Intense public debates about the shape and direction of immigration have been a constant feature of British political life for several decades. They are likely to be at the forefront during the forthcoming election campaign. This webinar will address key policy issues and civil society responses to them.

Themes of ‘managed migration’, the creation of a ‘hostile environment’, the rolling back of the free movement rights associated with the European Union movement, and now the threat of withdrawal from international human rights instruments have set the framework for policy development since the turn of the millennium. The direction of policy has been towards a weakening of the applicability of human and civil rights to the position of migrants in order to enhance the state’s capacity for control of numbers. Despite this, what has actually been delivered is a system of immigration control which has failed to secure the level of management of migration demanded by the mainstream political parties.

Another feature of the current situation is the emergence of a large – though still minority – segment of public opinion which rejects the injustices of the hostile environment, unfair treatment of asylum seekers, the increase in the exploitation of migrant workers, and the evidence of institutional racism, seeing this as outcomes of a rightward policy drift.

How will these factors shape public consideration of immigration as the country embarks on a long general election campaign? Will it award victory to the party prepared to go furthest in its demands for a restrictive regime of tight controls? Alternatively, could the moods supporting the current resurgence of the centre-left parties put a stop to the anti-migration trend and bring about a re-evaluation of where policy might go?

In this webinar we will hear the views of researchers, professionals, and activists on these matters.

Professor Eleonore Kofman will review the paradoxical experience of policies on post-Brexit labour migration which appear to have had the unintended consequence of hiking net migration to the unprecedented height of 750,000 thousand people in the past year. Is this an indication of the fact that sustainable growth of the UK economy is not possible without the contribution of a migrant workforce?

Barrister Sonali Naik will look at the controversial issue of the UK-Rwanda deal from the standpoint of refugee policy. To what extent has the legal obligation to take human rights into consideration placed a check to government attempts to end spontaneous movements of asylum seekers into the UK? What lessons are to be learnt from the rules of the Supreme Court on the government’s Rwanda plan at the end of last year?

From the standpoint of the activist community working for the rights of migrant people, Zrinka Bralo of Migrants Organise will discuss civil society responses to recent migration policy developments and how this has thrown up obstacles to right wing policy trends. Does this have sufficient substance to win the culture wars now being launched by supporters of the government’s line? If so, how might this translate into measures that buttress the rights of migrant and refugee people?

Speakers:

Sonali Naik KC is a barrister at Garden Court Chambers specialising in public law cases and in immigration, asylum and nationality law and practice. She has led some of the most important successful cases challenging government policy on internal relocation, deportation and flight removals, including the 2023 case in which the Supreme Court ruled the government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful. Sonali has acted as counsel for the Migrants Rights Network, is on the Policy Council of Liberty, is a trustee of Freedom From Torture and the Immigrant’s Aid Trust (charitable arm of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants), and was appointed to the Justice Working Group on Reform of Immigration and Asylum system. She won Lawyer of the Year at the Diversity Legal Awards 2018. She was one of the winners of a Highly Commended Award at the Lawyer Awards 2022 for a pro bono initiative to assist Afghan judges secure UK visas. She won Highly Commended for Outstanding Contribution to Diversity & Inclusion at the Chambers Bar Awards 2019. In 2023, Sonali was listed in The Lawyer magazine’s Hot 100 list, which recognises excellence in the legal profession.

Zrinka Bralo has been the CEO of Migrants Organise since 2001. Migrants Organise is an award-winning grassroots platform where migrants and refugees organise together for dignity and justice. Migrants Organise provides advice and support for the most vulnerable individuals and families and facilitates numerous migrant justice campaigns such as the Patients Not Passports campaign for access to health care, housing and many other justice campaigns all part of the Solidarity Knows No Borders movement evolving from the Fair Immigration Charter a call for dignity, justice and welcome for all migrants, refugees and communities of arrival.

Eleonore Kofman is Professor of Gender, Migration and Citizenship at Middlesex University London. She has written extensively on international labour migration, including the strategy of post-Brexit migration policies to reduce the rights of migrants (D’Angelo and Kofman (2018) ‘From mobile worker to fellow citizen and back again? The future status of EU citizens in the UK’ Social Policy and Society), in particular turning EU nationals from fellow citizens to mobile workers with few rights and the contradictions of current policy-making, for example in responding to severe staff shortages in poorly remunerated welfare sectors, especially social care, and reducing overall numbers.

Chairs: Don Flynn and Giorgia Dona