Looks like it may be more expansive than first indicated. And Canada will need to step up as well:
Britain will change its immigration rules and offer millions of people in Hong Kong “a route to citizenship” if China imposes new security laws, Boris Johnson has said.
Writing in the Times, Mr Johnson said the UK would “have no choice” but to uphold its ties with the territory.
China is facing mounting criticism over its planned law.
Many people in Hong Kong fear it could end their unique freedoms, which the rest of China does not have.
The UK is already in talks with allies including the US and Australia about what to do if China imposes the new law – which would make it a crime to undermine Beijing’s authority – and people start fleeing Hong Kong.
In the Times on Wednesday, the prime minister confirmed that if China passes the law, people in Hong Kong who hold British National (Overseas) (BNO) passports will be allowed to come to the UK for 12 months without a visa. Currently they are allowed to come for six months.
Around 350,000 people in Hong Kong currently already have a BNO passport, but 2.6 million others are also eligible.
Passport-holders would also be given further immigration rights, including the right to work.
This “could place them on a route to citizenship,” Mr Johnson said.
‘Britain will not walk away’
The prime minister added that the immigration changes “would amount to one of the biggest changes in our visa system in British history”.
“If it proves necessary, the British government will take this step and take it willingly.
“Many people in Hong Kong fear their way of life, which China pledged to uphold, is under threat.
“If China proceeds to justify their fears, then Britain could not in good conscience shrug our shoulders and walk away; instead we will honour our obligations and provide an alternative.”
Hong Kong is a former British colony. It was handed back to China in 1997.
As part of an agreement signed at the time, it enjoys some freedoms not seen in mainland China – and these are set out in a mini-constitution called the Basic Law.
BNO passports were granted to all Hong Kong citizens born before the Chinese handover in 1997 and while they allow the holder some protection from the UK foreign service they do not currently give the right to live or work in Britain.
There has been widespread international criticism of China’s proposed law and the UK government’s announcement marks a step up in Britain’s opposition to it.
On Tuesday, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the UK was in talks with countries in the Five Eyes alliance about how to handle a potential “exodus” of people from the area.
He urged China to reconsider its plans which, he said, would threaten Hong Kong’s autonomy and prosperity.
Senior MPs from Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have urged the United Nations to appoint a special envoy to Hong Kong to monitor how the new law affects human rights.
Canada may well have to prepare for a return to Canada of Canadian expatriates, whether of Hong Kong or other ancestry, as well as a likely increase in immigration demand as the situation continues to deteriorate as it appears unlikely China will change course:
The UK could offer British National (Overseas) passport holders in Hong Kong a path to UK citizenship if China does not suspend plans for a security law in the territory, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab says.
It comes after China’s parliament backed proposal that would make it a crime to undermine Beijing’s authority.
There are fears the legislation could end Hong Kong’s unique status.
China said it reserved the right to take “countermeasures” against the UK.
Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the UK and China had agreed that holders of British National (Overseas) – or BNO – passport should not enjoy UK residency.
“All such BNO passport holders are Chinese nationals and if the UK insists on changing this practice it will not only violate its own stance but also international law,” he added.
There are 300,000 BNO passport holders in Hong Kong who have the right to visit the UK for up to six months without a visa.
The framework guaranteed Hong Kong some autonomy and afforded rights and freedoms that do not exist in mainland China.
China has rejected foreign criticism of the proposed law, which could be in force as early as the end of June.
Li Zhanshu, chairman of the parliamentary committee that will now draft the law, said it was “in line with the fundamental interests of all Chinese people, including Hong Kong compatriots”.
What did Raab say?
British National (Overseas) passports were issued to people in Hong Kong by the UK before the transfer of the territory to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
Announcing the possible change in policy, Mr Raab said the six-month limit on stays in the UK for BNO holders would be scrapped.
“If China continues down this path and implements this national security legislation, we will remove that six month limit and allow those BNO passport holders to come to the UK and to apply to work and study for extendable periods of 12 months and that will itself provide a pathway to future citizenship,” he said.
The BBC’s diplomatic correspondent James Landale says that in Beijing might not mind if some pro-democracy campaigners escape to the UK, but the flight of talented wealth creators would be of concern.
Some MPs want the UK to go further and offer automatic citizenship. Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, said BNO holders should have an automatic right to live and work in the UK.
The government has in the past rejected calls to give BNO holders in Hong Kong full citizenship.
Last year more than 100,000 people in Hong Kong signed a petition calling for full rights. The government responded by saying that only UK citizens and certain Commonwealth citizens had the right of abode in the UK and cited a 2007 review which said giving BNO holders full citizenship would be a breach of the agreement under which the UK handed Hong Kong back to China.
However in 1972 the UK offered asylum to some 30,000 Ugandan Asians with British Overseas passports after the then-military ruler Idi Amin ordered about 60,000 Asians to leave. At the time some MPs said India should take responsibility for the refugees, but Prime Minister Edward Heath said the UK had a duty to accept them.
What other reaction has there been?
Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy earlier said the UK had to be more robust with Beijing.
Referring to the security law, she told the BBC: “This is the latest in a series of attempts by China to start to erode the joint declaration which Britain co-signed with the Chinese government when we handed over Hong Kong, and protected its special status.”
“We want to see the UK government really step up now,” she said.
Former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the UK should bring together a coalition of countries to avoid a tragedy in the territory.
He told the BBC: “This is definitely the most dangerous period there has ever been in terms of that agreement.
“With our unique legal situation, Britain does have a responsibility now to pull together that international coalition and to do what we can to protect the people of Hong Kong.”
On Thursday Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s official spokesman told a Westminster briefing: “We are deeply concerned about China’s legislation related to national security in Hong Kong.
“We have been very clear that the security legislation risks undermining the principle of one country, two systems.
“We are in close contact with our international partners on this and the Foreign Secretary spoke to US Secretary [Mike] Pompeo last night.”
He added: “The steps taken by the Chinese government place the Joint Declaration under direct threat and do undermine Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy.”
On Wednesday, Mr Pompeo said developments in Hong Kong meant it could no longer be considered to have “a high degree of autonomy” from mainland China.
UK just cannot get immigration right in terms of process:
EU nationals in the UK are at risk of being denied full citizenship after the home office threw up shock new barriers, despite ministers insisting “we want you to stay”.
Fast-track rules had been expected for the estimated 3.6 million people currently applying to remain in the UK, as many seek the extra security of permanent residency rights.
But, under changes slipped out on a Friday, some EU nationals have now been told to produce further evidence that they have been living in the UK legally – even after securing so-called ‘settled status’.
The demands include that they took out comprehensive sickness insurance (CSI) to cover any periods of unemployment, when there was no such requirement at the time.
This was required for settled status until dropped by Theresa May three years ago, after widespread criticism – but is now revived for permanent residence, the path to full citizenship.
The3million group, representing EU nationals in the UK, described the new hurdles as potentially “devastating”, amid a flood of applications for the extra security provided by UK citizenship.
People were now “at the mercy” of immigration officers using their discretion – when a lack of CSI led to a third of residency applications being rejected in the past – and after paying a whopping application fee of £1,300.
One EU national, Leticia, said: “I am worried that my application will now be refused because I didn’t provide evidence for something that I wasn’t asked to provide evidence for, when I submitted my application. How is that fair?”
And a second, Larissa, protested: “This has just happened to me. Submitted my naturalisation application in January and three days ago I was told to provide evidence of private medical insurance from 2013!”
Maike Bohn, the co-founder of the3million, said the two women were among more than 400 EU nationals who had made their fears known in just a few days.
“They see British citizenship as the way to guarantee that their rights are safe, because the settlement scheme could be tampered with and does not do that,” she told The Independent.
“It would be devastating to have an application rejected in this way, having invested months in gathering evidence for settled status in some cases and after spending huge amounts of money.”
The new rules come after criticism that settled status – far from protecting all the rights of the people most affected by Brexit, as claimed – will fail to treat EU nationals as equals.
Meanwhile, under plans to end free movement on 1 January, EU nationals will require a visa to work, rent a home, or use public services – despite being told only a passport would be needed, before the deadline for settled status applications in June next year.
Nick Thomas-Symonds, Labour’s shadow home secretary, demanded “clarity”, adding: “With the Windrush scandal, we have seen what happens when a government does not have fairness and the national interest at the heart of our immigration system and this must not happen again.”
The new naturalisation guidance, issued on 15 May, is the first time the home office has said that having settled status is not sufficient to be granted permanent residency.
It has told officials to consider “on the balance of probabilities whether they were here: as a qualified person (such as a worker, student, self-employed, self-sufficient, retired or incapacitated person) [or] as the family member of such a person.”
The guidance adds: “Where appropriate, you must also be satisfied that the person was lawfully in the UK, with comprehensive sickness insurance (CSI).”
To become a British citizen, a process known as naturalisation, a person must prove they have lived in the UK – legally – for five years, three if married to a Briton.
But a home office spokesperson insisted there was no change on guidance issued in 2018, saying: “These requirements are not new and have always been in place.
“If someone wishes to make an application for citizenship, they are very welcome to do so through the usual routes and fulfil the requirements for naturalisation.”
Needed rethink. All governments will likely have to review their ranking and selection systems given the importance of the essential and lower-skilled support workers:
Conservative MPs have called on Boris Johnson to rethink his harsh new immigration rules, because “the world has changed” with the vital role played by lower-paid migrant staff during the pandemic.
One Tory MP warned of “very serious consequences” if care homes – where a quarter of Covid-19 deaths have taken place – lose more staff, while a second pointed out that many hospital cleaners and porters are EU migrants.
Caroline Nokes, a former Home Office minister, called for urgent changes, telling The Independent: “If the last six weeks have shown us anything, it is that we are dependent upon workers from all round the globe, but in large numbers the EU, for many essential roles.”
And Stephen Hammond, a former health minister, said: “I believe an exemption for social care workers is one that would be widely welcomed.”
The crackdown drawn up by home secretary Priti Patel – to replace free movement of EU citizens, from next January – will impose a minimum salary threshold of £25,600 for most workers seeking to enter the UK.
Around 70 per cent of the 200,000 EU migrants who come to the UK each year are expected to be excluded by the new rules, officials believe – which would mean around 140,000 shut out.
Even before the coronavirus laid bare how care services depend on migrant workers – some of whom have paid the ultimate price – the package was branded “a disaster” by social care leaders, who fear a deepening recruitment crisis.
Ms Nokes said she supported what the Home Office calls a “points-based system”, recognising education level, ability to speak English and shortage occupations, which will apply to migrants from anywhere in the world.
But she warned: “The Home Office will also have to build in flexibilities to make sure we don’t run out of carers, child care workers, farm labourers, road hauliers, retail assistants.
“These may not be regarded as ‘skilled’ workers in cold immigration terms, but do any of us look at those care workers on the front line of the battle against Covid-19 and think of them as ‘unskilled’?”
Steve Double, the MP for St Austell and Newquay, in Cornwall, said: “The proposals came out of what we thought back in December and January, but the world has changed. We are now looking at a very different world.”
On social care, he added: “There are very serious consequences if we get this wrong and there is no one to care for an elderly person in a residential home.”
Sir Roger Gale, the MP for North Thanet, in Kent, said: “Unless and until there is a sea change in our attitude to funding social care, we are not going to attract the people to fill the vacancies.”
He also pointed to the NHS’s dependence on migrants for ancillary staff, adding: “We have got to reflect the reality and, while I understand what Priti is trying to achieve, now is not the moment.”
One former senior minister said the plans now looked “stupid”, adding: “In the light of recent events, these salary thresholds make no sense at all and may be counterproductive, by arbitrarily increasing the salaries of the migrant workers we will still desperately need.”
Sally Warren, director of policy at The King’s Fund, said there were 122,000 social care job vacancies – while one in six staff are non-British – adding: “It is hard to see how staff shortages can be plugged without overseas recruitment.
“As the care sector struggles to cope with the ongoing impact of Covid-19, the government cannot allow international recruitment to fall off a cliff.”
The row came amid anger over Ms Patel’s refusal – revealed by The Independent – to waive the £624 immigration health surcharge for foreign healthcare workers.
The Immigration and Social Security Coordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill will have its second reading on Monday, in a race against time to complete the dramatic shake-up in just seven months – with an extension to the post-Brexit transition period ruled out.
However, the bill itself will simply end free movement, with the battle to come in future months over salary thresholds and shortage occupations which will be settled in secondary legislation.
Nevertheless, the Liberal Democrats vowed to vote against the “destructive” ending of free movement in the midst of the pandemic.
“Priti Patel may consider care workers to be ‘low skilled’, but they are on the front lines protecting us and our loved ones every single day,” said Christine Jardine, the party’s home affairs spokesperson.
The new rules will require migrants to speak English to “B1” level, enabling someone to, for example, open a bank account, or cope with “most situations” at home, work or leisure.
The are expected to be charged around £1,200 for a work visa, or £900 in a shortage occupation – the same fee paid by non-EU migrants currently.
Ms Patel has hailed Brexit as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to strengthen the security of the UK border”, blaming free movement for letting in illegal immigrants, terrorists, drugs and guns.
“We will attract the brightest and the best from around the globe, boosting the economy and our communities, and unleash this country’s full potential,” she said in February.
All British and Irish citizens born in Northern Ireland will be be treated as EU citizens for immigration purposes, the government has announced after a landmark court case involving a Derry woman over the residency rights of her US-born husband.
The move is a major victory for Emma de Souza ending a three-year battle to be recognised by the Home Office as Irish, a right enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement (GFA).
De Souza said: “This is great news. To get a concession from the British government and a change in the immigration law is no small feat.
“It is incredibly satisfying to be considered as EU citizens and will be a great help to all the other families in my situation.”
Her husband, Jake, will now be allowed to remain in the UK indefinitely if he applies for the EU settlement scheme, an immigration status for all EU citizens wanting to remain in the UK post-Brexit.
The Home Office made its rule change in parliament on Thursday, finally bringing immigration law into line with the 1998 peace deal, which allows anyone born in Northern Ireland to be British, Irish or both.
In court, the Home Office had argued the only way it could deal with the case was for de Souza to “renounce her status as a British citizen”.
After several unsuccessful legal challenges, Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, took the case up saying it raised concerns that the British immigration law had not been updated to enshrine the GFA.
Coveney described the move as “a good and important step” and paid tribute to “Emma for her principles, determination and her impactful campaign”.
The change in law will have wide-reaching implications and enable all citizens in Northern Ireland the right to have a non-EU or non-EEA country spouse remain in the UK without having to go through the Home Office’s onerous and costly immigration system.
It means that British citizens in Northern Ireland will automatically have more rights than their counterparts in England, Wales and Scotland, who will still have to spend thousands of pounds going through the strict immigration route for non-EU or non-EEA spouses with no guarantee of success.
However it is only a temporary boon as any third country national who wishes to apply for settled status will only have until June 2021 to do so. This is the date the EU settlement scheme closes.
“While this is satisfying, it has not given legal effect to the Good Friday Agreement right to be Irish. Ireland updated its immigration laws to bring them into line in 1998 but the British did not,” said de Souza. “It is still an uphill battle.”
The Home Office announced the move in a “statement of changes in immigration rules” in the House of Commons on Thursday.
“The rule changes also mean that family members of British or dual British-Irish citizens from Northern Ireland will be able to apply for status under the EU Settlement Scheme.
“This delivers on the commitment the UK government made in the ‘New Decade, New Approach’ agreement in January 2020 which restored the power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland,” it said.
The Home Office said it would start accepting applications on 24 August and only those who are living in the country at the end of the Brexit transition period on 31 December this year would be eligible.
It also pointed out that De Souza lost her court case and the court had ruled that her nationality derived from the jurisdiction she was born in under the law.
It said the immigration rule changes “demonstrate the UK government’s continued and unwavering commitment to the Good Friday Agreement”.
Another example of denial of the links between minority status and socioeconomic factors as a way to minimize the influence of systemic and other issues affecting socioeconomic outcomes and thus health. Not an either/or but an and:
COVID-19 is a disease that can strike anyone. A recent study of 5,700 sequentially hospitalized COVID-19 patients in a New York City health network, for instance, found that patients’ ages ranged from single digits to 90-plus. Roughly 60 percent were male. About 40 percent were white. Nine percent were Asian. And 23 percent were black.
As Coleman Hughes recently noted in Quillette, black people are overrepresented among American COVID-19 fatalities overall. In Chicago, for example, black people account for more than 70 percent of COVID-19 deaths, despite comprising just 30 percent of the local population. But this doesn’t necessarily tell us much about the disease itself, because “black people are more likely than white people to die of many diseases—not just this one. In other cases, the reverse is true. According to CDC mortality data, white people are more likely than black people to die of chronic lower respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, liver disease, and eight different types of cancer.”
In the UK, too, COVID-19 has had a disproportionate effect on communities that get lumped in under the (somewhat dated) term “BAME”—black, Asian, and minority ethnic. The Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre has reported that 34 percent of a studied group of 6,720 critically ill COVID-19 patients self-identified as black, Asian or minority ethnic. By way of comparison, the comparable figure for a group of 5,782 patients with non-COVID-19 viral pneumonia tracked between 2017 and 2019 was about 12 percent. Moreover, as the Telegraph reports, “despite only accounting for 13% of the population in England and Wales, 44% of all [National Health Service] doctors and 24% of nurses are from a BAME background. Of the 82 front-line health and social care workers in England and Wales [who] have died because of COVID-19, 61% of them were black or from an ethnic minority.”
The release of these numbers prompted an official inquiry. And last week, the Labour Party appointed civil-rights campaigner Doreen Lawrence to head up its own review of the issue. A BBC article entitled “Coronavirus: Why some racial groups are more vulnerable” informs readers that the issue might be rooted in the “physiological burden from the stresses caused by racism and race-related disadvantage, such as the frequent secretion of stress hormones.” London Mayor Sadiq Khan recently wrote an article in the Guardian, demanding that more data be collected. However, he didn’t wait for such data before suggesting that the issue is rooted in “the barriers of discrimination and structural racism that exist in our society.”
I’m a refugee from Afghanistan who came to England as a child in the back of a refrigerated truck. So I know a little bit about these issues. I also know that the above-described statistical disparities may well be related to factors that have nothing to do with racism. Firstly, as everyone in the country knows, BAME communities are disproportionately urban. Specifically, they tend to live in Britain’s larger cities, such as London, Birmingham, and Manchester—often within populous urban wards. Contagion rates are high in these areas, in part because it’s easier for an epidemic to spread in a big city than in the country’s sparsely populated (and disproportionately white) countryside.
Secondly, BAME groups in the UK tend to have more aggravating health conditions, known as comorbidities. Given the epidemiological data, this is of enormous importance. In the aforementioned study of 5,700 COVID-19 patients in New York City, for instance, the leading comorbidities were found to be hypertension (57 percent of all patients), obesity (42 percent), and diabetes (34 percent). Overall, a stunning 94 percent of patients in the study had at least one comorbidity. And 88 percent had more than one.
According to 2006 data, South Asians in the UK are up to six times more likely to develop type-2 diabetes as compared to white people, and black people were up to five times more likely. Similarly, as the BMJ has reported, people of South Asian and Black ethnicity “are known to have worse cardiovascular outcomes than those from the white British group”—in large part because of the “significant” effect of differences in average hypertension levels.
Thirdly, immigrant households are far more likely to contain more than two generations living under one roof. (The authors of a 2017 report found that 70 percent of surveyed white households in the UK containing people aged 70-plus didn’t contain younger individuals. The comparable figure for black households was about 50 percent. For South Asians, it was 20 percent.) In such circumstances, social isolation is more difficult, and grandparents are put at risk of catching infectious diseases from (possibly asymptomatic) younger relatives. From the beginning of this pandemic, intra-household contagion has been a leading form of COVID-19 transmission. The bigger the household, the more people get infected in each cluster.
Fourthly, the problem of getting public-health information to citizens is compounded in the case of those immigrants who have limited English abilities. There is much less official information in Somali, Hindi, Farsi, or Pashto, for instance. There is lots of “fake news” circulating on WhatsApp groups, which is especially problematic in the case of those who don’t understand information coming from official channels in English. Much of this fake-news information flow flies under the radar of public officials.
Finally, as noted above, BAME workers make up a disproportionate share of National Health Service medical staff. A fifth of nurses and midwives, and a third of doctors, are from BME backgrounds. In many cases, these actually represent employment success stories. But as one would expect, these cohorts also tend to be younger, and so are disproportionately employed in entry-level roles and front-line care, as opposed to working in specialized clinics or managerial positions.
An objective assessment of such issues is welcome. But the government’s fact-finding project should take into account the underlying factors, as opposed to simply echoing some of the unhelpful generalizations that now have become common currency in the media.
The public-health policies that are put in place in coming years will affect our ability to withstand the next pandemic. And we should be mindful of the manner by which they impact different communities in different ways. Such a discussion would not only help save lives, but also help spark a larger discussion about why such differences continue to exist, and, more generally, what factors have prevented BAME communities from sharing in the benefits that come with social integration.
Kamrul Islam doesn’t dare visit his local supermarket. Over the last few weeks, he said three of his closest friends fell ill with the coronavirus shortly after shopping there. One friend’s mother became seriously unwell after contracting the virus and died.
The 40-year-old former cab driver says a day doesn’t go by when he isn’t aware of a death or infection of someone he knows. While the coronavirus has spread widely across the UK, the pandemic has taken a huge toll on the area where Islam lives, the east London borough of Newham, which has recorded the worst mortality rate in England and Wales.
The borough’s rate – 144.3 deaths per 100,000 people – is closely followed by Brent in north London (141.5), and Newham’s neighbour Hackney (127.4), according to figures published by the Office for National Statistics. The data confirms what Islam has suspected all along: people living in the poorest parts of the country are dying from Covid-19 at a much higher rate than those in the richest.
On Islam’s road and neighbouring street, 22 people have died after contracting coronavirus. “Every day I get a message from someone in my community telling me of people who have died. They are young and old. It’s been really tough,” Islam said. His wife, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “You hear sad stories of people dying and no one was with them. It does affect people mentally.”
The deaths from the coronavirus include Betty and Ken Hill, who were together for more than 40 years and died hours apart; Dr Yusuf Patel, who was the fifth GP to succumb to the virus in the UK; “exceptional” secondary school English teacher Dr Louisa Rajakumari; and Abdul Karim Sheikh, the former ceremonial mayor who founded one of the first mosques in the area.
The pandemic comes nearly a decade after the area hosted the 2012 Olympic Games, and has become a stark reminder that the better jobs, housing and quality of life that were promised have failed to materialise. Though parts of the borough have undergone regeneration and housing prices have rocketed, the legacy of the games wasn’t felt by all.
Rokhsana Fiaz, who was elected mayor of Newham nearly two years ago, said: “I’ve grown up in the borough and lived here all my life. Like many of my friends, the opportunities that were promised with regards to the Olympics weren’t necessarily felt by me or my peer group. There’s a real sense of haves and have nots in the community. My promise has been we’re going to reverse that because everyone in Newham needs to have a stake.”
The borough’s deprivation and diversity makes it particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus. More than half of children live in poverty, while the rate of households in temporary accommodation is one of the highest in England. A study commissioned by the council found that up to 36,000 people are not paid the legally required national minimum wage.
Newham has the most diverse population profile of any local authority in the country. Some 78% of residents are from ethnic minority communities, which has been reported as a risk factor for the coronavirus. Many live in intergenerational households and there are longstanding health inequalities.
Tahir Mirza, Newham resident and chair of the local Labour party in East Ham, described the deaths in his area as “truly shocking” and called for more efforts for people in the community to get guidelines on social distancing in their own language. He said many didn’t speak English and were simply unaware of the dangers they faced. The consequences of failing to reach these people will be dire, he said: “People will continue to die otherwise.”
Dr Zubaida Haque, deputy director of the Runnymede Trust, said areas like Newham show the discussion about PPE and testing needs to go much further than just the NHS. Key workers, from taxi drivers and care workers to grocery shop owners, who are disproportionately from a BAME background, also require protective equipment. “BAME key workers aren’t just NHS staff. We need to start asking whether they are getting proper PPE equipment. Are they being protected? Are they being tested? Is that infrastructure there?”
Peter Raison, a 58-year-old train driver for Transport for London who lives across the road from Islam, is also not surprised by the high level of mortality. Many like him on their street have to go to work and even he isn’t being provided with PPE. He is upset that there are people still failing to socially distance as the death tolls increase. “People are just assuming it’s not going to happen to me.”
Interesting commentary on immigration narratives and some of the contradictions with respect to white versus visible minority immigrants and their descendants:
A conversation that has stayed with me came after the Brexitvote in 2016, when a French friend, who is white, told me of her anxiety at the outcome. There were already signs of the mounting xenophobia against foreigners of all descriptions that was to come in the aftermath of the referendum. “It’s like people are seeing us as immigrants!” she said with disgust. “As if we don’t belong here.”
My immediate thought was, “welcome”. I’m not an immigrant but I have always been seen as one. The response to any perceived transgression I make towards a public person or policy is frequently: “If you don’t like it here, then leave.” White immigrants, and especially those from western Europe, had on the whole never before felt as if this prejudice applied to them, because “immigration” – as a contentious political issue – has never been about people coming from other countries, and it’s never been about the movement required to get here. “Immigration” has always been a byword for the problem of people who are racialised as undesirable, whether they were born here or not.
The hypocrisy is embedded in the history. I often wonder how it was that the arrival of the SSWindrushin 1948, carrying fewer than 500 West Indians specifically invited to come and work in the UK, was and remains such a symbol of profound soul searching for the national identity. That event stands in stark contrast to the more than 200,000 eastern Europeans and 100,000 Irish immigrants who came to Britain during the same period. The former is regarded as a turning point in the fabric of the nation’s identity, the latter is barely remembered at all.
But this illogicality in our narratives around immigration is not confined to the past. I have spent most of my life living in leafy southwest London, an area often described as “quintessentially English”, helped by the presence of rowing on the Thames at Putney and Hammersmith, lawn tennis at Wimbledon, botanical gardens at Kew and Henry VIII’s old hunting grounds in the deer-populated Richmond Park. These areas are still perceived as unchanged by mass immigration.
Dig a little deeper, however, and it emerges that locals call this area the “biltong belt” because of the large presence of white South Africans, Australians and New Zealanders. In fact, white immigration has had the same impact as immigration everywhere – provided skilled and unskilled labour to meet economic demand, triggering the arrival of a new wave of biltong-themed shops, and requiring planning to provide the requisite housing; school places; doctors surgery capacity. The difference is that this immigration is never weaponised as a threat to the national heritage, or as a reason for pre-existing communities to flee. This immigration has been largely unproblematic because it is white, English-speaking and less visibly “other”.
The notion of “other” is in itself deeply ironic. The history of immigration law is a history of government attempts to limit the movement of people who had not long before been British subjects as imperial citizens. As Rab Butler, former home secretary, said about the Commonwealth Immigration Act in 1962, these were laws whose “restrictive effect is intended to, and would in fact, operate on coloured people almost exclusively”.
Today’s governments are more subtle in their language. The word “coloured” disappeared from the letter of our legislation but retains its power in effect. Immigration lawyers frequently remark, after visits to immigration detention centres, how few white immigrants can be found there – these are warehousing facilities for the still undesirable African, Asian, South American and other non-white people. In my work, I have interviewed many who were arrested in dawn raids while in the process of lawfully regularising their immigration status.
The most blatant examples of contemporary racism – the Windrush scandal for example – have exposed a historical continuity that infects the entire immigration system. The “root cause” of the scandal, Wendy Williams, inspector of constabulary, found, can be traced back to the “racial motivations” of immigration laws at their most racialised birth.
The sooner we acknowledge that legacy, and dispense with the fantasy that immigration has nothing to do with race, the sooner we will be able to consign this ongoing, abhorrent injustice to the dustbin of history, where it belongs.
Trevor Phillips continues to court controversy in this appointment. Suspect there were others the UK government could have called on for the analysis given the communications difficulties this has raised:
The appointment of a prominent consultant to investigate why Covid-19 is killing a disproportionately high number of minorities in the UK has sparked a backlash because of his involvement in an Islamophobia row.
Trevor Phillips, a former head of an equality watchdog, was suspended from the opposition Labour party this year over claims of Islamophobia but has been chosen to advise the UK’s main public health body on coronavirus death rates.
Data suggests that 34.5 per cent of critically ill patients were from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.
The 2011 census suggested that less than 11 per cent of the population was from a black or Asian background.
Mr Phillips was suspended from the Labour party over comments he made about the outlook of the British Muslim community and a case in which Pakistani men abused children.
“To appoint someone who is being investigated for racism is inappropriate and deeply insensitive,” said Yasmin Qureshi, an MP, in a letter to the head of Public Health England.
Ms Qureshi said that the appointment undermined the integrity and credibility of the review.
“It is critical that this review is independent and has the confidence of all communities, and so I urge you to reconsider this appointment as a matter of urgency,” she said.
Dr Zubaida Haque, deputy director of the Runnymede Trust, a race equality think tank, also criticised the appointment.
“Covid 19 is not a culture war It’s the difference between life and death,” Dr Haque said in a tweet.
“The fact that Public Health England have appointed Trevor Phillips, someone with concerning attitudes towards Muslim communities as the main adviser into the racial disparities review is highly concerning.”
Mr Phillips claims to have introduced the term Islamophobia to Britain when he commissioned a 1997 report into discrimination.
He later said a “chasm” had opened between the thinking of Muslims and non-Muslims on social issues. He suggested that multiculturalism in the UK had failed.
The research consultancy run by Mr Phillips and Prof Richard Webber, a demographics expert, was appointed because of the large-scale studies it carries out on ethnicity.
Initial work conducted by his consultancy suggested that washing before prayers may have helped to curb the spread of the disease in some places, he said.
The investigation found that 13 of 17 Covid-19 hotspots in England and Wales had non-white populations above the national average.
“Everyone should be contributing anything they can to tackling this crisis,” Mr Phillips told the Huffington Post.
“Anyone can see the research Richard and I have already done on our website, which explains why we’ve been asked to help.”
Always was an indefensible policy with the current COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the point (the UK has one of the higher number of deaths due to the pandemic in the EU):
The home secretary revealed she had bowed to pressure to look again at the fees, in the light of the “extraordinary contribution” made by medical staff from overseas during the coronavirus pandemic.
Until now, ministers had held firm that the surcharge – due to soar from £400 a year to £624 this October – is a fair way for all migrants to contribute to the likely cost of their NHS care.
Because it is also paid by spouses and children, the total cost can reach a crippling £8,000 for a family of four on a five-year work permit, or with limited leave to remain in the UK.
At the daily Downing Street press conference, Ms Patel was asked whether it was right to “scrap” the surcharge for overseas NHS staff, “given they too are fighting this pandemic”.
She replied that it was “under review”, adding: “We are looking at everything, including visas and surcharge.
“We are looking at everything now in terms of what we can do to continue to support everyone on the frontline of the NHS.
“We are speaking about the healthcare professionals, the medics, the doctors and nurses and allied healthcare professionals who have come to the UK.”
The possible cut, or removal, of the surcharge was revealed as Ms Patel played down hopes of an early easing of the lockdown as the death toll in hospitals passed 20,000.
She called it a “deeply tragic and moving moment”, warning “we are not out of the woods yet” – and telling people to stick to social distancing instructions.
“The government has been abundantly clear about the five specific things that have to be satisfied – this is not optional – so that we can consider with the scientific advisers when it will be safe to adjust the current measures.
“Quite frankly that is not right now. It is clear that it is not right now.”
The health surcharge was hugely controversial, even before the current crisis. There is no right of deferral, or ability to pay annually. Instead, it has to be paid in advance for the entire duration of an applicant’s visa or residency permit.
Meanwhile, nurses and junior doctors in training have starting salaries of between £18,000 and £23,000.
They are already paying tax and national insurance, like British nationals, and are therefore being “charged twice” for NHS treatment, campaigners have protested.
Nevertheless, only last month, when he announced his Budget, chancellor Rishi Sunak said it was necessary to ensure that “what people get out, they also put in”.
Once the UK leaves the Brexit transition period – at the end of the year – the government insists it will be paid by all EU citizens, as well as those from the rest of the world.
Around one in every seven NHS workers is foreign-born – a dependence that has attracted growing attention as they have been on the frontline of the fight against coronavirus.
Dame Donna Kinnair, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said it would welcome a U-turn to exempt nurses from the surcharge.
“The current crisis only serves to highlight the unfairness of charging overseas nurses working in the UK for healthcare services,” she said.
The concession comes ahead of Boris Johnson’s expected return to work in Downing Street on Monday, raising Conservative hopes of an end to the refusal to discuss how the UK will escape the lockdown.
The prime minister is expected back, three weeks after being taken to hospital when his coronavirus symptoms worsened – where he needed oxygen in intensive care, to ensure he survived
Conservative backbenchers have laid bare their frustrations at ministers batting away calls to set out options for easing restrictions, claiming it would underline the ‘stay at home’ message.
On Saturday, Philip Hammond, the former Conservative chancellor, asked if such a plan should be “published now”, replied: “Yes, I think that is the next step.
“I understand the prime minister is going to be back in harness in Downing Street at the beginning of next week and I very much hope that will signal a clear step change.”
Expect all governments will need to reflect upon the importance of lower-skilled immigrants following the pandemic:
This crisis has revealed how arbitrary the phrase “low skilled” is: how we value people, their rights, what they’re paid and the conditions they work in is all wrong. For all its warm words about key workers, the government should be reminded of this.
The day Dominic Raab encouraged us all to clap for the workers who are risking their lives to keep society going, the government restated that some of those same people won’t be allowed in the country come January 2021. While Priti Patel is conspicuously absent – notably on immigration issues – the department she oversees decided now was the time to reiterate that as part of its new immigration rules, “low-skilled” people would not be able to apply for a UK work visa.
Millions of key workers in the UK are migrants – approximately 23% of all hospital staff, including 29% of doctors and 18% of nurses, 20% of agricultural workers, more than 40% of food production workers and 18% of care workers, rising to 59% in London. These are the human beings who, for decades, politicians have blamed for holding down wages, ruining “British culture” and overburdening public services.
If the government forges ahead with its plans, recognising them as key workers will be just a momentary suspension of the norm. Many of them were dismissed as low skilled before the crisis, and it seems they will be once again when it’s over.
The government’s post-Brexit immigration plans are a mix of salary thresholds and a clear determination to stop people it deems to be low skilled coming to the UK. It seems that it plans to change the system in some ways, while expanding an already unfair, discriminatory system for non-EU migrants to include their EU counterparts. Swept up into this category will likely be some of the people it is praising now: the migrant care workers, hospital porters, bus drivers and cleaners who are keeping us safe and keeping society functioning.
Your value, the rights you can access, whether you can settle in this country: none of that should be decided by your job or how much money you have in your bank account. But neither should it take a crisis to make this clear; you shouldn’t have to risk your life or die trying to help others to be seen as a human being.
The sacrifices people are making should be recognised and remembered. But their humanity should not depend on how they help “us”. For decades this has been exactly the kind of immigration system politicians have argued for: one where migrants who benefit “us” and “our economy” are “allowed” to come here, and everyone else is a problem. People moving to the UK have for too long been treated as disposable commodities, their rights determined by how useful they are seen to be. This is the very essence of the points-based system.
That’s why the government sometimes chooses to apply the rules differently to particular groups of people. It can, for instance, give out automatic one-year visa extensions to some health workers, at the same time as doubling down on the immigration system that dismisses other key workers.
So, if a shift is happening in society, it can’t just be piecemeal. We cannot repeat the same dehumanising ideas, where people are either framed as “cockroaches” and “illegals”, or as “productive” and “useful” workers; bad migrants v good migrants. Recognising low-skilled workers as key workers should be a starting point, not an end point, to change the immigration debate.
The government’s treatment of all migrants matters. As it has reissued statements on low-skilled workers, it has been remarkably quiet on certain key migrants’ rights issues during this crisis. Over the past few weeks I’ve spoken to people who are terrified about becoming destitute because the conditions attached to their visa bar them from accessing financial support. There are those who are scared to access healthcare because of the hostile environment. And the charity Detention Action has found that not only are people still being put in immigration detention, some are being detainedwhen presenting with coronavirus symptoms. These people are consistently overlooked because they aren’t seen to matter.
But if recognising our common humanity is something we can do when Boris Johnson is admitted to intensive care, the same should be possible for all people, regardless of their immigration status. All migrants’ rights should matter. Not just in a crisis, but all the time.
The government has sparked fury by quietly publishing guidelines for a crackdown on ‘low skilled’ immigration at the height of the coronavirus crisis.
Businesses had called for a delay to the new “points based” immigration rules, amid warnings they could throw care homes and healthcare providers into crisis.
And just days ago Boris Johnson’s stand-in Dominic Raab heaped praise on checkout workers and cleaners, saying: “I think you’ve certainly made us all think long and hard about who the ‘key workers’ are in our lives.”
But Home Secretary Priti Patel last night pressed ahead anyway, publishing guidance for employers outlining the new system.
The radical shake-up will block millions of ‘low-skilled’ – by which it means low-paid – workers from coming to the UK.
After Brexit people will have to earn over £25,600, have a job offer and speak English to a certain level in order to get a work visa.
There will be some exceptions for people who earn £20,480 to £25,600 in shortage areas like the NHS.
But the plans have prompted an outpouring of fury from businesses and council who warn sectors like social care face “disaster”.
In response the Home Office told businesses they should simply end their “reliance on cheap, low-skilled labour”.
Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said the guidance was a “slap in the face”.
He said: “These last few weeks have been a stark reminder, not that one should be needed, of the incredibly important contribution frontline workers make in our communities.
“Workers like nurses, carers, supermarket staff and refuse collectors are playing a vital role in saving lives and keeping our country running, often at risk to themselves. It will be a slap in the face to many of these workers to see themselves classed as low skilled and unwelcome in Britain.”
Tom Hadley, director of policy and campaigns at the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC), called for a “temporary immigration route” in light of the Covid-19 crisis.
“Now is not the right time to plough on with immigration reforms. The national effort needs to be focused on eliminating coronavirus, protecting jobs and getting the economy back on track.
“The country will recover from this pandemic – and ensuring businesses have the skills they need in future will be essential to the recovery. From carers and cleaners to retail workers and drivers, the current crisis is showing us how much we depend on people at all skill levels.
“We need a temporary immigration route meet the needs businesses in every sector of the economy. Post-Brexit and post-virus, this will help businesses succeed and support job and growth here in the UK.”A government spokesperson said: “Now that we have left the EU, free movement is coming to an end and we will be introducing a new points-based immigration system from January 2021.
“We want to give employers as much time as possible to prepare for the new system that will bring in the best and brightest to the UK, which is why we have published this guidance today.
“The Government is committed to helping businesses through this difficult time. We have announced unprecedented support for businesses including £330 billion in business loans and guarantees, cash grants for small businesses, paying 80% of furloughed workers’ wages, business rates holidays and tax deferrals.”
Multicultural Meanderings 