of socialist struggle
CONTACT US
Phone our national office on 020 8988 8777
Email: [email protected]
Locate your nearest Socialist Party branch Text your name and postcode to 07761 818 206
Regional Socialist Party organisers:
Eastern: 079 8202 1969
East Mids: 077 3797 8057
London: 075 4018 9052
North East: 078 4114 4890
North West 079 5437 6096
South West: 077 5979 6478
Southern: 078 3368 1910
Wales: 079 3539 1947
West Mids: 024 7655 5620
Yorkshire: 078 0983 9793
ABOUT US
ARCHIVE
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999