No Borders Manchester

UKBA vans sabotaged in Salford

2010-06-21T09:36:00.000-07:00

After an article was published by the Mule newspaper questioning the validity of celebrating Manchester Day while places such as Pennine House and Dallas Court exist, they are now reporting an act of sabotage on UKBA snatch squads in Salford on 'Manchester Night':

Manchester and Salford’s immigration reporting centre for people seeking asylum was attacked in the early hours of this morning by protestors. A group broke into the car park at Dallas Court where they sabotaged the vehicles used by the UK Border Agency’s notorious ’snatch squads’.

According to reports, the vans were immobilised and defaced with spray paint, while the access gate to the car park was also put out of action. Stickers reading “This vehicle has been tampered with” were left at the scene to notify staff.

In a statement the group said: “The action was taken in solidarity with detainee resistance. In the past months media reports have covered the hunger strikes in Yarl’s Wood, protests in Harmondsworth and struggles against chartered deportation flights. These are acts of resistance against an arbitrary system of control and surveillance policed by the UK Home Office and European immigration authorities.”

Dallas Court is home to officials from the UK Border Agency. The snatch squads which operate from the centre often head out in blacked-out vans early in the morning to detain those asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected. They are known for kicking in doors before the children go to school in order to catch the entire family at once. Asylum seekers are also made to sign in at Dallas Court at regular intervals, not knowing whether or not they will be detained on the spot.

When arrested, detainees are taken to detention centres such as nearby Pennine House, the holding facility at Manchester Airport, where they wait indefinitely until their cases are resolved. After long periods of incarceration, despite having committed no crime and having had no trial or sentence, most detainees can expect deportation back to the countries from which they fled.

This is the second time in recent years that Dallas Court has been targeted by campaigners seeking to obstruct dawn raids and disrupt the centre’s day-to-day activities, which today’s protestors described as a symbol of the “constant uncertainty and fear” that asylum seekers and migrants live under.

They said: “Every person has the right to fight against these conditions irrespective of circumstance, and as long as these policies exist people will struggle against them. New arbitrary controls such as the immigration cap proposed by the new government will only intensify resistance. Such resistance will centre on the frontline of border security at sites like Dallas Court and Pennine House.”

May Day Report

2010-05-09T04:37:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who helped to make the day a great success. This was the first time in years that there was an explicitly anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist event on 1 May in Manchester - so we are glad it went well.

We only decided three weeks before May Day to call for an autonomous bloc on the annual trade union march and a post-demonstration get-together with the slogan 'You cannot represent us'. This was to counterbalance what we anticipated to be the complete dominance of electoral politics on 1 May in Manchester.

Anti-authoritarians, including from No Borders and the Anarchist Federation, had a decent presence on the march and in town early in the day, distributing lots of literature critical of representational politics. Due to the low profile of the march in Manchester, this was no easy task and we confirm our commitment to mobilise for it in the future.

Others had been busy all morning setting up marquees and a soundsystem on Birley Fields, Hulme. The Fields are due for development by Manchester Metropolitan University and Hulme residents have set up a campaign to save them. A speaker from the campaign described them on the day as 'the green lungs for the working people of the area'. The overwhelmingly positive response from Hulme residents to our presence there shows the great value of this land for the area.

With the rain staying away unexpectedly, the site quickly filled up towards the afternoon with over 200 people coming and going throughout the day. Due to the great work of a Manchester free party crew, music started bang on time at 3pm with a set by Attila the Stockbroker and David Rovics who kindly passed by on the way to their Bradford gig. They were followed by a diverse range of performers and bands from reggae via punk to folk until it got dark. An open-mic speakers corner between the acts saw people from various campaigns talk about government cuts to service and politics away from the ballot box.

The day ended with some impromptu fireworks and a great team-effort to restore Birley Fields to its original state. We are considering a similar event for May Day next year, so be sure to get involved..

You cannot represent us - election count picket in Mcr

2010-05-06T18:15:00.000-07:00

no borders and friends presented a 'petition' to election candidates in Manchester Central at the start of the election count on 6 May.

'You cannot represent us' was the message of the day, with politicians and candidates reminded that unpopular decisions affecting our lives will always be resisted. The picket was held right across the road from the entrance to the Town Hall where ballot boxes were brought in. Police tried to move people behind crowd barriers but failed.

The petition was actually a large wooden board that was used by people at the autonomous Mayday BBQ in Hulme as a message board to write down why they did not vote.

Some photos are here:

No Borders Community MayDay

2010-04-10T03:19:00.000-07:00

No Borders Community MayDay BBQ 1st May 2010, Birley Fields Hulme.

Sick of the elections? Sick of tedious work, or being told to get a job? Don’t know who to vote for and think it probably wouldn’t make any difference anyway? Us too!

Join us on Mayday to celebrate International Workers Day, the historical and daily struggle of workers - paid, unpaid and ‘unemployed’ - against the daily grind that is work and ‘life’ under capitalism.

Manchester No Borders calls for a 'You Cannot Represent Our Diversity' anti-election bloc on the TUC May day march (Sat 1st May, 12pm, All Saints Park- look out for the banner) and a celebratory BBQ and Alternative Speakers Corner on Saturday 1st May in Birley Fields, 3pm, between Bonsall St and Streford Rd, Hulme. Hulme has a long tradition of dissent and resisting mainstream ideas of how the ‘local community’ should be doing things. Let’s keep it going and celebrate one of the best bits of public green space in South Manchester at the same time .

The three main political parties, as well as the whacky ones like UKIP and the BNP, assume that being ‘tough on immigration’ is the way to win votes.

If you’re sick of such simplistic scapegoating ideas, which divide people against one another locally and globally, and never look at the causes of inequality, join us on May Day!

Come together to celebrate diversity and community! No Borders, No Nations!

BBQ ** Local Musicians ** Fun & Games ** Non Party-Political Discussions **

Spoken Word Performance **Info Stalls ** Urban Gardening ** Kids’ Area **
And post here the rest of it.

No Borders benefit gig (Bring Alex Back Home)

2010-04-10T03:06:00.000-07:00

Manchester No Borders supports...

Saturday, April 24th - Trof Fallowfied
from 2pm stalls and food
in the evening - gig organised by the band 'Uncle Meat and the Highway Children'.

Here's a message from the band:

As some of you will be aware after Uncle Meat and the Highway Children's summer tour their friend Alex was unable to return to the country. To combat this problem we have organised a benefit gig at Trof Fallowfield on April 24th...

From 2pm there will be art/craft and local designer stalls plus Vegan Dinner Raves will offer you a scrumptious selection of cuisine from all corners of the world to help raise some money to get him back in the UK. Needle & Dread stylist Laurelle will also be about during ther day braiding and dreading hair for donations... If yo have any crafty things like bead, ribbon, wool etc that your dont need please bring it along!

Throughout the whole day there will be a free shop with clothes, books and lots of other unwanted treasures available.

In the evening there will be a selection of live music and poetry from:
Uncle Meat and The Highway Children
www.myspace.com/meatykids

John Player Specials
www.myspace.com/thejohnplayerspecials

Sam Buchanan and The Bathroom Crooners
www.myspace.com/thebathroomcrooners

Deaf Two The West
www.myspace.com/deaftwothewest

Jezzabell
www.myspace.com/jezzadahat

Paradox Poets through out the day!

Any extra money raised will go to support the hard work of UK No Borders. http://www.noborders.org.uk/
The night will also offer a variety of information about how and why smashing borders is a good idea and in turn will offer you a chance to get involved with a group near you.
The amount of the Donation is your choice and if your skint feel free to come and join in anyway :)
Can i also ask that if anyone wishes to donate ingredients or help in kitchen, please get in touch. And if you have any unwanted clothes, books, music, house hold items, please bring them along to put in the free shop, if you need help to bring bigger items, get in touch and im sure we can arange something

After living in the UK for 2 years, Alex left to travel europe with his band for 6 months to avoid breaking the rules of immigration. When he tried to return to the UK he was refused entrance at the border due to the fact the immigration officer believed he was trying to obtain work in the UK. The
means of proof being typing his name into facebook and finding out he was a
musician. He was deported back into europe with no means of support. \he
gathered enough evidence to try and re enter several months later, including
a sponsor and a list of people willing to support his stay in the UK.
However the second attempt proved fruitless as he was again refused on the
grounds his attempt was too desperate, detained in a room akin to to a cell
and deported on a boat back to europe where he is now considered an illegal
immigrant. He now has to go back to america and be thousands of miles away
from the life he has created in england. As his friends and family and firm
believers in no borders we are striving to bring him back by putting on
benefit shows in conjunction with no borders and raising money to help
assist him with the expenditure of visa costs and to show him how much we
love him. Plans include the first show in troff, manchester on april 24th,
an all day punk gig sometime in may and many more. We aim to get alex back
within four months. If anyone is interested in helping in any way shape or
form please get in touch, this group has been set up to show our support for
alex and our dissaproval at the immigration control in england, who act like
god and have the right to strip a person of their life no matter what the
circumstances just because a person doesnt fit their idealsim. In a free
world we should be able to travel openly and without fear, BECAUSE THIS IS
OUR WORLD as much as it is theirs but we are the ones STUCK IN THE RED TAPE.
Show your anger, show your support, not just for Alex, but for the joke that
is the whole fucking system..

No Deportations to the Congo!

2010-03-16T07:07:00.000-07:00

Manchester No Borders supported Congolese asylum seekers who held a protest against forced removals in the centre of Manchester on Saturday 13th.

About 50 Congolese assembled at All Saints Park at noon, with a small number of supporters from socialist and anarchist groups. They danced and sang their way along Oxford Street, sitting down in the road at intervals in a symbolic 'die in.' The first die-in was outside the BBC building, in protest at its failure to give any coverage to the war in Congo.

You can find a series of photographs and more information about the protest here and here.

There is a video of the protest, with interviews, here.

Solidarity with the Yarl's Wood hungerstrikers

2010-03-01T11:50:00.000-08:00

The national press have started to acknowledge the continuous resistance and protests that occur in Britian's detention centres. The latest - a hunger strike by women in Yarl's Wood who tell of violent and racist assaults by immigration officials - has finally come to the attention of journalists and MPs. This article from the Truth, Reason & Liberty blog provides a good political summary:

"Yesterday, the Observer reported that "Senior Home Office officials will be questioned this week over allegations that women inside Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre were assaulted by staff using riot shields." This comes after significant efforts from immigrant and refugee groups to draw attention to the issue, holding their latest and largest protest on the issue only two days earlier.

That the rebellion inside the centre has finally gained national exposure can be counted as a significant victory. However, the vast majority of the media stil holds to a rabidly anti-immigrant line. With the government determined to do the same, gaining anything more than temporary exposure remains difficult."

read the full article here

Continued opposition to Arora Hotels planning application

2010-01-04T13:01:00.000-08:00

We recently posted here news of a planning application by Arora International Hotels for the conversion of the Mercure Hotel, Crawley into an Immigration Removal Centre.

We now heard that the planning meeting has been put back till 25 January. Ahead of this, an to send a message of condemnation, No Borders activists paid another short visit to the Arora branch in Manchester city centre.

We were awaited by a security guard and the hotel manager who somehow seemed to expect our return. There is still time to oppose the planning application by contacting Crawly Council or Arora Hotels.

Playwright Lydia Besong arrested at Dallas Court

2009-12-10T13:43:00.000-08:00

This article has been taken from The Mule website.

Supporters of Lydia Besong are demanding her immediate release after she was detained this morning by immigration officials. Lydia, a playwright and human rights activist seeking asylum in the UK, was snatched this morning while signing in at the Home Office Reporting Centre Dallas Court in Salford.

There will be a vigil his Saturday (12 December), 3pm at Friends Meeting House behind the Central Library.

Campaigners are asking people to contact the Home Office urging Lydia’s immediate release and quoting HO Ref: B1236372

FAX: Home Office on 0208-760-3132

Email:

CITTO@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk; UKBApublicenquiries@UKBA.gsi.gov.uk;

Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

and cc admin@rapar.org.uk

For further information contact:

* Richard Goulding at RAPAR 0161 834 8221
* 07776 264646
* RAPAR’s Press Officer Kath on 0161-225-2260 or kath.northernstories@googlemail.com
* or admin@rapar.org.uk

She is now being held in a detention centre in the south of England from which the Home Office plan to deport her on 21 December to Cameroon, where she is wanted by the authorities who previously tortured her for her political views.

Lydia and her husband, Bernard Batey, were told at the end of October that they must leave the UK. The couple fled Cameroon in December 2006, having been jailed and tortured for being members of the Southern Cameroon National Council, a party declared illegal by the government. As well as being tortured during her time in prison, Lydia was raped by one of the guards. When she escaped she and Bernard sought asylum in the UK, where they have lived ever since.

Lydia is a writer, whose debut play “How I Became an Asylum Seeker” was staged by Community Arts Northwest (CAN) on 3 December to a full house at the Zion Theatre in Hulme. She wrote the play partly to find a way of coping with her horrific experiences, and to raise awareness about asylum. She is also on the Management Committee of Woman Asylum Seekers Together (WAST).

More recently Lydia has been working alongside RAPAR and Commonword collecting stories about those living in destitution in Manchester. Commonword’s Artistic Director, Pete Kalu, said, “Lydia has been a tremendous resource in helping us to find new pathways to new writers in communities.”

Lead Artistic Manager for CAN Jasmine Ali said, “Lydia has been an inspiration for the artistic team with her dedication and commitment to the project. Without her contribution WAST would not have had the confidence to devise and perform their play to a wider audience.”

On the morning of 19 November Lydia signed in at Dallas Court to be told that she and her husband were now required to report every week to the centre on Thursday mornings. Lydia was detained this morning, on the third Thursday of the new conditions. Campaigners working on Lydia and Bernard’s behalf feared officials would arrest them at the Reporting Centre, as this tactic is often employed by the Home Office to stop any intervention by supporters and friends.

The campaign to stop the couple’s deportation has gained much support, under the umbrella of the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns. Both current and former MPs, Paul Rowen and Sir Cyril Smith, are backing their constituents along with Reverend Graham Lindley, Parish Priest at St Anne’s Church in Rochdale. Paul Rowen has been contacted by her supporters and is working with lawyers to secure her release.

Robert Sharp, of English PEN, the charity which campaigns for writers and playwrights internationally, is also calling for Lydia’s immediate release.

“This is a blow for freedom of speech. With this detention, Lydia’s fledgling literary career will be cut short. It is astonishing that the UK plans to deport someone who has been seeking refuge from a government that attacked her just for exercising her right to freedom of expression,” he said

Richard Goulding from RAPAR told MULE, “Lydia has now been transferred away from Manchester, presumably in the south of England. We guess Yarl’s Wood but we don’t know for certain.

“The reason it’s happened this week is because she had her play with a full house at the Zion Centre last week, and we don’t think they’d dare do it then. Now they’ve tried to do it with as little fuss as possible.”

In light of Lydia’s detention a vigil has been organised for this Saturday (12 December), 3pm at Friends Meeting House behind the Central Library. In a message encouraging people to attend, campaigner Tom Lavin said, “The Home Office’s deportation strategy is very pragmatic and public pressure makes a big influence on their decisions.”

This has recently been proven by the release of the Mansour family following a judicial review just hours before their scheduled flight back to Cairo.

Talking to MULE, Lydia’s husband Bernard was clearly distraught, “We’re fighting but the system is too much, we can’t go home but the government is trying to force us.

“I’m really confused. I don’t know what she’s going through now. She has to fight, we are going to fight you know. My wife is just my life and we have to fight for our lives.

“But at the moment we don’t know where Lydia is. I’m still waiting for the solicitors call.”

Goulding added, “It’s kind of a waiting game now, but we urge people to come along at 3pm on Saturday to show solidarity and to send emails of support.”

No Borders Fundraiser

2009-11-22T15:43:00.000-08:00

No Borders invites you to a fundraiser night at the Corner in Fallowfield, this Wednesday, 25 November.

Come at 7 to hear updates from what's happening in Calais, and we're showing the latest No Borders films until about 9.

After this, it's a night of Dub, Dance Hall, Reggae and Ska from the Cool Runnings DJs - until 1am.

FREE entry/donations towards No Borders

The venue: The Corner, it's right next to Trof in Fallowfield, where Landcross Road meets Wilmslow Road.

Arora Hotels: one for the 'City of Shame'?

2009-11-18T05:42:00.000-08:00

* Arora Management Services Ltd plans to turn its four-star Mercure
Gatwick hotel into an immigration detention centre.

* Campaigners vow to target Arora and Mercure until the plans are dropped.

Arora Management Services Ltd has applied to Crawley Borough Council for planning permission to turn its four-star Mercure Gatwick Hotel into an immigration detention centre. If the planning permission is granted, the hotel will be converted into a secure prison and the 245 bedrooms into single and family cells.

Established in 1999, Arora International Hotels is one of the UK's fastest growing privately owned hotel companies, with six luxury hotels in and around Heathrow and Gatwick airports and one in Manchester city centre.

Like other private companies that run privatised detention centres across the country, Arora is trying to sell its plan by arguing that locating detention centres at airports would make deportations easier and less costly for the government.

Anti-detention campaigners have already held two protests at Mercure Hotels in London, demanding that Mercure/Arora drops its plans to turn one of its hotels into an immigration prison. Hotel staff and guests of the Arora branch in Manchester were leafleted by members from Manchester No Borders. London No Borders are calling for a demonstration outside Crawly Town Hall on 7 December, when the Council will discuss the planning application.

The Manchester Arora Hotel is on Princess Street, around the corner from Manchester Art Gallery.

On class and migrant solidarity

2009-10-21T04:21:00.000-07:00

This is an article that we wrote after the Calais No Borders camp. It addresses some of the criticisms we received from some anarchists in Britain. The text was published in Black Flag magazine no.230 with the title 'In defence of migrants'.

On class and migrant solidarity

“Riot police stop anarchist assault on Britain's borders” was the Daily Mail headline about the No Borders camp in Calais. What happened at “Britain’s borders” and what has anarchism got to do with it?

While the quiet camp passed unremarked, newspapers from the Guardian to the Telegraph ran vivid features on what the camp encountered, documenting migrant lives in Calais with varying degrees of sympathy. These were prompted by government talks and the opening of the UN office, but reflected and refracted our experiences. In Calais, the externalisation of the British border to France creates a situation of direct struggle between authoritative oppression and people who do not obey these restrictions. On their way to Britain, thousands camp in the vicinity of Calais restricted in their agency by oppressive state policies.

In solidarity with those enacting their opposition to control and global inequality by moving across borders in search of better lives, the No Borders Camp aimed to demonstrate (and act) against the state’s hegemonic and arrogant claim to control the movement of people. The No Borders position and anarchism share a mutual enemy: borders as institutionalisation of authority.

Alas, upon our return from the Calais No Border camp we noticed a surprising development. While in continental Europe anarchists mobilise in solidarity with migrants facing the xenophobic responses to the recession (at the Calais demonstration there was a large turnout of French anarchist groups and CNT syndicalists), in the UK some anarchists have begun to question the fundamentals of that solidarity. To us it seems like this is the result of a false opposition of class and immigrant solidarity.

The 'English' anarchists – of that identity they seem to be proud – write on blogs and discussion forums that they will stand in defence of the working class when the “liberals” of No Borders abolish immigration controls in favour of capitalist exploitation. There is Matt D., member of the IWW and Liberty & Solidarity who blogs at ‘workers self organisation’. He draws a distinction that could have come straight from a primitivist or gated-communities pamphlet: “no borders… or community control of resources”. The No Borders position for him is “un-anarchist” as it “can only be realised if some large international body enforces it”. Or take 9/11 Cultwatch writer Paul Stott who finds it hard to believe that anarchists would “travel to another country” in solidarity with migrants rather than staying here in solidarity with workers facing recession. Even Class War founder Ian Bone on his blog defines class struggle in national terms: “it’s our England we will fight for”. Paul Stott again adds to this a typical expression of labour movement nationalism: “Is there anything more likely to drive down existing wages than mass immigration?”

We do welcome discussion and criticism, even and especially of the fundamentals of our theory and practice. We are not shy of debate and hope that in the near future we can continue and exchange with the ‘English’ class struggle anarchists. For now, in the constraints of a short article, we want to briefly respond to four frequent statements from within that movement that we have disagreed with.

1. No borders would benefit capitalism

You will have probably observed that, today, movement is increasingly free - just so long as it is profitable. To say that capitalism would benefit from no borders is to overlook the role border control has served and continues to serve in the maintenance of an exploitative status quo. It is one of the primary means through which labour-power is disciplined and global divisions of labour, privilege and power are enforced. At the border the abstract logic of profit confronts the lived reality of our lives. Hence the border, like the factory, is both a site of suffering and a vector of antagonism.

2. No borders is utopian

Yes, but only if you think like a state. ‘But how can you make this work, its unmanageable, its not practical,’ the anxious statesman will cry. From the perspective of the state, no borders is indeed utopian – a place that could not be. For us, no borders is an axiom of political action, a principle of equality from which concrete, practical consequences must be drawn. It means recognising, on the basis of our equality, solidarity in struggle irrespective of origins. There is nothing less utopian and nothing more immediately practical than this.

3. An anarchist society would have community borders

The border traces a threshold of inside and outside. What is outside is perceived as dangerous and a threat to the inside, hence the ‘need’ for a border. The security that the border offers is essentially imposed externally and with reference to this threat. But there is another kind of security, one created internally through cooperation and mutual support. There is nothing in this kind of security which necessitates the exclusionary and violent practices of bordering. It is this latter kind of cooperative security which we are hoping to create.

4. National culture should be reclaimed

The nation state is a modern/recent form of sovereignty based (not solely) on forms of cultural nationalism which in turn are achieved through the glorification of typically 'English' traditions and stereotypes. We do not aim to undermine or ignore the history and traditions of struggle in the UK. Rather our aim is to undermine static conceptions of culture or community that create imagined divisions between 'us' and 'them'; divisions that have very real consequences for those who find they cannot, or do not want, to fit into these rigidly defined identities.

For us it seems that rather than attempting to transcend notions of class (domination), this new 'English' anarchism appeals to an affirmative cultural identity of class. We feel that we need to abandon such sociological concepts of class for revolutionary perspectives of social struggle. Not everyone sees the distinction between class struggle and migrant solidarity. Let's conclude with a comment by 'Alessio', who defends the no borders position in a reply to Paul Stott: “As the 'English' anarchists ponder on their next move, it seems like every other anarchist movement across Europe strides confidently forward. I see a pattern emerging here, maybe we should be more confident in anarchist politics and how we express them rather than continuously feel that we should pander or apologise to certain sections of the class in the UK.”
.

Target Brimar

2009-10-15T03:10:00.000-07:00

Manchester has got a new anti-militarist campaign. It is being launched on Saturday with a national demonstration in Chadderton, at the head office and main production facility of Brimar Ltd.

Brimar manufactures specialist screens and viewing equipment, mostly for military purposes. They are used by the British army in Afghanistan, the US army in Iraq and the Israeli army in Palestine.

No Borders activists will support the demonstration on Saturday at 12noon. You can find out how to get there and more information on the campaign website .

See you there!.

Do you remember this banner?

2009-10-14T14:11:00.000-07:00

We made it our group’s banner 2 years ago, and took it to pretty much all the demonstrations and actions we attended.

We also took it to the Calais No Borders camp last June. This is where it got confiscated by the French CRS riot police during a leaflet distribution in the town centre. All people who took part in the (apparently illegal) flyering session got arrested, some quite brutally.

Manc No Borders people got away with it that time (though 3 of us were detained for no obvious reason a couple of weeks ago in Calais). But our banner couldn’t be rescued. There was a dramatic-looking photograph in the local paper the next morning, with two anarchists from Lille running away with the banner from a group of riot cops.

That landed them with the charge of ‘rebellion’ (as far as we understand it that’s similar to ‘resisting arrest’ over here). They were in court in Boulogne today, and we’re still waiting to hear if they got sentenced. What we did hear however was that our banner was used in court as evidence against them! And it’s never to be returned.

We’ve already made a replacement for it, which we took to London last week for a picket of Becket House reporting centre:

There’s a report and more pictures of the picket on indymedia. So look out for it on future demos and come join us.
.

Stop the EDL marching in Manchester

2009-10-06T08:41:00.000-07:00

Manchester No Borders joins the call out to prevent the English Defence League (EDL) from taking over central Manchester next Saturday.

The EDL are a newly formed group who claim to be protesting against ‘Islamic extremism’. Their recent demonstrations in Luton, Harrow and Birmingham all involved racial violence, racist chants and fascist salutes, and included many known members of the BNP and National Front.

Supporters have called for the protest in Manchester to be ‘the day of reckoning’ when ‘English lions will rise up’, with some going so far as to call for ‘all out war against Islam’. They will arrive from 10am and be kept at bay by police, in theory, until their ‘static rally’ at 5pm in Picadilly Gardens. However, online forums show members discussing possible routes for ‘the march’ and vowing to ignore rules that keep them in one place.

There will be an anti-fascist presence in Manchester City Centre all day. No Borders activists will join the non-aligned/anarchist action which is being organised this week.

See you there!

"Still Not Loving Tories - Still Not Loving Police"

2009-10-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

30 people picketed the entrance to Manchester Town Hall and leafletted top cops from around the country as ACPO members and senior Tories met to discuss policing strategies.

With banners, placards and speech bubbles, the group from Manchester No Borders said: Still Not Loving Police, Still Not Loving Tories - as we returned to the place where we had previously embarrassed council leader Richard Leese with a mountain of jumpers: see here.

A large police presence was nearby with some ten vans and 8 horses in Albert Square. Evidence gatherers also showed up for a while. For more pictures see the report on indymedia.

On Sunday evening, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) held a conference fringe meeting with shadow home secretary Chris Grayling MP in Manchester Town Hall. (Grayling was also the guy who compared Moss Side to The Wire, see here.

Outside, anti-authoritarian protesters held their own rally, and warned that a Conservative government could bring clashes with police not seen since the miner’s strike and the poll tax riots.

Fittingly, the country’s senior police officers were discussing strategies on “how to build public confidence in policing” after the criticisms they received over their use of stop and search powers, their handling of football matches and environmental protests, and the killings of Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson.

We maintain that this will be an impossible task to achieve under a new Conservative government. Have we really forgotten the policing of the miner’s strike and the poll tax riots?

As we see it, the police does not serve to protect communitites. It serves to protect the government of the time and to squash dissent against unpopular policies. And under the Tories there will be a lot more of these.

We are specifically thinking of home evictions, lay-offs and welfare cuts. All these will bring more protest, and if the police step in, resistance.

Tories and Chief Police Officers coming to Manchester

2009-10-01T05:22:00.000-07:00

From the miners to the G20... Still not loving Tories! Still not loving police! - Anti police repression demo

Sunday 4th October, 17.00, Manchester Town Hall.

As a fringe event to the Conservative party conference, the Tories and the police are getting together to discuss the question 'How do we build public confidence in policing?' See below.

Manchester No Borders invites you to join us outside the event, as they arrive, to remind them why we will never have confidence in either the Tories or the police.

Bring banners, placards, etc.
.

17.30 Association of Police Authorities & Association of Chief Police Officers & Police Superintendents’ Association

Manchester Town Hall : Conference Hall

The Thin Blue Line: How do we build Public Confidence in Policing?

Speakers : Chris Grayling MP, Shadow Home Secretary; Rob Garnham, Conservative Lead - Association of Police Authorities; Sir Hugh Orde, Incoming President - Association of Chief Police Officers; Ian Johnston, President - Police Superintendents’ Association; Conservative Local Government Association Representative

emergency protest at French Consulate

2009-09-18T06:54:00.000-07:00

Manchester No Borders held an emergency protest at the French
consulate today, after French riot police have begun mass evictions
and arrests of refugees hoping to join the UK via the French port town of
Calais.

On Wednesday, French immigration minister, Eric Besson, announced that the
Calais area will be a ‘migrant-free zone’ by the end of next week. Large
areas of woodland, known locally as the ‘jungle’, where young men, many
still children, have set up temporary shelters are to be cleared and
bulldozed.

Enough is Enough: ongoing repression in Calais

2009-08-21T07:40:00.000-07:00

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! Let's act now to denounce and resist the repression of migrants in the Calais region.

Following Besson's declaration to make Calais a "zero-migrant zone" before the end of 2009, the destruction of jungles, mass evictions of squats and subsequent forced deportations look likely to take place over the coming weeks and months in the Calais region. Although no mass evictions or deportations have yet taken place, and the specific plans of the French government remain unclear, policies and actions aimed against migrants is undoubtdebly stepping up. The last month has already seen regular evictions and an increase in police activities and brutalities. The video recently produced by a No Borders activist is evidence of this:
www.dailymotion.com/megaphone01

A small group of us have been present in Calais since the No Border camp at the end of June, including people from Manchester. Having been witness to daily arrests, gassing and beatings of migrants, we believe now is time to act, denounce and resist the repression of migrants in Calais. Police activity has made Calais a sieged town where migrants are denied their basic rights of access to food, water, sanitation and freedom of movement. We cannot wait for the French government to carry out more devastating actions in Calais, we need to act now!

We have been trying to monitor the police, and when possible prevent them attacking migrants and the camps. We have alerted politicians and NGOs to what is happening in Calais. We have protested at the French Embassy in London, UK, and the French Consul in Barecelona, Spain, and at the CRS police and mayor in Calais. We are hoping to get a more permanent space in Calais soon.

Please join us in Calais.

calaisolidarity@gmail.com
www.calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com
00 33 6 34 81 07 10

LATEST PRESS RELEASE: A squat in Calais, occupied by dozens of Afghan migrants, was destroyed yesterday morning by the French authorities under the pretext of an anti-scabies operation.

The French government is exploiting a scabies epidemic to clear the migrants from the ad-hoc encampments known as the ‘Jungles’ in the Calais area.

At approximately 10am, scores of unknown individuals wearing gasmasks and dressed in white uniforms, entered the Tajik/Hazara squat in scrubland near the ferry port, tore apart their shelters and sprayed an irritant chemical over their belongings. They claimed to be disinfecting the area as part of a programme to treat scabies, despite the fact that the operation was officially cancelled by the French government. Cooking utensils were contaminated, and the absence of running water in the camps made cleaning their equipment especially difficult. “ We are not animals.” One Afghan said. The unknown individuals also seized essential materials such as clothing, and arrested six people, all under the gaze of several vanloads of CRS police.

Humanitarian groups and activists from the No Border Network and Calais Migrant Solidarity had been monitoring the situation in the numerous camps – which in all, are inhabited by some 1,800 migrants from countries such as Afghanistan and Sudan – but the raid occurred shortly after they had left the camp for the morning.

This incident indicates change in tactics by the French authorities as they now seek to justify the continued repression of migrants in Calais, which has been drawing increased criticism by human rights groups. They intend to protest against the daily raids and police repression with a demonstration leaving from Coquelles detention centre at 2pm on Saturday 22nd August.

Urgent: threat to Calais migrants

2009-07-18T16:01:00.000-07:00

People from within the No Borders network have issued a call out for activists, legal observers, journalists and video activists to support migrants in Calais against imminent police attack and deportation!

The French immigration minister, Mr.Besson has officially announced that plans for the destruction of the refugee camps in Calais and the subsequent deportation of refugees will take place this week between the 20th and 25th of July. There is an urgent need for people to go to Calais to protest against the clearances as well as to act as legal & human rights observers as police begin destroying the camps and attempting to remove people.

Please act now in any of the following ways:

To go to Calais for direct solidarity this week:
http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/2009/07/16/call-out-for-cameras-video-activist-and-legal-observers-in-calais/

For phone and email blockades of the French Embassy in London; Phil Woolas, UK Immigration Minister; the French Interior Ministry. All contacts at the end of this message at http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/

To lobby your MEP:
http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/2009/07/17/eu-council-directives-of-use-to-lobby-meps/

http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/2009/07/16/model-letter-for-mps/

To join in protests in London:
http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/2009/07/16/protest-against-destruction-of-calais-jungles/

For an Open statement about Calais situation to all concerned, to be sent
to NGO's, human rights organizations, Trade Unions, anyone else you can
think of:
http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/category/calais-witnesses/

For helping with direct solidarity in August:
http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/solidarity-not-charity/

Feedback and open discussion on Calais

2009-07-03T08:44:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday 8th July, we will be hosting a public feedback and discussion event on the recent No Borders camp in Calais. People who went to the camp will tell their stories and share their experiences and we will reflect on the successes/limitations of the camp.

The situation in Calais continues to be pressing, with plans by the authorities to bulldoze more 'jungle' areas that are home to hundreds of people who are stuck at the British border, and a joint Franco-British project to build a Guantanamo-style detention centre in the port. We will thus also talk about how we can support the campaign in the future.

The meeting will be in the back room of the Jabez Clegg pub (Dover St. by the university), starting at 7.30pm on Wednesday 8th July. All welcome!

Calais: reports from the No Borders camp

2009-06-30T12:39:00.000-07:00

The transnational No Borders camp at the British Border in Calais has ended. Everyone who travelled there from Manchester has come back safely.

We have had a lot of fascinating encounters and experiences at the camp in Calais, which was situated very close to some of the ‘Jungle’ areas that are temporary ‘home’ to hundreds of refugees, right next to the E15 motorway which is the main route connecting Calais port to mainland Europe, and on the edge of the housing estates of the Beau-Marais neighbourhood. Just to the east of the city, our camp was inhabited by hundreds of activists from France, the UK and across Europe, and we were joined everyday by many migrants and locals.

We are planning a public event in Manchester very soon, where we will give report-backs from the camp, tell our stories, show our photos and films and discuss with all those who are interested how we can build more long-term strategies towards ‘a world without borders’.

Some 1,500 people took part in a transnational demonstration for freedom of movement on the Saturday.

There are many good reports of the camp and the demonstration on the internet already, so for now we just refer you to the feature article on Indymedia and the blog post by the South Wales No Borders group.

News from Calais

2009-06-17T13:55:00.000-07:00

After our info events in Manchester and Hebden Bridge, about 20 people from the Manchester area will travel to the No Borders Camp in Calais next week. A minibus will leave early on Monday 22 June (there are still seats available) and others will make their own way there.

The camp site has now been announced, situated in a public park to the east of Calais. We are intending to have some kind of ‘North West of England’ camping barrio to feed into the logistical and decision-making structures of the camp.

Local newspapers have already given a lot of coverage to the arrival of the No Borders camp, while here the Daily Mail has run one of its usual propaganda stories about violent anarchists invading Calais. It is possible that this could lead to some shops and supermarkets in the area to be shut during our presence there.

The Mayor of Calais and local authorities seem set on making the situation next week tense. Local civil society organisations have been pressured not to support the camp and migrants taking part in protests could be threatened with deportation. And there are indications that the nearby immigration detention centre ‘Coquelles’ could be evacuated for the duration of the camp.

Anti-riot police from all over Northern France are already being stationed in the Calais area. This comes after the recent arrival of organisations such as the IOM, the UNHCR and Medicins du Monde in the town. With all eyes on Calais, we now have a chance to make a real impact.

On Saturday 27 June, the camp participants will be holding a large demonstration for freedom of movement. The call for the demonstration has now also been signed by a wide range of anarchist, anti-fascist and anti-racist groups from the UK, France, Belgium and Germany.

We are hoping for this to be a truly transnational event, which could open spaces for significant political shifts in the public debate on migration to the UK.

More info here:
http://calaisnoborder.eu.org/

The UK No Borders tour: Manchester to Calais (via Hebden Bridge)

2009-05-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

The UK No Borders Tour 2009 is visiting the North West of England from 23 May to 5 June and invites you to a series of events that aim to encourage discussion and build awareness of the injustices of the UK and EU Border Regime, as well as to call for action against them. The Tour will terminate in the French border town of Calais on 23-29th of June, an outpost of the UK border system, where it will meet activists and organizations from France and Europe to create a No Borders Camp that aims to highlight the brutal situation for migrants stuck at the UK-French Border. Confirmed events so far include a photo exhibition and workshops and films in Manchester and Hebden Bridge.

EVENTS IN MANCHESTER & HEBDEN

Longsight

NO LANDS MEN: THE STRUGGLE FOR CALAIS (Saturday 23rd to Thursday 28th May)
An exhibition of striking photographs from Calais by French photographer Julie Rebouillat, St. Lukes Art Project, Longsight

LAUNCH NIGHT (Tuesday 26th May, 6pm), with documentaries, tea and cake. To see Julie’s pictures from Calais online check out: contre-faits.org! , St. Lukes, Longsight

Northern Quarter

NO LANDS MEN: THE STRUGGLE FOR CALAIS (Monday 1st to Friday 5th June)
An exhibition of striking photographs from Calais by French photographer Julie Rebouillat, Nexus Art Cafe

WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO BORDERS?! (Monday 1st June, 7pm) workshop and open discussion, Nexus Art Cafe

Hebden Bridge

WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO BORDERS?! (Tuesday 2nd June, 6.30pm) digital exhibition, workshop and open discussion, The Trades Club, food served at 6.30

For opening times, and more info click on the flyer images. Look out for more events announced soon and do get in touch with us if you want to host the UK No Borders Tour in a place near you!

No Borders on Manchester May Day demo

2009-05-06T03:04:00.000-07:00

Several hundred people were on the annual Mayday march in Manchester on Monday. The Evening News has an account and pictures of the demonstration under the banner of ‘The Right to Work for ALL’. Called by No Borders and the AF, a group of about 50 anti-authoritarians also joined the march.

The two lead banners of the autonomous bloc read ‘Fight Social Control’ and ‘We won’t pay for your crisis’, echoing our callout in solidarity with workers and communities who engage in direct action (successfully as the case of the Visteon workers shows).

Placards in the shape of speech bubbles also expressed anger at police brutality, not just at the G20, but with reference to the police killings of Carlos Giuliani at the 2001 G8, Charles de Menezes in London, the 15-year old anarchist Alexandros in Athens, and Ian Tomlinson.

For a Manchester demonstration that did not see much mobilisation this was a good turnout, both for the general demo and for the No Borders/AF bloc. [More pictures on indymedia] Thanks to everyone who came.

Gaza day of action: BAE Systems targeted - TWICE

2009-04-29T11:43:00.000-07:00

In response to a call by the UK No Borders network, it appears that the BAE Systems factory in Middleton/Greater Manchester had its entrances blockaded by two separate groups on the same day! Two unrelated posts on indymedia [2] take responsibility for actions that saw the gates to the factory locked with motorbike chains and bicycle D-locks in the morning of 27 April. BAE was also picketed by London No Borders.

Both groups refer to the No Borders call to 'break the siege of Gaza' by targeting those profiting from the border regime that prevents the free movement in and out of Gaza. No Borders had called for actions not in support of a supposed national collectivity, but simply in support of people's freedom of movement.

To hear it from those who took action:

People have a right to live without fear, racism and nationalism. Activists on the protest call for an end to border controls and act in solidarity with the international No Borders network.

The people driving the cars that will be delayed will almost certainly be grateful to have their jobs, anxious to keep them, even while they would probably have prefered to stay in bed. We are not attacking them. We are attacking the system that drives ordinary people to sell their time making the means to imprison and kill other ordinary people, in Palestine and around the world. Work or you're fucked: it's not a choice, it's a threat.

Well done!

No Borders UK called for action on the 27th April and an immediate opening
of Israeli and Egyptian borders with Gaza. Targets included those profiting
from the siege such as BAE, G4S, Caterpillar, EDO, Raytheon in solidarity
with groups in resistance on both sides of the border,Anarchists Against
the Wall, the "Sarvanim" Refuseniks of Israel, Free Gaza, and the
International Solidarity Movement. Freedom of movement for all!

On the 27th April BAE systems was the main target. The BAE factory in
Middleton, Manchester, was blockaded early on the morning of 27 April in
solidarity with the No Borders day of action to break the siege of Gaza...
a blockade that was later reinforced by another autonomous group! A
variety of locks and chains were used in order to seal off several
entrances to the plant and disrupt work.

The Israeli government is a customer of BAE, which makes border control
and surveillance systems as well as traditional weapons and the production
of military air 'solutions'. Gaza's borders have been closed since 5
February, 2009, following the Israeli attacks. These policies towards Gaza
are not only human rights violations, they are money-making opportunities
for companies like BAE.

In London No Borders activists also targeted BAE by conducting a picket
at the companies headquarters. The protest intended to draw attention to the British company’s profiting from the suffering and death of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and especially from the recent Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s sustained and
brutal military attack on Gaza which killed 1400 Palestinians and wounded
over 7000.

BAE, part of which was formerly the national company British Aerospace, is
a weapons manufacturer, and supplies components for combat aircraft used
by the Israeli military in offensive actions, such as Apache bomber-helicopters and F-16 bomber-jets. Last week, Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary David Milliband officially admitted that Israeli weapons used in Gaza “almost certainly” contained UK-supplied components, and cited BAE’s involvement.

BAE receive subsidies from the UK government in the form of export credits
and promotion. Although British arms exports account for only 1.5% of UK
exports and 0.2% of British jobs, the UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) has
more staff working on promoting the arms industry than all other
industries together, and BAE tops the list of British companies receiving
export credits, meaning the government guarantees arms payments to BAE in
case a foreign client defaults.

The siege continues.....freedom of movement for all!

Mayday calling...

2009-04-24T09:49:00.000-07:00

The G20 protests in the City of London were, in many ways, a massively mediatized spectacle. The real challenge is to show our opposition to the status quo at the local level of our everyday lives. This is why we are inviting you to join us on the Manchester Mayday demonstration, on Bank Holiday Monday 4th May.

With the Manchester Anarchist Federation, we will march together against redundancies and repossessions, against police brutality and cover-ups, and for a free and equal society beyond the logic of capital!

This will be a chance for those who experienced the police riot on 1st April to meet again, and for those who could not come to the G20 protests to voice their dissent closer to home. The violence that occurred at the G20 was not the result of a few individual “bad apples” within the Metropolitan Police but the systemic outcome of increasing systems of control. The repression we faced in London is a part of the same logic as that which attempts to impose ID cards, deport irregular migrants and enforce cut backs to our access to social welfare.

It will also be a chance to show solidarity with the Ford-Visteon workers who, faced with redundancy, occupied their factories in Belfast , Enfield and Basildon, or with the parents in Glasgow who seized control of the schools that were threatened with closure by the local council. Let’s continue to build a movement against capitalism and its crises.

We won’t pay for your crisis!
Fight social control!

Monday 4th May 09
Assemble 12noon @ All Saints Park to march to Castlefields.

CALAIS NO BORDER CAMP 23-29 JUNE

2009-04-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

The Calais No Border camp is a joint venture between French and Belgian
activists and migrant support groups and the UK No Borders Network. It aims
to highlight the realities of the situation in Calais and Northern France;
to build links with the migrant communities; to help build links between
migrants support groups; and lastly, but not least, to challenge the
authorities on the ground, to protest against increased repression of
migrants and local activists alike.

This camp calls for the freedom of movement for all, an end to borders and
to all migration controls. We call for a radical movement against the
systems of control, dividing us into citizens and non-citizens, into the
documented and the undocumented.

Why Calais?

We have chosen Calais for two main reasons; it is an important location in
the history, development and practice of European migration controls and
has long been a major bottleneck for those seeking to get to Britain. But
more importantly, it is also a focus of the struggle between those who
would see an end to all migration into the EU, and those trying to break
down the barriers between peoples, the borders that prevent the freedom of
movement for all, not just the privileged few.

Since the mid-nineties tens of thousands have lived in destitution,
sleeping rough in Calais, waiting for their chance to cross the channel to
England. Between 1999 and 2002 the Red Cross ran a centre at neighbouring
Sangatte but this was forced to close after political pressure from France
and Britain. Since then, the massive police presence and repression in
Calais has forced thousands of men woman and children to wander the Calais
region and all along the North coast of France, Belgium and Holland. They
are routinely brutalised by the police; tear-gassed, beaten, arrested and
repeatedly interned at the nearby Coquelles detention centre. The police
regularly burn their shelters and the few meagre possessions that they
contain. The local groups that support the migrants by providing food and
other humanitarian aid are coming under increasing attack from the police
and a number of activists have been arrested in recent months. Meanwhile
British Immigration Minister Phil Woolas has been calling for the
construction of a permanent holding/detention centre for migrants in
Calais docks.

The Bigger Picture

Calais however remains only one small part of the overall picture of
European migration controls, a major internal border within the hi-tech EU
borders regime. Since the beginning of the decade, the EU been attempting
to build 'Fortress Europe'; externalising EU borders into Africa and Asia
with EU border guards patrolling the Mediterranean, in Libya and off the
West Coast of Africa courtesy of the Frontex borders agency; and via the
European Neighbourhood Policy, where countries from the Ukraine all the
way round the Mediterranean to Morocco are now paid by the EU to do its
migration prevention work for it.

Migrants’ Rights Are Workers’ Rights

Through this system of border controls, authorities create two kinds of
migrants: a small number of ‘skilled’ migrants, who are designated as
‘useful’ to the state; and a massive number of undocumented workers who
have no rights and are therefore exploitable as cheap labour. Thus is our
fight for freedom of movement also a fight for the rights of all workers.

Transnational solidarity works!

Building links and working together allows us to share information between
us on a transnational level. It also allows us to exploit the fault-lines
and cracks in Fortress Europe. Last November, transnational solidarity
helped to prevent the planned deportation of Afghans from Calais to Kabul.

Campaigning Against Borders

This camp will continue the tradition of the No Border camps across the
world since the late 1990s and, like the camp taking place this year in
Lesvos in August, it will be a space to share information, skills,
knowledge and experiences; a place to plan and take action together
against the system of borders which divides us all. For centuries European
imperial powers have exploited the land, resources and people of the
majority world to become wealthy and powerful, leaving war, environmental
destruction and massive inequality in their wake. Those who attempt the
journey to the UK or elsewhere in Europe are challenging this injustice by
their movement. The situation in Calais is a result of the compromise and
conflict of interest between French and UK immigration policy and we call
on groups, networks and individuals here to take action across Europe and
to become part of a global movement of solidarity that defends their right
to choose where they move .

Equal rights for all !!

*No One Is Illegal. Freedom Of Movement And The Right To Stay For All*

http://calaisnoborder.eu.org/

http://london.noborders.org.uk/calais2009

Pennine House protest: A reply to Woolas

2009-04-21T14:12:00.000-07:00

Last month, 100 people demonstrated outside Pennine House, a purpose-built immigration prison at Manchester airport where migrants are locked up even though they haven’t committed a criminal offence. In the ‘Big Issue in the North’, the immigration minister Phil Woolas has responded to the protest with a number of inaccuracies. Here we set the record straight.

“Pennine House has been there for many years – why they are protesting about it now, I’m not quite sure.”

It’s not really that surprising, is it? Since Phil Woolas got the job of immigration and borders minister, he has been the most draconian and arrogant member of Brown’s cabinet. Remember him declaring war on migrant communities and their friends? Well, that’s us fighting back.

“It reopened because the old facility was not fit for purpose, and was refurbished. I would have thought they would have agreed with that.”

How dishonest can you be? Woolas wants to detain and deport more and more asylum seekers and thus plans to expand the detention capacity by 60% - to over 4,000 places. Pennine House was not just refurbished but was doubled in size, from 16 to 32 places.

Sure it was also refurbished after even the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons criticised it as a "poor" and "disrespectful" environment. There is finally a courtyard that received natural light, but the trade-off was that detainees can no longer receive visitors inside their living quarters but must meet their visitors in a special meeting room.

“I believe they think we should have no border control. I don’t think I can take that as a serious position.”

This is certainly a radical proposition. But it can’t just be reduced to a dislike of migration control. The border system that Woolas is in charge of is a mess – and it’s the most vulnerable who suffer most. This system can’t just be reformed; we need a complete overhaul of it. For us this means an end to all forms of authoritarian control – be they ID cards, the DNA register, police surveillance, or indeed the control of people’s movement.

“The people who are detained are people who have not co-operated with the judicial system. It is a relatively small number of people.”

An estimated 30,000 people are locked up in an immigration detention centre every year, including 2,000 children. This is not a small number, especially as it means that families, friends and communities are torn apart. And let’s remember that the majority of detainees have not committed any crime, have not had a trial or received a sentence.

Rather, they are arrested and detained when their asylum claims are refused, their visas run out, or they are otherwise deemed to "not have the right" to be in this country. This includes school and university students, migrant workers and families who have long been settled in the UK and who are often 'snatched' in dawn raids from their homes.

It is “not true” that vulnerable people are detained at Pennine House. “Sometimes they are dangerous people.”

Many asylum seekers and migrants lacking the right legal documents face a constant threat of being snatched by police and immigration officials in dawn raids or in swoops on their workplaces. Many have escaped violent conflict and war in their countries of origin and lived through traumatic journeys to the UK. Despite this, many display an amazing strength of character and sense of dignity. We are yet to meet a single immigration detainee who has been as dangerous to other people as the immigration and security staff accused of beating and torturing migrants in the back of Border Agency vans and in detention centres.

“They are people who have been judged not to have a legitimate immigration claim by the courts. That is not down to the government.”

The legal requirements for immigration claims as well as the decision to detain people in immigration prisons and to deport them are made by the government. The courts judge according to the law made by government policy.

“The facility is humane. It is subject to independent monitoring.”

A new lick of paint doesn’t change anything to the fact that locking up people who haven’t committed a crime can never be ‘humane’. We can only reiterate the call that we made with the demonstration: Abolish All Immigration Prisons!

Break the Siege! No Borders national day of action for Gaza

2009-04-17T05:33:00.000-07:00

On the 5th February, Israel and Egypt shut all borders with Gaza. Egypt has said it will close the Rafah border indefinitely as Gaza is an 'occupied territory'. No Borders UK calls for an immediate opening of Israeli and Egyptian borders with Gaza.

No Borders calls for a day of action on 27th April. Target those profiting from the siege (BAE, G4S, Caterpillar, EDO, Raytheon etc.).

No Borders is a network of groups struggling for the freedom of movement for all and an end to all migration controls. We demand the end of the border regime for everyone to enable us to live another way, without fear, racism and nationalism. We support groups in resistance on both sides of the border, from Anarchists Against the Wall in Israel, to the Free Gaza movement.

Solidarity with the victims of war does not mean solidarity with capitalist factions in a war from which they seek to benefit, nor does it mean supporting a cross-class, abstract national collective and its ethnic “rights” to lands. No Borders calls for a day of collective action against those responsible for the ongoing atrocities in Gaza. However, No Borders also rejects abandoning coherence to support a victory for a dangerous interpretation of “anti-imperialism”.

No Borders is reiterating the existing call from Palestinian community based organisations and the over 130 grassroots NGOs in the Palestinian NGO Network for an immediate opening of all border crossings currently controlled by Israel and Egypt. Refugees have been held at the border and denied medical care. The war is apparently over, yet hundreds are dying everyday because of this most brutal of border controls. Egypt blames Hamas, whilst Hamas claims that the injured refugees restrained themselves out of contempt for Egypt.

No Borders acts in solidarity with all those who are fighting to break the siege and stop the border control in Gaza. We call for collective action and practical solidarity with the people of Gaza. No Borders rejects all forms of nationalism and state based 'solutions'. Ethnicity does not grant “rights” to lands, which require the state to enforce them. People, however, have a right to having their human needs met, and should be able to live where they choose, freely.

In solidarity with Anarchists Against the Wall, the "Sarvanim" Refuseniks of Israel, the Sderot residents, Free Gaza, and the International Solidarity Movement, we call for a day of action targeting the profiteers and implementers of this siege. We call for groups to take action calling for an end to the brutal siege through civil resistance and direct action. No Borders calls for action in solidarity with those who reject all forms of nationalism, including the 'anti-Imperialist' nationalism endorsed during the war by some left-wing groups. We call for freedom of movement for all and an acknowledgment of those who are fighting on both sides of the borders to bring an end to the siege.

Fundraiser: Surveillance – The CCTV Cabaret

2009-04-06T06:59:00.000-07:00

The people from the Loiterers Resistance Movement are kindly offering the proceeds from their next 'surveillance'-themed fundraiser to us. Looks like a fun night!

Tuesday April 14th 7pm at The Britons Protection (show starts 7.30)

A night of ace music, short films, comedy ranting and miscellaneous shenanigans about public space, civil liberties, the database state and more. Prepare to laugh, cry, sigh and get angry...

The superb Quiet Loner will be playing a special themed set, and other musical delights will be provided by The Shrieking Violets (gorgeous lofi pop thrills) and You and Boo (yummy wonky folky loveliness)

PLUS
O a fine selection of short films from around the world for your entertainment
O visuals from urban explorers - hidden secrets they dare to uncover
O info from No Borders, No2ID, MAA, the LRM and more (bring stuff to share if you have it) about what is going on in Manchester
O biometric data raffle, free DIY camouflage kits, nice cake and other surprises

Entry Free / donations – all proceeds to Manchester No Borders
And post here the rest of it.

No Borders mobilises against G20 summit

2009-03-24T04:30:00.000-07:00

A general strike in France; riots in Greece and Lithuania; in Iceland the government is forced to resign; mass protests against poverty and food riots in the countries of the ‘global south’. Worldwide, a new wave of social struggles has begun.

On the days from 28 March to 2 April, these struggles will become visible on the streets of London. As the leaders of the 20 richest countries try to fix an inherently corrupt system, tens of thousands will demonstrate against the effects of the capitalist crisis and for real alternatives [watch this video call].

A ‘No Borders’ perspective on this crisis and resistance stresses the importance of its international dimension. The global movements against the crisis fight for a break from capitalism and for a new society based on solidarity not protectionism.

Therefore, No Borders activists from Manchester and elsewhere will be present at the protests against the G20 to counter any nationalist impulse that could threaten to paralyse an emerging mass movement in the UK. The movement of people across borders is not the cause of the capitalist crisis; though migrants are the first to be blamed by all nationalist sections of society. As this crisis is global, so must be our response.

We hope to see you:

On the “Militant Workers: Direct Action” bloc on the large trade union and NGO demonstration in central London on Saturday 28 March.

On the “Black Horse” procession leaving Cannon Street rail station at 11am on 1 April. This procession has been called against ‘land enclosures and borders in honour of the 360th full circle anniversary of the Diggers’ and will lead to a street party at the Bank of England.

Report from Pennine House protest

2009-03-21T14:39:00.000-07:00

A huge police presence greeted more than 70 of us at Manchester airport on Saturday. GMP mobilised a helicopter, motorbikes and had dogs and horses on standby as we highlighted the whereabouts of the immigration prison Pennine House inside Terminal 2.

There's a BBC report here and pictures on indymedia [Town Hall|Airport]. Thanks to all those who came and made this a great success!

Read on for a report from the day:

On Saturday the 21rst of March, over 70 people from Manchester as well as No Borders activists from Leeds and Newcastle held a day of protest demanding the closure of Pennine house, an asylum prison located at Manchester airport.

After a rally in Albert square, where speeches against the detention prison were heard, the group split. Half cycled to the airport, taking with them an effigy of Immigration minister and Oldham MP Phil Woolas in a cage via bike trailer, to highlight the link between the government and the detention and deportation of thousands of migrants every year. The cycle ride was followed the entire journey to the airport by police vans, motorbikes and even a helicopter.

Meanwhile those travelling by train first stopped off at a demonstration organised by the local Congolese community, protesting against plans to deport many of them back to the Congo to certain death. After the rally members of both demonstrations went by train to the airport and linked up with the cyclists.

After arriving at Pennine house it became clear that the police were prepared for us. They had constructed a protest pen inside the detention prison car park and there were lots of police officers and FIT teams present. The group refused to enter the protest pen and ignored all attempts by police officers to make them do so. After spending half an hour listening to more speeches, chanting and flyering passers-by the group decided to leave the car park.

After leaving, the police attempted to contain the group and escort them back to the train station for “their own safety”. The group refused this and instead moved around the police line and made their way back to the train station and towards home. During this the police became physical with several demonstrators. Additional TAU vans, Dog and horse units were also called in but not deployed. Terminal 2 was closed during this.

This action was the culmination of several weeks of events aimed at highlighting the links between government migration policy, immigration minister Phil Woolas and Pennine house, located at Manchester airport.

Final call for Saturday's demonstration "Abolish Immigration Prisons"

2009-03-17T08:58:00.000-07:00

Thousands of asylum-seekers are currently being kept in prisons throughout
the UK. They haven’t committed a crime, but they can be imprisoned
indefinitely. On Saturday 21st March, we are calling for a demonstration
of all those who want to see an end to all immigration detention.

Abolish Pennine House

2,500 people are currently locked up in 13 British immigration prisons.
Phil Woolas, the minister for immigration and borders, is seeking the
expansion of the detention estate to 4,000 spaces. 30,000 people pass
through one of those prisons every year, including 2,000 children. All are
held for indefinite periods without trial or sentence.

Some of these people are imprisoned in Pennine House, the immigration
prison located airside at Manchester Airport in Terminal 2. Pennine House
can now hold up to 32 detainees, double its previous capacity. As a
so-called residential short-term holding facility, it can hold people for
up to seven days until they are released, deported or transferred to other
‘long-term’ detention centres.

Pie more government ministers

Meanwhile, Phil Woolas’ office in Oldham is only a few miles away. And
while hundreds of innocent people are kept in prison with no knowledge of
when they will be released, he continues to make xenophobic and
nationalist statements at every opportunity.

Phil Woolas may be trying to undermine the BNP, by demonstrating that New
Labour are equally capable of using racist and xenophobic rhetoric.
However, in using many of the same arguments as the BNP does, Woolas is
actually lending them credibility. The only way to fight the BNP is by
completely rejecting the nationalism and xenophobia promoted by the
government.

Once it becomes acceptable to imprison someone arbitrarily and
indefinitely, we are all at risk of suffering the same fate. We can
already see this with Woolas’ determination to bring in ID cards for
everyone and to monitor and retain all our cross-border movements in a
secret database in Wythenshawe.

This is why activists from Manchester No Borders attempted to check Phil
Woolas’ passport at a public debate last October, and when he refused this
landed him a custard pie in the face.

The story so far…

Pennine House closed for expansion in spring last year. From when we could
expose Carillion plc as the construction company to expand the prison, No
Borders put pressure on this detention profiteer, forcing them to step up
security at their Manchester office. Unfortunately, Woolas could re-open
the prison last December.

Earlier this month, we took the issue directly to Manchester City Council
leader Richard Leese, who is also the Chair of the Committee for the
Shareholders of Manchester Airport. When 100 jumpers were dumped in front
of him and information leaflets handed out to the audience, he was visibly
embarrassed to continue his presentation of Manchester as a cosmopolitan
and inclusive city.

And last Friday, in the most high-profile action against Pennine House so
far, 20 activists were able to enter the office of Phil Woolas and to
'detain' him symbolically for 30 minutes until police officers could
'free' him.

On Saturday 21st March, we will reiterate our demand of the immediate
closure of Pennine House and all immigration prisons, and that everyone be
free to come and go as they please, regardless of the country of their
birth.

-----------------

Join us for a rally at noon in Albert Square outside Manchester Town Hall
with speakers from No Borders, the Anarchist Federation Manchester, No One
Is Illegal, the Manchester Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers, and other
groups.

Mass Bike Ride from Albert Square to Manchester Airport (should take about
90minutes); or join others on the train (funds for train fares will be
available for refugees and asylum seekers).

Rally at 2pm outside Pennine House Detention Centre - Meet outside Terminal 2

Immigration Minister Detained

2009-03-13T16:12:00.000-07:00

On Friday evening, 13 March, two dozen activists from Oldham and Manchester briefly occupied the constituency office of Phil Woolas, immigration minister and MP for Oldham and Saddleworth.

Read here a report on Indymedia

The mainstream media is also picking up the 'story', with such hilarious headlines as "anarchists hold minister hostage".

The Mirror
The Telegraph
The Daily Mail

Conveniently, most of them forget to actually mention why we 'detained' Phil Woolas for about 30 minutes, mirroring his policies of detaining migrants without prosecution, trial or sentence.

Read on to hear our views on immigration detention, Pennine House, and Phil Woolas.

2,500 people are currently detained in privately-owned immigration prisons in Britain. They are held for an indefinite period, but a significant number are detained for over 12 months. Never mind the debate on 42 days detention without charge for terror suspects. Here we have 30,000 people every year locked up without trial or sentence; 2,000 of them children.

Why? Because they (or their parents) were born on the wrong side of the border, in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Zimbabwe or DR Congo that are being torn apart by atrocious wars, whose natural resources are being exploited by multi-national corporations, where human rights are a farce, where political activity is punished with torture or death.

It would be too easy to make Phil Woolas the sole responsible for this systematic imprisonment of asylum seekers. For a start there are the corporations that profit from the expansion and privatisation of the prison-industrial complex. The longer G4S, GEO or Kalyx can detain migrants, the more money they make. But the policy of immigration detention is also carried by a dominent nationalist ideology that is carried by all political parties.

As the recession leads to unemployment, forced evictions and community tension, Phil Woolas’s response has been nationalist too, reiterating the British jobs for British workers slogan. Migrants are not to blame for the recession, which has been caused by an economic system of exploitation, facilitated by the current and past political elite, and of which migrants are the first and most vulnarable victims.

We are now at a point in time where it becomes obvious that a response to an international crisis has to be international solidarity and cooperation. While the political elites conveniently blame immigrants for the recession, we take inspiration from the Greek insurgency after the shooting of Alexis, from protests that forced out the Icelandic government, from the student and workers struggles in France and Italy, all of which stood in solidarity with the migrant communities that had come under attack from their governments.

The protests against the G20 London summit at the end of this month are the first testing ground for a non-nationalist, anti-capitalist response to the crisis.

Abolish Immigration Prisons. Freedom of Movement For All.

2009-03-10T05:27:00.000-07:00

Demonstrate together against detention.

21st March. Assemble at Albert Square, Manchester City Centre. 12 noon.
Then, bike ride or train to Terminal 2, Detention Centre, Manchester Airport. 2pm.

Thousands of asylum-seekers are currently being kept in prisons throughout the UK. They haven’t committed a crime, but they can be imprisoned indefinitely.

Some of these people are imprisoned in Pennine House, the immigration prison located at Manchester Airport. Meanwhile, the immigration minister, Phil Woolas’ office is only a few miles away. And while hundreds of innocent people are kept in prison with no knowledge of when they will be released, he continues to make xenophobic and racist statements at every opportunity.

We demand the immediate closure of all immigration prisons, and that everyone be free to come and go as they please, regardless of the country of their birth.

With, NoBorders, No One Is Illegal, MCDAS, Anarchist Federation, NCADC, WAST and Permanent Revolution.

Jumpers dumped on council leader: close Pennine House!

2009-03-03T16:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday (Tuesday) evening, Manchester No Borders interrupted a high-profile panel discussion with the leader of Manchester city council, Sir Richard Leese. We dumped 100 jumpers in front of the panellists of the event entitled ‘The Right to the City’ in a protest against exclusion, destitution and false imprisonment.

See more photographs here.

We intervened at a launch event for the University of Manchester’s new 'Research Institute for Cosmopolitan Cultures’. The event aimed to discuss the concepts of ‘belonging’ and ‘exclusion’ with Richard Leese and speakers from Amnesty International and the Migrants’ Rights network.

Before Richard Leese started his presentation, No Borders took over the stage to read out a short statement instead, calling on the leader of the city council to close Pennine House, the immigration detention centre at Manchester airport. At the same time shopping bags filled with jumpers were emptied in front of him, making a considerable mount. Flyers informing the audience about Pennine House were handed out to the 150 or so people in the audience.

In a statement read out to the audience Manchester No Borders rejected the notion of ‘rights’ as “a politically and substantively bankrupt discourse”. Many people simply are not granted rights to the city, such as the migrants detained and held without charge at Pennine House.

Earlier this year Immigration Minister and Oldham MP Phil Woolas ‘unveiled’ the detention facility announcing: 'We will detect, detain and remove those who have no right to be here…This new facility will help us increase removals of those who have no right to remain in the UK.'

We also stated that for many who have been granted the formal rights to the city, these rights are empty signifiers, devoid of any substantive content. These include the pensioners, unemployed and homeless for whom having the rights to the city means very little when they lack the material means for a dignified existence.

The presentation of the 100 jumpers to Richard Leese was a symbolic demand
that Manchester City Council clothe the right-less and provide decent levels of material and social support.

---------------------------

More protests over the issue are planned. Tomorrow/today, we are inviting everyone to come and help plan protests at Pennine House detention centre. 4 March, 7pm, Friends Meeting House, Manchester.

A demonstration has already been announced for the weekend of 20/21 March. Protests against immigration prisons will also take place at Yarlswood detention centre in Bedford, organised by London No Borders.

.

The Right to Work?!

2009-02-28T14:03:00.000-08:00

A few people from Manchester No Borders supported a demonstration by the new Student Action for Refugees (STAR) group at Manchester University on Friday. A large banner and some 15 people with flyers informed students of their 'Let Them Work' campaign.

As STAR wrote:

The protest will launch the Manchester branch of STAR’s national campaign ‘Let Them Work’, to give asylum seekers the right to work during the asylum application process. The campaign is being supported by the Refugee Council and the TUC. Currently the UK’s draconian asylum system prohibits those applying for refugee status the right to work in the UK, leaving many feeling depressed and demoralised. … It is estimated that several thousand failed asylum seekers live in Manchester, deprived of the right to work, to get basic public services, and live a life of dignity.

We fully support the demand for the Right to Work as it would fundamentally change the living conditions of thousands of people seeking asylum. But we need to remember that asking more rights from the state can at best be a limited strategy.

Just as the folks from No One Is Illegal, we believe that no forms of immigration control can be ‘fair’ or ‘just’. At the centre of all migration management systems lies the desire to distinguish and divide between ‘fair’ and ‘unfair’ legislation, ‘genuine’ and ‘bogus’ asylum seekers, the ‘legal’ and the ‘illegal’, the ‘citizen’ and the ‘non-citizen’, ‘refugees’ and ‘economic migrants’, those with rights and those without…

The Right to Work will almost inevitably lead to new groups of ‘rightless’ people and to new forms of exclusion and exploitation. New divisions will appear between ‘categories’ of asylum seekers and other migrants.

Similar points are raised in a new pamphlet on ‘amnesties’ (pdf) just published by NOII.

Therefore we have to connect the demands for practical improvements with a clear rejection of all divisions between citizens and non-citizens and all forms of immigration control. We cannot stop at the Right to Work but must declare: Freedom of Movement for All - No One Is Illegal!

OPEN PLANNING MEETING - Oldham and Pennine House protests

2009-02-25T05:40:00.000-08:00

From Woolas to Pennine House: 20/21 March will be a weekend of protests moving from Oldham to Manchester's detention centre, highlighting and scandalising the UK's policy of detaining asylum seekers and their children.

Manchester No Borders are planning for two protests, one at the Immigration Minister's office in Oldham and one at 'Pennine House', the immigration detention centre at Manchester airport.

We welcome all those who would like to be involved in the planning stages of this weekend to an open planning meeting.
Wednesday 4th March. 7.00pm Friends Meeting House (nr Central Library) Manchester.

Film showing: Escape from Doncatraz

2009-02-12T07:40:00.000-08:00

Once again we have teamed up with students at Manchester Uni, for a free and open-to-all documentary showing on Monday night. A Brand new documentary by Jay Baker of SilenceBreaker Media...who will be there on the night for a Q & A

"Escape from Doncatraz"
Man Uni Students Union
Mon 16th February - 7pm

Britain has the highest concentration of CCTV cameras in the world, the largest DNA database on the planet, and its people have fallen for blaming asylum seekers and refugees for all its problems, with tabloid newspaper headlines warning of "waves of illegal aliens."

However, as the film examines, it is not those arriving from war-torn countries or fleeing state-sponsored terrorism, but rather those in suits and ties who have destroyed our values and sense of decency...

http://silencebreaker.org/escapefromdoncatraz/menu.html

Woolas brings the border to Wythenshawe

2009-02-11T10:08:00.000-08:00

THE government is building a secret database to track and hold the international travel records of all 60m Britons. The intelligence centre will store names, addresses, telephone numbers, seat reservations, travel itineraries and credit card details for all 250m passenger movements in and out of the UK . The data will be retained for 10 years.

The exact location of the new database is a secret within Whitehall , although Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, accidentally let slip during a public talk to officials late last year that it was in the Manchester area. All staff have now been instructed to refer to it only as “a new operations centre in the northwest”.

It has now emerged that the centre, officially called the e-Borders Operations Centre, is to be housed in an industrial estate in Wythenshawe, though the precise location remains unknown.

The Wythenshawe spy centre will house more than 300 police and immigration officers. A similar number of technicians will help check travellers’ details against police, MI5, benefit agency and other government “watch lists”.

The centre, which was previously called the Joint Border Operations Centre, has been collecting passenger information since October 2008. The centre will, by July, be able to fully track passenger movements. By the end of 2009, details of all passengers and crew entering and leaving the UK will be recorded.

The centre will be run by the UK Identity and Passport Service, with input from HMRC, MI5, MI6, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and the police.

Under the scheme, once a person buys a ticket to travel to or from the UK by air, sea or rail, the carrier will deliver that person’s data to the agency. At the moment limited information about selected routes and travellers is kept on the pilot database run by the agency at an office in Hounslow, west London . In future, all such data will automatically be sent in bulk to the new database, instead of being released in response to specific requests by the authorities.

Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, defended the plans. “The UK has one of the toughest borders in the world and we are determined to ensure it stays that way. Our high-tech electronic borders system will allow us to count all passengers in and out and target those who aren’t willing to play by our rules.”

Well, you might have noticed, Phil, that we don’t like playing by YOUR rules, nor do the majority of people in this country who are sick of the ever newer measures of population control!.

Housing company shut down

2009-01-30T05:26:00.000-08:00

The company office of Priority Properties North West (PPNW) in Salford was targeted in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday in solidarity with asylum-seekers. A post on Indymedia claims responsibility for shutting down the office by putting superglue into the entrance locks (link).

Here is some background to PPNW:

PPNW is one of a handful of housing providers in the North West with government contracts to supply accommodation to asylum-seekers on section 4 support. The others include Happy Homes and United Property Management.

Asylum-seekers tell grim tales about the properties managed by those companies. Necessary facilities are often lacking or unsafe to use. To make more profit from their contracts, companies sometimes put two people to a room.

Recently, PPNW have begun relocating Manchester-based asylum-seekers to other areas in the North West . People who have found friends and community in Manchester now have to make a fresh start again. One of our friends, too, was taken from his Manchester home, after a PPNW letter gave him three days to pack all his belongings of several years into one small bag – or else face eviction and destitution.

In one of the most shocking stories, asylum-seekers in Liverpool have recently told us of the death of a man in PPNW managed accommodation, Borden Court. While the cause of his death is unclear, the body was not discovered after several days later. It was impossible to find and inform any friends or family.

20/21 March: Together against detention

2009-01-24T02:48:00.000-08:00

From Woolas to Pennine House: 20/21 March will be a weekend of protests moving from Oldham to Manchester's detention centre, highlighting and scandalising the UK's policy of detaining asylum seekers and their children. Get involved in the early planning stages for this protest now.

Manchester No Borders are planning for two protests, one at the Immigration Minister's office in Oldham and one at 'Pennine House', the immigration detention centre at Manchester airport.

We also want to draw a direct connection between the two, linking them with a cycle ride to the airport detention facility

So here is for your diaries (provisionally):

Wednesday 4th March evening - Public organising meeting about the protests

Friday 20th March afternoon/early evening - Protest/leafletting in Oldham

Saturday 21st March noon - Cycle/Train rige to the airport (meet Albert Sq.), the protest at Pennine House

We invite you now to get involved in the early planning stages for this event. There will also be an organising meeting in early March.

International Mobilisations 2009 - Discussion and Information Event 29th Jan

2009-01-21T06:15:00.000-08:00

2009 will be a busy year, and many are already thinking about travelling to one or several of the international protests against the summits of global leaders and politicians. No Borders have teamed up with other groups and individuals in Manchester to organise a discussion and information event:

Summit Mobilisations 2009
Thursday 29th January, 7pm
University of Manchester Students Union - Meeting Room 1

A session to discuss responses to the various summits of 2009 including:

NATO in Strasbourg – April09 propping up Western militarism
G8 in Italy
G20 in London – April 1st 2009 – Restructuring the
Global Financial Economy
No Borders Camp in France – summer09
Copenhagen – Dec09 – the UN Climate Change Talks (COP15)

The event will also discuss the various advantages and disadvantages of international summit mobilisations.

Facebook event.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=55685169993

All welcome, especially non-students.

Jackson's Wharf: residents win!

2009-01-10T03:26:00.000-08:00

Last April, more than 150 people came to our demonstration for ‘freedom of movement’ and ‘autonomous spaces’. The event ended in the symbolic mass occupation of the abandoned Jackson's Wharf pub in Castlefields. For a few hours, we brought it back to live in a celebration of self-organised social space.

The demo and occupation highlighted the borders within our city and the problems that regeneration can bring to some local areas. Jackson’s Wharf was the site of a dispute between local residents and property developers who wanted to build flats there.

Residents now claim victory over the developers Peel Holding. The plans to build a seven story apartment bloc have been blocked by the Council after fierce opposition from resident campaigners. We hope that our day of action in April has contributed to the successful campaign!

A note of caution though: Castlefields is a rather affluent area, with a number of ‘celebrity’ residents. Similar anti-regeneration campaigns, such as in East Manchester, would find it much harder to be successful. And with the full impact of the ‘credit crunch’ still to be felt, the number of house repossession and evictions is going to increase dramatically.

On that note: Solidarity with the squatters of Hathersage Road.

Solidarity with Gaza victims

2009-01-09T06:45:00.000-08:00

We are outraged by the Israeli attacks on civilians in Gaza. However, solidarity with the victims should not translate into support for religion or nationalism. Therefore, we support the anarchist/anti-authoritarian presence at the Palestinian Solidarity demo this Saturday at Hyde Park. If you were thinking of travelling down look out for the red and black flags and massive red and black banner.

Here is the full callout and a flyer produced by Manchester Anarchist Federation.

20 Dec.: BMI phone blockade and solidarity with the Greek revolt

2008-12-17T02:59:00.000-08:00

This Saturday 20th December, we are again supporting the day of action against BMI airlines. Please tell BMI that their participation in enforced deportations of asylum seekers is unacceptable. Phone the Reservations & General Enquiries numbers: 01332 854854 & 01332 648181 and the Bmi baby Reservations, 01332 648181.

Saturday 20th December has also been called as a global day of action to show solidarity with the ongoing revolt in Greece.
Undocumented migrants are heavily involved in the protests and riots. While the mainstream media continues to spread misinformation and solidarity protests in London have been violently suppressed by the Met Police, we encourage you to show active solidarity on that day (or night), and let us know about it. To get some inspiration look here.

City of Shame: new Manchester detention centre

2008-12-07T09:33:00.000-08:00

The Home Office has re-opened the immigration detention centre at Manchester airport on Friday. In fact, Borders and Immigration minister Phil Woolas (the one with the pie in the face) was there personally to “unveil” the immigration prison. As if it was something to celebrate!

Just think about it: they can now lock-up 32 people at a time (asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected, students whose study visas have run out, unwanted immigrants who they’ve snatched from their work places, from their family homes or from trams and buses etc.), and Woolas thinks it right to hold some kind of ceremony!

It doesn’t really matter whether this prison (which they now call ‘Pennine House’) is, as the Home Office say, “fit for the 21st century”, or as the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons has said before (and will no doubt say again), “unacceptable”. (This refers to inadequate cooking and washing facilities, lack of ‘fresh air’, and no means of being in touch with family and friends outside!)

It doesn’t really matter whether this prison holds people who will be deported (as the Home Office claim), or people who are just being transferred from one detention centre to the other, and/or released again (as seems to be frequently the case).

When we exposed Carillion plc as the company building the prison we insisted, and we insist again: No Immigration Detention Centres Anywhere!

(Pennine House is a short-term holding facility at Terminal 2 of Manchester airport, managed by the private security company G4S. Find out more here.)
.

Report from Liverpool anti-ID demo

2008-11-26T05:43:00.000-08:00

20 students and No Borders/anti-ID campaigners from Manchester made their way to Liverpool on 25th November, the day that the government introduced ID cards for non-EU nationals living in the UK. There they joined a group of 30 Merseyside activists outside Reliance House to protest at the introduction of compulsory ID cards for international students and non-EU spouses on that day.

Reliance House is where interviewing, photographing and fingerprinting will take place from 4th December before being issued with a biometric ID card. It is also Liverpool’s reporting centre where those seeking asylum have to ‘sign in’ on a regular basis while their claims are being processed. If their claims fail they can be held, without prior notice, in the immigration detention facility in the same building for up to 7 days.

It is thus imperative to make the connection between ID cards and the assault on the rights of non-EU nationals wanting to live, work and study in the UK. People from Manchester No Borders had brought along placards and banners proclaiming that “no one is illegal”. Where the state reinforces the division between legal and ‘illegal’ people our solidarity must extend to those most affected by the scheme.

Some mention in the news:
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2008/11/25/protests-in-city-over-id-cards-100252-22330184/
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.2470740.0.Protests_as_first_ID_card_scheme_launched_in_Britain.php
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2008/11/26/protesters-say-no-to-introduction-of-id-cards-for-foreign-students-64375-22341365/

No Borders! No Nations!
No One is Illegal

(During the picket of Reliance House, some first contact was made with individual No Border activists from Liverpool, Merseyside and North Wales. If you are from this region and want to get active in a No Borders group, please email us, so we can get you in touch).

Solidarity with migrants on hunger strike in Greece

2008-11-24T08:21:00.000-08:00

A member of Manchester No Borders reports on a hunger strike by migrants in Chania, Greece that they have been involved in supporting. On Tuesday, November 11, 2008, 15 immigrants from North African Countries (Algeria, Morocco etc.), active members of the Forum of Immigrants of Crete, went on a hunger strike. The hunger strikers are all residents of Chania and they demand residence permits, which will allow them to continue living in Greece legally. At least one striker has now been hospitalised. Although No Borders calls for an end to borders and therefore an end to the need for papers, we will always support those brutalised by the system in demanding a recognition of their existence and their humanity! The migrants latest public statement is as follows:

"We are migrants, members of Crete Forum of Immigrants, living in Greece. We entered the country illegally, as the majority of immigrants do, since the political and institutional regime in Greece does not allow people seeking a better life in Greece to stay there legally, in the country, that is, where they live, work, and raise their children. Since we were eligible to do so, we applied for residence permits in compliance with the law currently in effect; however, residence permits were denied to us, under the pretext that our passport had been issued after 2004, although we had applied for it at the embassies of our respective countries of origin in Athens long before 2004. We then followed the routine legal process of applying for the cancellation of the rejection in the Greek courts, but our demand was rejected all the same. Each one of us paid thousands of Euros during this process. Many cases have yet to be tried in court, and this delay is forcing us into “clandestine” status. For the police authorities, none of our documents has any validity, so that the prospect of finding ourselves in detention rooms or deported is extremely likely, since this has already happened to people like us.

Existing migration policies and laws clearly aim at our marginalization, promoting ignorance not only of the problems we are dealing with, but also of our social existence as a whole. Faced with that, we have decided to take this drastic action to raise awareness around our issues and difficulties.

We claim the right to live and work under decent conditions.

For a migration policy that will guarantee the legalization of all migrants living in Greece and their meaningful integration into the Greek society:

* it is vital that the injustice of us being held hostages of an unfair legal status, ends. The current regime either excludes us from legalization processes, or threatens us with“legalization” in the terms of Fortress Europe.

* It is vital that the renewal of residence permits be disconnected from the possession of a certain number of revenue stamps. This is extremely unfair for migrant workers, for whom informal labor, with no insurance whatsoever, is the rule and the only option. This regulation forces us into buying extra revenue stamps with their cost burdening exclusively the migrant worker.

* It is vital that the right to family unification be disconnected from proving a certain – high – annual income, since this requirement forces us into vouching virtual incomes from rural jobs – and into paying high taxation.

* It is vital that the cost for the residence permit issue fees be lowered, and that it corresponds to the real cost of the bureaucratic process.

* It is vital that municipalities employ more people for work in the issuing and renewal of residence permits. Furthermore, it is unacceptable that the essential information for applying is not available in the migrants’ own languages. The Forum of Migrants of Crete has already pledged to assist Municipalities in making this possible.

* It is vital that the detention and deportation of minors ceases.

* It is vital that all children born in Greece be allowed to be registered in municipality tolls, obtain certificates of birth, and be granted Greek citizenship – as happens in the rest of the EU.

* It is vital that international human rights conventions and treaties be respected in Greece.

We demand that residence permits are issued immediately for all those who are eligible for them according to the law (hundreds of migrants in Chania alone).

(…)

We are appealing for active and daily support and solidarity to all migrants living in Chania and the rest of Greece, to all democratic and aware Greek fellow-citizens. We want all society to be on our side. We need it.
(...)
We ask for the support of political and cultural collectives and societies in Chania, the rest of the country and abroad, because we know that our struggle concerns everyone.

Because we know that what threatens the society at large is racism, oppression, exclusion and discrimination, it is not us.” .

http://www.clandestina.org/EIDHSEIS/2008/EIDHSEIS_NOVEMBER_2008_27.html

Defy ID cards: No One is Illegal

2008-11-20T07:58:00.000-08:00

On 25th November, the government will begin introducing ID cards for non-EU nationals living in the UK. We invite all opponents of social control to join us at a protest in Liverpool outside Reliance House (the Border Agency’s offices and a short-term immigration prison) at 12 noon on that day. Reliance House is one of the six centres in the UK for ID cards processing. Other groups campaigning against ID cards on that day are Manchester NO2ID and Liverpool Defy ID and we hope to see Merseyside No Borders activists there as well.

We will travel there as a group, meet at 9am on the steps of the Student Union of Manchester University, Oxford Road. We will try to get everyone into minibuses leaving from there or take the train together from Oxford Road station (£6.20 return with railcard) if there are too many of us.
In Liverpool, assemble in Exchange Flats at 11am and then move around the corner to Reliance House, 20 Water Street, L2 8XU, for the protest from noon to 1pm.

The six Border Agency centres that have been setup to take fingerprints and photographs are Croydon, Sheffield, Liverpool, Birmingham, Cardiff, and Glasgow. From the 25th in Croydon, and then rolled out to the other centres over the coming weeks, overseas students and non-EU spouses of UK residents who apply for an extension of their stay in the UK are required to attend one of the fingerprinting centres and have their biometric data registered with the Home Office.

Due to delays, some foreign students are already told not to make travel plans for the near future. Failure to comply could mean the revoking of the permission to stay in the UK, and non-attendance at the centres could lead to fines of up to £1,000. Lecturers will be required to aid the Home Office in identifying foreign students with low attendance rates. Those students would then lose the right to study in the UK.

The law used is the 2007 UK Borders Act, whereas ID cards will be rolled out to UK citizens as part of the 2006 ID Cards Act. The attack on foreigners living or wanting to live in the UK is part of the Home Office’s ‘points-based system’, whereby migrants wanting to settle, study or work in the UK have to earn enough ‘points’ to be granted the right. The rationale is purely economic, in that it allows the government to select foreign workers and students who it deems useful to the economy.

The issue of ID cards is thus an inherently political one. It is no coincidence that ID cards will be rolled out to non-EU nationals first. This is another mechanism for the control and management of undocumented migrants, further reinforcing the division between legal and ‘illegal’ residence status. Whilst we reject ID cards entirely, on 25th November we aim to highlight the links between ID cards and migration management in particular.

No Borders! No Nations!
No One is Illegal

20th November: Shut down an airline

2008-11-18T03:47:00.000-08:00

This Thursday 20th November, please contact BMI airlines and register your disapproval at their role in deporting people to places they do not wish to go back to, for whatever the reason this may be. Urge BMI to follow the other airlines who have taken an ethical stance and who refuse to carry out any more deportations.
Ring, fax and e-mail the company as much as possible on this day and on the 20th of every month thereafter until BMI no longer take part in this cruel practice.

E-mail Nigel Turner, BMI Chief Executive Officer at:
nigel.turner@flybmi.com
Switchboard
Telephone: ~~01334 854 000~~ 0870607055 or 01332854321

For the call out and more phone numbers, read on.

Everyday, an average of 180 migrants are deported from the UK. That’s one person every eight minutes.

These people haven’t done anything wrong.

They are criminalised for doing what humans have done for thousands of years: moving in search of a better life. Moving to escape war, persecution, torture, physical abuse, poverty…

Governments across the world do not want us to see those being deported as people. They want to shroud them under statistics and treat them as pieces of meat.

Airline companies are a key link in the deportation industry. Without them it would be impossible for the state to implement this aspect of the migration regime and there can be no migration controls without deportations.

People being deported are often handcuffed on the flight and there have been numerous reports of physical assaults on people being deported by the security personnel who escort them.

On 20th September 2008, No Borders South Wales activist Babi Badalov was deported on a BMI flight to Azerbaijan. In an email following the deportation, BMI CEO Nigel Turner said that:

“I do not have the time or resources to investigate each case myself nor do BMI”

But BMI were given plenty of information and time to ‘investigate’. Despite hundreds of telephone calls, emails and faxes to BMI raising objections and concerns, they chose to ignore this and ensured that the deportation took place.

BMI employees told those ringing on the day that they could not refuse to carry people being removed and it was out of their control. However, other airlines have refused to carry out deportations in the past. XL Airways announced in 2007 that they would no longer carry refused asylum-seekers who were being forcibly removed from the UK.

BMI is the UK’s second largest full service airline. By taking part in deportations, they do the governments dirty work for them and in the process, make money from human misery. In 2007 BMI reported profits of £15.5 million. How much of this was soaked in the blood of migrants who they deported against their will?.

BMI Contact Details

Head office
Donington Hall, Castle Donington, Derby. DE74 2SB

E-mail Nigel Turner, BMI Chief Executive Officer at:
nigel.turner@flybmi.com

Switchboard
Telephone: 01334 854 000
Open Mon-Fri 8am-6pm

Customer Relations
Telephone: 01332 854 321
Fax: 01332 854 875
Open: Mon-Fri 9:30am-4:30pm

Reservations and general enquiries
Telephone: 01332 854854 & 01332 648181
Fax: 01709 314993
Opening hours: 7am-9pm

Bmi baby reservations
Telephone 01332 648181
Opening hours: 8am-8pm

For further contact details you can download the leaflet put together by South Wales No Borders.

STOP DEPORTATIONS!

Report from No Borders gathering in Newcastle

2008-11-11T06:45:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, a gathering of No Borders activists was held in Newcastle with groups and individuals from Brighton, Bristol, South Wales, London, Oxford, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow taking part. Altogether, about 50-60 people attended.

Saturday began with report backs from local groups, giving us an impression of the activity of the No Borders network. Opposition against ID cards and the IOM, and actions against deportation airlines and immigration snatch squads, are as much part of the No Borders agenda as is solidarity with detainees, deportees and migrant workers.

The international dimension of the network was stressed when people told of large-scale blockades of a detention centre in Belgium, of Hamburg airport to stop deportations, and of the attempt to dismantle a detention centre in Denmark. No Borders activists have also made connections to campaigners in Northern France to highlight the situation of hundreds of refugees trapped in Calais.

On Sunday, the need to develop No Borders politics was stressed in a discussion on 'who are our allies'. While tactically, and on a local level, coalitions with reformist and traditional left groups could be useful, the network was described as firmly anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian. A working group was formed to make these ideas available in an easily accessible guide to No Borders politics.

The next gathering is proposed for February/March 2009 in Bristol. www.noborders.org.uk.

"You can't do this... he's a government minister"

2008-10-24T10:43:00.000-07:00

The immigration minister Phil Woolas was first asked for his passport, then given an 'eco-nationalist award' and finally had a pie thrown in his face by a group from Manchester No Borders. This came in response to his plans of more stringent population controls as announced in the national press. We also denounced his attempts to scapegoat immigrants for the ongoing economic and ecological crises.

Here is a short video of the stunt:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CF5vF5oMu6I

Find below the text for the leaflet that was handed out to the stunned audience at Manchester University where Woolas was speaking.

We are pleased to present the very 1st No Borders ‘eco-nationalist award’ to the recently appointed Minister for Borders and Immigration, Phil Woolas. He thoroughly deserves it.

In the past week alone, Woolas has received the admiration of every right-wing tabloid columnist out there. His most recent remarks that echoed the National Front’s antiquated “British jobs for British workers” slogan and pandered to the fear that “Britain is full up”, have rightly been recognised for bringing the debates on the environment and on immigration together.

Sure enough, he was Minister of State for the Environment just before the recent reshuffle. As soon as taking over office as immigration minister he loudly proclaimed a change of policy: “It’s too easy to get into this country in the past and its going to get harder”.

Pointing to the looming recession and the job market, Woolas asked that employers should hire British job-seekers first, before considering new immigrants. He also suggested that the population in Britain should be capped at 70million.

Responses

The BNP was delighted with Woolas’ tough talk, but maintained it’s the only party to deliver the necessary policy changes. The anti-immigration think tanks Migrationwatch and Optimum Population Trust welcomed the remarks, since only a reduction in population numbers could save both the economy and the environment (and where better to start than with the foreigners?). The tabloids had enough material to print headlines such as “Immigrant jobs shocker” on a daily basis. And the Tories were gobsmacked that once again a Labour minister is more right-wing than them.

A few lonely Labour MPs cried out that Woolas was “pandering to the right-wing extremists”.

‘Overpopulation’

Woolas, of course, hasn’t just pandered to the extreme right, but the those neo-Malthusians who cry “overpopulation” at every possible opportunity, especially when it comes to fears over climate change. The argument goes that Britain would be unsustainable in terms of ecological well-being, food production, housing and energy needs if it was to allow population figures to rise above a certain limit.

The argument is spurious. It both helps to protect the status quo from criticism and constructs vulnerable social groups as legitimate targets of control. Instead of acknowledging the unprecedented global disasters that come with capitalism, the ‘overpopulation’ argument asks not for a new form of social organisation (that might see land and resources accessed and shared more evenly, contributing to a more sustainable future) but takes the shameful route of scapegoating immigrants and those who are seeking a better life.

for more info on the ‘overpopulation’ argument check our article here

Don't talk to the IOM

2008-10-13T07:06:00.000-07:00

The International Organisation for Migration has landed in Manchester. To launch their new office they held a conference in the Hilton Hotel in Beetham Tower today. A few No Borders people went to have a look and hand out a leaflet titled "Don't talk to the IOM". Unsurprisingly No Borders was quickly engaged into a conversation with IOM and UK Border Agency officials who were trying to present us with their 'humane side'. In an "imperfect world", they were trying to argue, their hands were bound.

The arguments against the IOM are well documented by the international No Border network and in our leaflet text below:

Don't talk to the IOM - against migration management

A shadowy organisation calling itself the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) is launching its new North West office in Manchester at 49 Piccadilly House. Manchester No Borders says: you are not welcome!

Why? The IOM is a service agency that answers to its 125 or so member states. In the UK, the government drives ‘undesired’ migrants into destitution, disperses them across the country, bans them from taking up a job, locks them up in detention centres, and threatens them with dawn raids and forced deportation. The IOM’s role is to effectively blackmail migrants who have been pushed into poverty or desperation to return ‘voluntarily’ with a little sum of money to the countries they left. If forced removals are so costly and cause a lot of fuss, the logic goes, why not do it another way, while pretending to be compassionate and humane. If detention is the stick, the IOM are the carrot. Both are part of the same system of migration management.

Unsurprisingly, most asylum seekers and immigrants who get sent IOM literature won’t be tricked and it goes straight into the bin. But when immigration authorities withdraw all means of support (financial, accommodation, healthcare etc.) and the right to work, some are left with no alternative but to take up the bribes. The dismantling of the IOM’s ‘voluntary return’ programmes thus has to come hand in hand with the end of deportations, detentions and destitution.

In the pay of state and capital

We oppose the IOM because, in the current border regime, no return can be deemed voluntary. But we deplore the organisation also because it aims to control people in the interest of governments and their economies.

The organisation claims to promote economic development through migration management. This falls into the same category as the governments point-based system for immigration that makes a distinction between economically useful and useless people. Migration is encouraged when it benefits the rich, and it is prohibited migrants are ‘not needed’. We oppose this system that only sees economic value in people and tries to restrict our autonomy to go where we please.

The IOM also promotes a language of nationalism in the interest of states who want to create separate rules for ‘foreigners’ and for ‘the indigenous population’. The language of ‘return’ and ‘repatriation’ sees national identities as fixed and assumes that people always belong in their land and ‘culture’ of origin. This leads to a practice whereby the IOM trains and assists border forces and administers detention centres for unwanted migrants.
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'Overpopulation': letting capitalism off the hook

2008-10-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

The text below was written collectively by Manchester No Borders for Shift Magazine. It is a result of discussions in the group, and of the debates at the 2008 Camp for Climate Action, where we hosted a workshop on the topic. We have received lots of support/interest when we started engaging with the 'overpopulation' argument and would welcome further discussion of it within the No Borders network and beyond.

From when we started being active as a No Borders group in Manchester we have been frustrated with a lack of radical analyses and critiques (anti-state, anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, anti-discrimination etc.) of climate change. This was particularly so, as we became aware of a ‘greening of immigration controls’. There appears to be an increasing tendency for green politics to lean towards repressive measures as solutions to the environmental crisis.

More specifically, in discussions with other (environmental) activists, we have recently found ourselves in disagreement over the issue of ‘overpopulation’. A common green orthodoxy today is that there are too many people on this planet, and that we need to do something about it. (Although as we gave a well-attended workshop at the Climate Camp on this topic, we were positively surprised how many of the participants were critical of this stance.)

In this article, we want to spell out the dangers of the ‘the planet is full’ argument and argue that ‘overpopulation’ is not the root cause of climate change. Not people are the problem, but society. Not human beings per se, but the way our social life is organized: capitalism.

There are two levels to our criticism of the ‘overpopulation’ argument. One, the argument quite simply plays into the hands of governments, nationalists and anti-feminists who are quite happy to step up demographic controls, people management and anti-immigration policies. Two, interpreting population growth as the root cause of the climate crisis completely disregards the systemic nature of the problem and thus lets capitalism off the hook.

The overpopulation argument

So where is the problem? The UN projects that world population figures will rise from today's 6.8 billion to 9.2 billion by 2050. For the prophets of demographic doom, Britain, in particular, is under threat. Government projections are that the UK population is to rise from 60.6 million (mid-2006) to 77 million in 2050. Obviously, demographic modeling contains lots of cultural and political assumptions, and should be treated as politically informed rather than neutral observations. Human population behavior is very random and unpredictable and not something that can be forecasted as unproblematically as tomorrow’s weather, say (and you know how inaccurate that is!).

Whatever the assumption, an increasing amount of global players (from government agencies to international organizations, from think tanks to celebrities) conclude that the planet is full. They argue that any such densely populated area as Britain would be unsustainable in terms of food production, housing and energy needs. Also within the green movement this is not a marginal position and no longer limited to ‘deep ecologists’. The green-nationalist think tank ‘Optimum Population Trust’, for example, estimates that the UK can only sustain less than half its current population level. And they demand a national population policy that first stabilizes the number of people in the UK and then gradually brings it down to 30 million.

Fact is however, that the UK population is growing primarily because of immigration. The argument thus is threefold. First, immigration puts pressure on national resources such as water, energy, food and countryside. Second, new migrants tend to have more children than the national population thereby accelerating the problem. Third, migration to ‘first world’ countries turns previously low-impact consumers to high-impact consumers increasing their ecological footprints. It comes as no surprise to us, then, that the BNP calls itself the ‘real Green Party’.

The government’s chief green advisor, Jonathan Porritt, has also time and again argued this point. But what to do? Porritt’s suggestion is straightforward: zero net immigration! David Cameron also agrees that rapid population increase will put pressure on our natural resources. And again, his solution is to lower net immigration:

“my focus today is on population, and here we should note that only around thirty per cent of the projected increase in our population by 2031 is due to higher birth rates and longer life-spans…the evidence shows that roughly seventy per cent - more than two thirds - of the increase in our population each year is attributable to net migration. Of that increase, forty seven per cent comes directly from people to moving to Britain, and the rest from higher birth rates amongst immigrant populations.”

The feminist dimension

It becomes clear that in a sexist, imperialist, capitalist world, it is impossible to separate discussion of population control from hierarchies of oppression. Which population is going to be “controlled” and how will this control come about?

Any form of population control risks seriously impinging upon women’s right to bodily autonomy. State-enforced population control programs, such as China’s ‘one-child policy’, are usually enacted upon women’s bodies; it is women who are forced to have abortions, to undergo sterilisation, or to take long-term birth control products (often with serious health repercussions). Rarely are men forced to undergo vasectomies, despite the relative easiness of this procedure when compared to tubal ligation.

However, not all women will be affected equally; those from the Global South, ethnic minorities, those perceived as disabled, and the working class have historically borne the brunt of population control policies. Eugenicists in Victorian England were very clear about which segments of the population needed controlling: the poor and the disabled.

More recently, Black British feminists in the 1970s and 1980s wrote about the need to campaign for abortion rights while at the same time also fighting for their right not to have abortions and not to be pressured into sterilisation. At the same time dangerous forms of birth control, like early experimental forms of Depo-Provera, were being tested upon women in the Global South (and in predominantly African-American areas of the US) before being allowed for sale in the Western world. Today, women in the Global South are often ‘encouraged’ by NGOs to use long-term forms of birth control, like implants, that require a medical attention to stop (as opposed to something like The Pill, which can be stopped at any time by the woman taking it). This history cannot be ignored today when discussing population control in the UK. As single working-class mothers, immigrants and ethnic minorities (particularly Muslims) find themselves being increasingly demonised; any population control policies will target women from these groups.

Malthus

Throughout its history then the overpopulation argument has been used to present people and children as the source of inherently social problems: letting capitalism off the hook. The argument always goes like this: there are too many of us and the planet can’t hack it. Whether it’s the poor, the Jews, women or migrants, all have been used strategically as scapegoats for an irrational and unproductive use of space and resources within a capitalist economy.

One of the most prominent writers on over-population was Thomas Malthus, a 19th century cleric of the Church of England. His treatise on over-population “A summary view of the principle of population” was printed in 1830, but is still read widely today. Malthus stated that whilst population increased at a geometric rate (1, 2, 4, 8, 16…), doubling every 25 years, food production increases at an arithmetic rate (1, 2, 3, 4, 5…). Malthus believed this disparity between food production and population growth was the root cause of “checks to (human) growth” such as war, famine and disease.

The strong strand of prejudice within Malthus’ work, however, often goes unacknowledged by neo-Malthusianists. He saw poverty as deserved rather than produced and blamed the poor for their “lack of moral restraint” thus making them the primary focus of population policy. The inherent conservatism and class prejudice hidden behind a veneer of scientific objectivity has made Malthus a popular source of intellectual legitimacy for various conservative and authoritarian positions.

In the late 19th century Eugenicists began utilising and expanding on Malthus’s critique of the rapid population growth of the poor. Eugenicists argued that this lack of restraint was genetically inherited and posed a threat to the future of the nation. A prominent eugenicist was Winston Churchill and many discriminatory laws were passed to attempt to influence the outcome of breeding. Once again systemic problems were naturalised and projected upon the very people most negatively affected by them.

Neo-Malthusianism

Many anti-migration authors have also mobilised Malthusian ideas. These arguments have relied upon an analysis of national resources as closed and finite systems and exaggerating rates of migration. Proposals for the closing of borders are contrasted with images of swarms of migrants exhausting national resources like locust. One example of this nationalist position, which supports the competitive nature of states, is this quote from the ‘Population and environment’ journal:

“Countries that are in the lead in reducing their populations should not give in to advocates of growth by allowing massive immigration. This rewards those who multiply irresponsibly”

As environments change due to climate change the monster of ‘overpopulation’ is being resurrected as a security issue. As we are seeing with climate change, environmental issues provide a space for the legitimisation of conservative and authoritarian policies.

Perhaps one of the most influential of these authors was Garrett Hardin whose essay “The Tragedy of the Commons”, printed in 1968, masked a pro-private property stance beneath a veneer of scientific objectivity. Hardin believed that, without private ownership of natural resources, unchecked population growth would lead to their exhaustion. The same arguments were used to support the 20th century ‘green revolution’ and are appearing again with the G8 leaders in Japan agreeing to extend research into GM crops to deal with ‘overpopulation’. ‘Overpopulation’ is used as a convenient argument to support the agendas of specific political and economic actors.

But let’s not attack a straw man here. None of the green progressives here in the UK argue for more stringent migration controls (in contrast to parts of the green conservationist movement in the US). Nonetheless, we have witnessed population graphs being used in climate change presentations, which could have lead to knee-jerk reactions and dangerous political conclusions when taken out their left-wing context.

Earth First?

The climate action movement of course recognises the repression faced by migrants and the fact that the groups of people who are hit hardest by climate change are in the Global South. However, even with the best intentions of warding off ecological destruction and creating better lives for people in the face of climate chaos the ‘overpopulation’ argument still ignores the systemic logic behind climate change: capitalism.

The central flaw to Malthusian thought is its a-systemic nature. Regardless of the economic system or social organisation, it views the root cause of most human suffering as population growth, and in particular the threat of the poor becoming richer (and thus consuming more). Poverty however, is produced not bred, and by projecting systemic flaws onto those it most affects neo-Malthusianism both helps to protect the status quo from criticism and construct vulnerable social groups as legitimate targets of control.

As relatively rich Western countries consume the most energy, it is often argued that it is their populations, in particular, that should be curbed, whether by authoritarian state control, or by individuals in the West simply realizing it is their moral responsibility not to reproduce. But to imply that the Earth should come before a child can lead down a dangerous path. It may lead to a resentment of those social groups that migrate or reproduce more often than others.

Besides, social, economic and cultural pressures to have or not to have children cannot be tackled through individual lifestyle choices and guilt trips. An emancipatory response to climate change requires a political and social solution.

We should be attacking capitalism, not children and families. In a world where children are killed over oil and exploited at the hands of multi-national corporations it isn’t surprising that children will eventually be blamed for capitalism’s fuck-ups. Capitalism doesn’t make sense and neither do capitalist solutions. The ‘overpopulation’ argument ignores the contradictions inherent in capitalism that mediate the relationship between human beings and the environment and already limit our freedom and desires on a real everyday level.

Instead of acknowledging the unprecedented global disasters that seem to spiral as capitalism grows and spreads its destructive wings, the ‘overpopulation’ argument asks not for a new form of social organisation (that might see land and resources accessed and shared more evenly, contributing to less poverty, more sustainable lifestyles and fewer wars) but takes the shameful and hopeless route of asking people to have fewer children. In a world where we are repeatedly screwed over we are now being asked not to screw!
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anti-war march 20/09/08

2008-09-22T04:55:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all those who joined us on the Freedom of Movement bloc on Saturday and who came to the after-party on Sunday. Hope you had fun!

We reckon that some 200 people formed the NoBorders/AF bloc on Saturday. We were able to communicate a message that was distinctly different from that of the main Stop the War march. With our chants and banners we made clear that capital, state and nation are to blame for war, and that political action has to go beyond lobbying and handing in petitions.

By joining the demonstration as a bloc we were able to challenge police provocation, which extended to constant videoing and photographing and cordoning us along the sides. Well done to those we actively made it possible for us to wear masks and who prevented the cops from making any arrests!

You can find some photographs of the march here and here .

50 people at Italian Consulate protest

2008-09-19T09:29:00.000-07:00

Over 50 people turned up to the protest called by the Anarchist Federation and No Borders. It was a very visible show of solidarity with the Italian Roma population who face repression and persecution on a daily basis. Photographs and more info is here .

SUBVERT...BORDERS fundraiser

2008-09-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

A night of bands/magic/poetry/djs/films/food
feat. the Autonomads, Stray Dog Cafe and Lunar Coup and more...
Sunday, 21 Sept 7.30-1.30 in Saki Bar, 2 Wilmslow Rd, Rusholme
£3 donation.

Party for a world without borders, states and war!

While the Labour Party barricade themselves in the GMEX with
tanks and armed guards..restricting our movement around our city, join
Manchester No Borders and the Subvert Crew for a night of music, poetry,
magic and films to celebrate the diverse counter culture in our city...and
to show an alternative to corporate media and entertainment..

19 September: Picket the Italian Consulate

2008-09-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

Just a day before the mass demonstration against the Labour Party Conference, we will also be demonstrating our solidarity with the Italian Roma population. Manchester No Borders supports the call by the Anarchist Federation to picket the Italian Consulate in Manchester and to protest against the repression of the Italian state against Roma people.

Meet at the Italian Consulate, 11:30am Friday 19th September 2008, Rodwell Tower, 111 Piccadilly, Manchester M1 2HY. Full details and background info here.

No Borders meets the Labour Party Conference

2008-08-14T08:24:00.000-07:00

See below for a week packed with No Borders actvities:

On the 20th September the Labour Party Conference will return to Manchester. To coincide with this there will be a demo organised by Stop The War and a counter conference organised by The Convention of the Left. Manchester No Borders will be hosting a number of events including a block on the demo, workshops, a tour of Manchesters immigration system and a punk and poetry evening.

Saturday 20th September:
'Freedom of Movement' block on the demo with the Anarchist Federation. Meet at 12:30pm All Saints Park

Campaigning against Immigration Controls with Campaign against Immigration Controls and M/cr No Borders 4.30pm, meeting room, Friends Meeting House

Sunday 21st:
No Borders tour of Manchester. An alternative insight into the Capital of the North, taking in the physical outposts of the government agencies and corporations involved in the UK asylum and detention system. Meet outside the Mechanics institute 11am.

Manchester No Borders presents: 'Punk and Poetry!'
7:30pm - late. Downstairs at the Saki Bar, 2 Wilmslow Road. Music, magic and poetry. Donation.

Tuesday 23rd:
Imagining a World Without Borders: Manchester No Borders hosts a series of talks discussing the history of migration and resistance, power and borders, and how we can begin to imagine a world without them. University of Manchester Student Union 7pm.

See you there

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No Borders at the Climate Camp

2008-08-14T04:58:00.000-07:00

Manchester No Borders attended this year's climate camp to hold a workshop on "overpopulation". We demonstrated how race hate groups have corrupted the green message and how issues such as overpopulation act as a red herring in parts of the environment movement. The workshop was attended by around 50 people. Participants engaged in a "guess the quote" game resulting in a heated debate. The workshop was such a success that we have already been asked to run it again; for example at the Earth First gathering in Norfolk later this summer.

There is also a really informative pdf handout available. email manchesternoborders at riseup dot net for a copy.

No Borders vs. Labour Party Conference

2008-07-24T04:47:00.000-07:00

As you might know the Labour Party are holding their annual conference in Manchester again, and there are protests planned against it. We're planning a number of activities, from public meetings, and a fundraiser gig to a 'freedom of movement' bloc on the national demo on September 20th. Below is the call out; mark the date in your diaries!.

FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT FOR ALL
For a World without Borders, States and War!

Roll up, roll up...
Across the world we see an unprecedented increase in border management and
social control. The UK government are at the forefront of this. And they
are holding their annual party conference in Manchester, from 20th to 25th
September 2008.

The Stop the War Coalition have called for a march through Manchester on
Saturday 20th September. We invite all anti-authoritarians, anarchists and
all those against states, nations and borders to join the 'freedom of
movement' bloc, and to play a trick or two on those clowns in the Labour
Party circus.

Let's collectively imagine a world without borders and wars and fight
together to realise this!

Let's come together on September 20th at 12 noon. Assemble at All Saints Park (note this has changed). Look out for the red and black flags.

Called by Manchester No Borders (www.manchesternoborders.org.uk) and Manchester Anarchist Federation (manchester@af-north.org)

[if you need accommodation before or after the demo, email
manchesternoborders@riseup.net]

Manchester Mayday demonstration

2008-05-08T08:23:00.000-07:00

Manchester NoBorders joined a sizeable anarchist contingent on the annual 'Mayday march', this year held on Monday 5 May.

"Health Care for All" was one of the central demands of this year's May Day march which was organised by the Trades Union Council and campaigners for asylum rights.

A recent decision by Judge Mitting ruled that all refused asylum seekers must be considered 'ordinarily resident' in the UK and that therefore charging them for NHS care is unlawful. However, despite this ruling there are reports that refugee people still face refusal or charges for health care. And the ruling has been appealed by the government so it will go to the House of Lords.

There were over 200 people on the demonstration who marched around the city centre before attending a speaker event in Manchesters Peace Gardens.

No Borders demo and mass squat action

2008-04-17T11:54:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday evening, up to 200 squatters and supporters followed our call for an unauthorised demonstration in the city centre. We were accompanied by a samba band (Rhythms of Resistance) and two soundsystems mounted on bike trailers. With the cops not bothering to show up, we marched undisturbed from Victoria Station into the Northern Quarter, along Market Street and Kings Street , through Spinningfields into Castlefields. You can find some pictures here.

The demo in itself was already a great success! We carried three big banners reading ‘Freedom of Movement for all – defend autonomous spaces’, ‘No Borders, No Nations – against migration management’, and ‘Occupy – Resist’. There was a banner drop along the route, hundreds of spoof ‘Mesho’ newspapers were given out, and it was great to see a hundred people sprint down Kings Street past all the posh shops.

But as someone said, this was not just a demonstration. In Castlefields, we succeeded in collectively occupying Jackson 's Wharf, an old pub that was the focus of a successful local campaign against redevelopment. Up to a hundred squatters entered the abandoned building, hanging banners from its balcony and opening bottles of cava that No Borders had provided! Even the cops seemed happy to see an old pub being brought back to life for a couple of hours.

And let’s not forget that the events in Manchester coincided with dozens of building occupations, protests and street parties across Europe, in cities as diverse as London , Amsterdam , Vienna and Prague . Worldwide, tens of thousands attended.

Our actions have clearly shown the ridiculousness of having hundreds of houses stand empty, while social and community centres are being shut down and individuals face extortionate rents, mortgage repayments or eviction threats. With sky-high rents forcing the poor to the margins, the creeping privatisation of public space, and a council willing to close down vital community services and simultaneously sell off swathes of the city centre to luxury property developers and retailers, there has seldom been a time when fighting for autonomous spaces in Manchester has been more important.

We need to recognise borders where they appear. The restrictions created by capitalist social relations and the property system abolishes common ground, segregates according to wealth and ownership, and in doing so throws up borders all around us. Control of the movement and association of people - whether at the micro-level of our inner cities or the macro level of international migration is a global issue that must be challenged.

We should fight to create spaces in Manchester not simply as bases of resistance or celebration (though we hope they can provide this), but to encourage a departure from the systems that control us. For centuries, people have migrated across borders and have occupied spaces to live in as a way to take control of their own lives. They choose to leave their own pasts, in an effort to claim autonomy over their future lives.

The demonstration on Saturday was a celebration of this....Thank you to everyone who participated!

Freedom of Movement for all - Defend autonomous spaces

2008-03-18T10:17:00.000-07:00

Manchester No Borders are mobilising for a demonstration in Manchester for Saturday, April 12, for FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT FOR ALL and IN DEFENCE OFAUTONOMOUS SPACES.Assemble at Urbis (next to Victoria Station), 5pm

Check http://www.april-12.blogspot.com/ for updates and to read the demo call!

Noise demo exposes construction company

2008-03-05T06:39:00.000-08:00

Manchester No Borders held a noise protest today to expose the construction company that will carry out the planned expansion of the immigration detention centre at Manchester Airport. Carillion plc have been awarded contracts to carry out the work.

We staged a short but noisy protest outside the Manchester offices of Carillion National Building, drawing attention to the planned expansion of the detention facility and of Carillion’s involvement. Banners were attached to the compound’s fencing. While some employees seemed to agree with the reason for our protest, security guards called the police. When a police van arrived 10 minutes later, the small assembly of protesters dispersed quickly. A few were stopped by the cops however, who wrote down their descriptions. You can see some photographs here.

Manchester Airport

The detention centre at Manchester Airport is a short-term holding facility, contracted to Group 4 Securicor. It is intended to hold passengers detained by airport immigration staff for further questioning or those who have been refused permission to enter the country and are awaiting removal on another flight. In fact, however, its main function is currently as a staging post for detainees being transferred from one place of detention to another, and from detention centres in the North to airports in the South. Few of the detainees have committed any crimes. Rather, they are arrested and detained when their asylum claims are refused, their visas run out, or they are otherwise found to not have the “right” to be in this country. This includes school and university students arrested in the middle of term time, migrant workers, and families who have long settled in the UK and who are often “snatched” in dawn raids on their homes. With construction work beginning in the next few weeks, the centre’s holding capacity will increase from 16 to 32. This is in line with the government’s plans to increase detention capacity from 2,500 to 4,000.

Carillion plc

Carillion plc is a UK-based support service and construction company, with annual revenue of around £4bn and operations across Britain and overseas. Carillion’s business units range from nuclear and defence to highways maintenance. As part of Carillion’s group structure, Carillion National Building has a focus on what they call the “defence and secure sector”, designing, constructing, financing and operating prisons and law courts across the UK. As such its customers have included HMP Brixton, Altcourse Prison Liverpool, the UK Passport Service and Manchester Magistrates’ Court. In Manchester, Carillion has recently completed the construction of landmark building Beetham Tower, which houses the Hilton Hotel and luxury apartments. With its Head Office based in Wolverhampton, Carillion National Building has a number of UK offices across the country. In Manchester, their offices are at 550 Mauldeth Road West, Chorlton.

Report from NoBorders gathering

2008-02-25T04:56:00.000-08:00

On Saturday 16th February sixty No Borders activists came together in Manchester to discuss the future of the network. The gathering was called by Manchester No Borders, and groups from Brighton, Bristol, Newcastle, Oxford, Liverpool, London, Cardiff, Birmingham and many more came for a weekend of discussions, planning and hanging out with other No Borders activists.

Saturday began with a discussion about the identity of No Borders. What is No Borders, can we agree on a cohesive identity for the network? The discussion drew out some ideological conflicts within the network, but one thing that everyone agreed on was the importance of an ‘anticapitalist' emphasis within No Borders. But what does this mean? How does capitalism relate to borders? This debate kept going for most of the first morning and in various conversations throughout the weekend, there was definitely a sense that this needed to be pursued and that it was at the top of the agenda (literally-pushing the pre-planned agenda into oblivion!) for many activists in the No Borders network.

After a morning of theoretical discussions we began to discuss tactics. In small groups people discussed the potential conflict between small-scale more achievable actions against migration management and solidarity campaigns on the one hand, and the networks broader goals on the other. Is there a conflict? What should we focus our energies on as a network? This discussion fed in nicely to the next point on the agenda- who/what should be our target? A few key targets were pulled out of this discussion: snatch squads/dawn raids/forced removals, detentions centres, housing, airlines involved in deportations, G4S, reporting centres.

Manchester, as a new group, had called this gathering to see if there was a network out there, the energy and excitement we were met with suggested, yes, there definitely is. On Sunday it emerged that there was alot of energy to decide on a national, network wide, campaign. Groups presented the pros and cons of their respective campaigns, the urgency, locality, accessibility and feasibility (in terms of action opportunities) were discussed and the final decision, with only one stand aside, was that two working groups would begin planning two national campaigns, one targeting snatch squads/forced removals and the other targeting airlines involved in deportations. The snatch squad campaign will target local security forces involved in the arrest of asylum seekers/refugees/migrants from their homes in the early hours of the morning. The campaign targeting airlines, following on from the success of XL airline, which recently halted their involvement in deportations after a similar campaign, will target high profile airlines such a Virgin.

There was a lot of energy for groups to act together under the No Borders banner and feedback from local groups suggested that the knowledge and expertise available to the network will contribute to a lively and informed campaign.

The next gathering is planned for September 2008 in Newcastle. www.noborders.org.uk.

invite to No Borders UK gathering

2008-02-07T12:19:00.000-08:00

NO BORDERS UK GATHERING

When:Saturday February 16th - Sunday February 17th
Where: MERCI, 21 Beswick Street, Manchester M40

What:No Borders is a network of groups of grass-rootsorganisations that support free migration and theabolishment of borders and deportations. No Borders Groups from across the country will begathering to discuss strategy and tactics in order tooppose the repression of migrants and refugees.

We welcome others involved in fighting againstrepressive immigration controls to the gathering. Saturday morning will provide an opportunity to findout more about No Borders and what we do. We are keen to work with other organisations and individualsinvolved in similar struggle.

Accommodation and food with be provided from Saturdaymorning to Sunday lunch. A £10 donation is suggested! Refugees and migrants will not be asked for donations.

Please contact manchesternoborders@riseup.net for anymore information.MERCI is a fully accessible building. Please contactus if you require a creche.

No Borders film night a success!

2008-02-06T08:54:00.000-08:00

Every Monday at the University of Manchester student union a free documentary is shown. The event is open to the public, encourages discussion, and attempts to cover topics that are not always done justice in the mainstream media. The event is coordinated by the Openmedia forum, email openmedia (at) umsu.manchester.ac.uk for more.On Monday 4th February, Manchester NoBorders hosted the event and over seventy people attended. The evening began with a few short clips relating to migration and resistance, then followed the docudrama 'Ghosts' and it ended with some news on the NoBorders network, plus informal discussion. We showed:'Underground Londoners' We showed an extract from this new 30min documentary about the lives and struggles of migrants working in the London underground. The footage is based on a year of ongoing conversations and interviews with migrant workers. To order the film contact artmislondon (at) googlemail.com

'Woomera' We showed the dramatic and moving footage of a NoBorders camp at a detention centre in Woomera, Australia. Here, the NoBorders protestors worked with the detainees to break down the huge fences that seperated them. However, the break out was not a complete success, the majority of those who escaped were re-captured not far from the detention centre. Some indymedia coverage can be seen here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qun9ATwjfR0

'Ghosts' is a name that Chinese immigrants give to white westerners. It is also the name of Nick Broomfield's powerful and sensitive portrayal of the events leading up to the deaths of 23 Chinese cockle pickers at Morecambe Bay. The cast includes former illegal immigrants and the end of the film sees an appeal to help the families of the dead, who are still in debt to the gangs that facilitated the illegal migration. Despite the sad content of the film, it proved to be useful for stimulating contamplation and debate. For example, we discussed whether the film gives a fair representation of illegal immigrants in general, or does it portray them too heavily as victims?

No Borders update

2007-12-20T07:45:00.000-08:00

On November 29th No Borders Manchester hosted a successful speaker and film event at The Friends Meeting House. A healthy turnout of at least 60 people heard speakers from the NoBorders Network, the Migrant Workers Network and the University of Manchester. Guests speaking on behalf of the NoBorders network introduced the aims, motivations and structure of the network. They also gave a report from the NoBorders camp that took place on the Mexico/North American border in early November.

Stef Jansen from the University of Manchester used the example of the former Yugoslavia to demonstrate the artificial construction of nation states.

Extracts were shown from an inspiring 39min documentary called 'No Lager Nowhere' (understood in several European countries as no migration controls/no detention centres), produced by the European anti-Lager Campaign. The documentary brings together live footage of anti-lager actions that have occurred across Europe and Australia.

Since this film was shown autonomous actions against migration controls continue to occur, including a nationally coordinated day of action against deportation snatch squads. For extensive coverage of this event see the UK indymedia newswire for 18th Dec. 07, or http://www.noborders.org.uk/ for links to mainstream press coverage.

NoBorders Manchester will meet again on 26th January 08, to plan future campaigns, events and actions, and prepare for the NoBorders national gathering that Manchester will be hosting in February. The time and location of these meetings is to be confirmed. Email manchesternoborders@riseup.net for more information or check this blog.

Dawn Raids stopped

2007-12-18T12:44:00.000-08:00

Manchester No Borders has just learned that a group of activists has targeted the Group 4 Securicor (G4S) enforcement teams in Salford. G4S operates 'snatch squads' from Greater Manchester's immigration reporting centre at Dallas Court, which aim to arrest suspected 'failed' asylum seekers and 'irregular' migrant workers. The local migrant communities live under constant threat of being victims of dawn raids by the snatch squads, being detained in removal centres or deported.Early this morning, activists used a motorbike chain to lock shut the gate at Dallas Court, preventing the snatch teams from leaving the premises. They also hung a banner reading "Caution snatch squads--we are watching you."

Today's action was part of a co-ordinated national day of action against snatch squads. Similar activities took place across the UK, in Glasgow, Bristol, Newcastle and Portsmouth.

The activists also see themselves as part of a broader campaign in Manchester to highlight the contradictions of migration management and the injustice experienced by the most vulnerable. In November this year, an unknown group of activists super-glued shut the office door of consultancy firm FD Tamesis for its PR work with what will be Britain's largest immigration prison.

In October, a protest by No Borders and anti-racist activists secured the release from custody of an asylum seeker held at Longsight police station. It is believed that without the pressure from campaigners the man would have been deported to Iran.

A spokesperson for Manchester No Borders welcomed today's 'dawn rail' on G4S, warning that "the pressure on those profiting from detentions and deportations is on. Direct action here has a direct impact on the lives of those affected."

Who we are

2007-06-23T14:37:00.000-07:00

Manchester No Borders is a theory and action group that organises against migration management. We are part of an international network of local groups resisting migration controls. Recently we have hosted public information meetings, organised a Freedom of Movement demo, attended a May day healthcare entitlement demo and exposed the company responsible for extending the airports 'short term holding facility'. We have aimed to focus strongly on the theory linking border control, capitalism and the environment to help inform our practical actions resisting migration controls.

No Borders interview

2007-06-23T14:36:00.000-07:00

This is an interview with an activist from the No Borders network about the international No Borders camp near Gatwick airport in September 2007 (taken from Shift Mag).

Last September, some 300 people gathered a few miles from Gatwick airport for the No Borders camp. What was the idea behind the camp? What were its aims? The camp was part of the campaign against a new detention centre, Brook House, that is being built at Gatwick Airport. It was also a conscious attempt to strengthen the UK No Borders network, to gather ideas for how to build up the fight against the system of migration controls with other groups working on this issue in the UK, Europe and beyond. There were loads of workshops, talks, films, networking and skill sharing at the camp. Another aim was ‘outreach’ and raising the profile of the campaign against the new detention centre and displaying our opposition to various parts of the immigration infrastructure in the Gatwick area, (reporting centre, detention centre, companies involved in removals flights etc.) As the original call out explained, “Gatwick is a border in the middle of Britain. People arrive there everyday. People are forcibly deported from there everyday. It is a place where people are imprisoned for unlimited lengths of time without trial, where people are forced to hide underground and be invisible, where people are treated as criminals for the 'crime' of crossing the border... We demand the end of the border regime for everyone, including ourselves, to enable us to live another way, without fear, racism and nationalism.” The UK context has arguably become much harsher under recent legislation and a cranking up of the No Borders network was certainly needed.

How was the camp organised and why did it come so quickly after the Climate Camp at Heathrow airport? There have been discussions about a UK No Border camp for many years. This camp was continuing the tradition of the No Borders camps across the world since the late 1990s, and like the camps that took place last year in the Ukraine in August and on the US/Mexican border in November. The original idea, in March 2007, was to have a smaller action camp to disrupt the building of the new detention centre but the idea developed and publicity was taken to the G8 in Germany, early June. This meant that the camp grew in size and became much more ambitious. We have all certainly learned lessons from this experience.

Although there were monthly, open meetings, the majority of logistical organising, networking and fund-raising was done by a (too) small group of existing No Borders activists based mainly in London, Brighton but also from around the UK. The short time frame over a busy period meant that it was difficult to get more people involved. In our debrief, we discussed that perhaps from some places there was pressure to pull off something of similar scale to the climate camp, but this was not by any means an explicit aim of the camp. The main reason that the camp was planned for the late summer was not to clash with other camps/events but also we felt it was essential for the campaign against the new detention centre that it was this summer, building work has already begun! In fact the detention centre is due for completion in 2008.

A conscious decision was made to rent, rather than squat, the land on which the camp was held. Also, instead of mass direct action, the main event was an authorised demonstration to Tinsley House detention centre. Were there (dis)advantages to working within the law? Squatting was certainly always there as a fall back option, to my knowledge there was certainly no conscious decision made not to squat. Saying that, there was a strong argument to make the camp a place where people with insecure legal status could come without putting themselves at risk. It's hard to say exactly how asylum seekers and migrants are treated by the criminal justice system, but its certainly unpredictable and often small offences can risk detention and deportation. Of course with squatting, defending the site could well end up being the action in itself and we were not sure about how many people we would be. Ultimately though, we found a really good location and sound farmer for an amount of money that we could afford so we went for that. Due to police pressure, we then lost this site, 48 hours before set up was due to start! We were pretty close to not having a camp at all when we lost the land. This is one big disadvantage of working with rented land, ultimately the police harassed the family on this farm to allow them full access, they denied it, the police continued to harass them and eventually they pulled out of the contract. This has happened before, at the G8 camp in Stirling for example, and this shows that the police are prepared to try hard to stop these events happening.

Because at the last minute the location of the camp was forced to change we were much further from intended targets and so smaller affinity group actions were much harder to do, although there were some, (including an occupation of Virgin Airlines offices and a blockade of Group 4.) This was a real shame as all along the idea had been to have both legal demos and provision for direct action, but it was way out of our control. After the decision was made to get a temporary events notice to make the camp a legal and safe space, from that point on there was a need for negotiation with the authorities. In the end there was no license because our actual location fell in a different council and it was too late.

One thing that was advantageous of having a main, pre-organised legal demo, was that the time actually at the camp, (only 4 days long rather than 8 days at the climate camp,) was not spent deciding what to do and people could easily come just for the day. There was a clear programme of events and of course, autonomy, (although maybe not enough time), for groups wanting to organise direct action alongside that. It did seem strange to be organising a legal demo and it was for sure an uneasy political choice for many. But in reality the aim of the demo was to march through Crawley town centre on a busy Saturday afternoon, show our opposition to the new detention centre and to get to Tinsley House to show our solidarity and communicate with the detainees inside. Our negotiation of a route and a legal demo meant that we did this successfully. Not all the events were negotiated in this way, at Lunar House in East Croydon we gathered outside to give out food and information to the people queuing and the police tried to stop us by using kettles to contain small groups.

Although I took part, I would question whether what happened at the climate camp was a mass direct action. Despite the many many hours spent looking for consensus on the plan, there were many people who felt the whole thing was manipulated and sabotaged. The action on the Sunday at BAA was essentially a blockade at a building which was not open for business. Whether this was fundamentally more effective/ empowering than the demo in Crawley is a question for each individual involved to answer. But the point is that each case needs to be thought about on its own merits about what it is trying to achieve and be planned accordingly. To really get a mass of people I think that at least partly open, pre-planned events can really help. I think also that we should learn about how much energy and time can be spent on reaching consensus with very large, diverse groups which then can sometimes result in decisions which very few people are happy with.

Many of the people at the camp had also been at the Climate Camp. Was there an overlap of effort? There was certainly a great deal of co-operation between the people organising the infrastructure. The No Borders camp was able to borrow and store structures and a lot of necessary bits and pieces from individuals, groups, neighbourhoods and ‘central’ climate camp tat. This made the No Borders camp able to happen and was a great example of how effort from one thing can carry on to the next. There are plans afoot to make this process more easy - formalised in some way in the future. In all other ways, networking and the campaigns involved, overlap wasn't really an issue. But I was definitely glad to see that quite a few people did cross over, and that the two issues are seen as interrelated. For example XL airways were targeted during the climate camp for their involvement in deportation flights to the Democratic Republic of Congo. This airline then made a public statement that they were stopping their involvement in deportation flights just before the No Borders camp.

Some commentators have remarked that the Climate Camp stood for ‘austerity’, while the no borders camp stood for ‘freedom of mobility’. Aren’t these irreconcilable politics? Was this an issue at the camp? Was it an issue? Not one that was discussed that I was aware of. For me it's an interesting comment, because there is very little that seems to link the two issues together in the public eye. Social justice arguments related to climate change are often down played or ignored whereas I see migration and climate change as totally connected. I was involved in both events, and saw no clash between them but of course I can only speak for myself. For me, climate camp was about many things, I don't think it is possible to reduce these things to one position. Climate change is perhaps the starkest symptom of the economic system which promotes endless economic growth over all else. Finding ways of living with more autonomy from a fossil fuel- oppressive- climate changing system is one of those, learning skills for self reliance is another. Challenging the idea that the well-off have some inalienable right to fly away to Paris for shopping trips is also important. This year's camp was also about highlighting BAA's Heathrow expansion plans and making the argument that this is madness in light of climate change. Perhaps most importantly to me, it was also about opposing the idea that the people whose homes, schools and communities would be destroyed by the expansion of Heathrow, and all the others who will feel the less direct impacts, are the unfortunate victims of necessary progress. The people in Sipson village are one of thousands of communities around the world who are threatened by the pressure for expansion and profit. The climate camp was also about standing in solidarity with those people, but also with the many millions of people whose lives are directly or indirectly affected by the environmental and social ravages of an oil-addicted consumer culture. So yes, climate camp is about challenging unjust and unsustainable consumption, which isn't the same as being for austerity which has negative connotations. Spiralling debt, work related stress and mental illness, obesity, depleted sense of community are all symptoms of this illness and localised community responses to climate change can also have many other benefits.

Open borders and the freedom of movement for all is also an anti-capitalist position. From slavery through to modern day neo-liberal free trade agreements, the position of wealth and privilege in the global north is, to a large extent, the result of the exploitation of land, people and resources of the two thirds world. The immigration system and fortress europe is designed to preserve this division. Flows of people are managed and controlled in the national interest, and for economic benefit. To speak out against migration controls also challenges the huge injustice which exploits people and resources around the world for the benefit of few. Freedom of movement is the preserve of the relatively rich. People who question the principle of freedom of movement, should consider their huge privilege if they have an EU passport.

In summary, both camps call for social change, a desire for a redistribution of wealth which is both a call for reigning in of western decadence and an opening up of that same wealth to those affected historically and also right now. The climate camp offers a radical critique of responses to climate chaos offered by governments. Many of the options offered by the state such as carbon rationing, would de-facto lead us blindfold into a police state. No Borders has at its core this same resistance to encroachment on our liberties and sees that government systems of control are often trialled on asylum seekers, but they can and will affect us all.

The Climate Camp aimed to build a movement against the causes of climate change. Can you see an emerging no borders movement? On the one hand yes, the number of active No Border groups in the UK has certainly grown since the camp and there are projects and actions going on, which link these groups into a network. There are big questions which we will be discussing at an up-coming national gathering, about how any No Borders network could be strengthened and made more effective. As well as challenging the construction of new immigration prisons and deportations to possible death and torture, a No Borders movement would have to build widespread agreement that such things are morally unacceptable. Each case that is highlighted by anti-deportation campaigns, every action against a forced removal is part of building towards that point. There may well be a growing movement against the companies that carry out deportation flights for example or the detention estate, run by private companies for profit. Educating ourselves about the immigration system, the harsh reality of ‘illegal’ economic migrants, challenging racist officials and laws and acting in solidarity with all the struggles against these things I see as part of an emerging No Borders movement.

But what exactly do we mean by a movement? There is no such thing as a blueprint for a movement but I understand it to be an informal group action for social change which aims to influence the wider political agenda with its message.

The Climate Camp aimed to include as many people as possible, brought together to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions through education, sustainable living and direct action. An enormous amount of energy was spent bringing a non-hierarchical model of organising to a wide group of people, recognising that we need radical action on a mass scale. The result of this long planning process was two flawed, but fantastic, week-long events. This process was made possible because ultimately there was already a general feeling that “something must be done about climate change” within the mainstream consciousness that could be tapped into and developed. Although many people involved with the camp place this message within a much wider critique, in itself, doing something about climate change is far from a radical message. Indeed everyone including American presidential candidates to fossil fuel companies such as Beyond Petroleum finally seem to agree.

After two years of climate camps, a direct action movement is being drawn together and strengthened against the fossil fuel empire, one of the root causes of climate change. Since the high profile, audacious events, some climate campers have become spokespeople for more radical arguments within the broad, public climate change debate which involves NGOs, politicians and the mainstream media. The Climate Camp was, in short, less about the message conveyed and more about how to get there. It also successfully brought arguments about economic growth lying at the root cause of climate change in to the public spectrum.

I wonder if this approach to movement building is possible, appropriate or even desirable for No Borders. The No Borders network has existed since 1999 and is a loose association of autonomous groups and individuals who work within a political spectrum of direct actions, anti-deportation campaigns and demonstrations which challenge migration controls. The No Borders position is certainly far from having popular currency. It is explicitly anti-state and pro-freedom of movement for all people. It argues that immigration controls are inherently racist and so acts out of solidarity with economic migrants as well as asylum seekers and refugees. In a global economy, where goods are transported and monies flow irrespective of borders, nation states are a way of controlling access to wealth and privilege and dividing the haves and the have-nots both between and inside countries.

This political position is currently on the very fringes of debate about migration, which is dominated by right wing, anti-immigrant scape-goating and human rights based reform. A huge amount of important work is done by groups to support those suffering immigration detention and destitution and supporters will hold someone's hand all the way to the plane. However, many of these groups do not or can not challenge the immigration system as a whole and are unlikely to ever become part of any No Borders movement. Although there will be some cross-over there are different underlying aims, (reform of vs. abolition of immigration controls). No Borders has a vital role therefore in articulating the anti-capitalist/anti-state position within this debate and taking direct action to prevent things when we can. We are, however, a very long way from making the fight against borders part of the mainstream in this country although there are emerging links between struggles of undocumented workers, detainees and those struggling against immigration controls around the world.

It seems we are perhaps, finally a little nearer to seeing radical action on climate change, (if only the eco-radicals of the 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s had been listened to!) But it is important to remember that both are essentially part of the same struggle to destroy our current economic, capitalist system and are equally far away from achieving this aim! Both emerging movements will encounter similar resistance by those who will fight to maintain their power and privilege and this remains the most challenging struggle of all.

The no borders camp got little media interest in the mainstream press. Do you still think it was a success? It all depends on how you measure success; I sometimes thought it was a miracle that we pulled off the camp at all! I also enjoyed not having a paparazzi or fit team camera pointed at us the entire duration of the camp. We were there for many reasons, getting mainstream media interest was not a high priority for many of us though there were some very positive reports in the local media. It was a success for us as a local group, it was an exciting beginning to a rejuvenated No Border network. There were some very powerful, informative and useful workshops; one I went to about the impact of migration on the autonomous, indigenous communities in Oaxaca for example. There were some really important exchanges between people, both at the camp and outside, when we were at Lunar House reporting centre in Croydon and talking to people inside Tinsley House for example. I had never been on such a big demo at a detention centre and I don't think Crawley had ever seen anything like it. There were also invaluable opportunities for lessons to be shared with No Border activists and other people struggling in other places around the world.

In retrospect I think everyone involved would have done things differently. But, whether the camp was a success or not will only become clear as we see how the actions, campaigns and network develop over the coming months and years. Any camp needs to be measured on so many different levels, its atmosphere, its logistical organisation, its political impact etc. I for one have had enough of camping for a while and think that I will put energy in to other things, but it was a great experience.

Why No Borders?

2007-05-07T09:25:00.000-07:00

No Borders is a transnational network of groups struggling for the freedom of movement for all and an end to all migration controls. It is also an anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian position shared by many who are not necessarily part of a No Borders group. This booklet is a tool; a tool for thinking, discussing and taking action under the No Borders banner. Borders, migration and refugee issues are a complex world of organisations, companies, government agencies and acronyms. This is no accident but the result of a political and economic system based on exploitation and the relentless desire to control and to make profit. This A-Z provides some definitions which we hope will be a starting point to understanding a position against borders and taking action to achieve this goal. As well as explaining some of these organisations and terms in simple language it also gives a taste of the huge range of resistance and campaigns that exist to get involved with. This action is increasingly urgent as the repressive state immigration policies wreak havoc on thousands of lives around the world.

From the land enclosures and Highland clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries, to the ‘migration management’ policies and surveillance of today, those in power have sought to control the movement of people. Fear of the ‘other’ is encouraged, and ordinary people are pitted against each other for apparently scarce resources, whilst certain sections of society consolidate their wealth and control. Categorisations such as 'alien,' ‘immigrant,’ ‘illegal’ and ‘foreigner’ create divisions that divert attention away from the real causes of poverty, environmental destruction and inequalities both in the UK and worldwide, i.e. Capitalism and unequal power relations. The No Borders network adopts an explicit anti-capitalist position, seeing capitalism as at the root of social injustice and inequality. As an anti-authoritarian network, No Borders rejects all forms of domination and social control.

No Borders, No Nations, No Deportations! While this is clearly an ambitious goal, when we look at the historical context of nation states and immigration controls and their function the relevance of the position becomes clear. The nation state only became the foundation on which our political, economic and social lives are organised in the eighteenth century. Immigration controls were then introduced as a way of managing who entered these countries and for what purpose. The first immigration controls in the UK were set up in 1905 to prevent the inward migration of Jewish refugees, as a direct result of fascist agitation.

Through efforts to increase power and amass wealth, capitalism and imperialism have created a huge gulf between the comparatively rich nations of the West and developing countries, and this parasitic relationship continues. Rich countries exploit the land, resources and people in the majority world in order to fuel profit driven economies and consumer societies. Borders are necessary to defend the wealthy and to maintain this inequality. Nation states and protectionism are economically and politically desirable in this system, promoting the economy, managing the labour market and enforcing the borders, whilst others flee the very wars and poverty caused by this violent cycle or live exploited and precarious lives as 'illegals' or asylum seekers.

Despite their economic and political foundations, the idea that nations are somehow natural continues to shape how we think about ourselves and others. “The ‘imagined community' of a country is created, the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (Benedict Anderson, 1983). This illusion of harmonious common interests within the ‘nation’ disguises the huge inequalities of power and resources that exist in a system based on the exploitation of the many for the profit of the few. It also denies similarities of experience between people across the globe who feel the negative effects of this system.

In stark comparison to these imagined communities the impacts of borders and the nation state system are very real. War and genocide, immigration controls, detention centres, dawn raids, surveillance and monitoring, racism and xenophobia, thousands of deaths as people attempt to cross borders. Many profit from this system of control. This happens both directly through the running of immigration prisons as well as by managed migration of the global labour market. Whilst capital flows freely, the movement of people is controlled and restricted.

Since the movement of people generally follows the movement of wealth, it is no surprise that whilst the British ruling class conquered and exploited much of the world, people living in the areas that become impoverished and plundered follow the wealth to the UK. In this way border controls can be seen as a clumsy attempt to avoid the payback of imperialist conquest and exploitation. Those who have been dispossessed by imperialist domination during the age of empire and more recent capitalist neo-colonialism are well within their rights to demand a share of the wealth that is created off their backs. The No Borders network aims to support the interests of the people who have decided to take this hard and dangerous path.

Borders, and the immigration controls that mark them, create a social hierarchy of legal/illegal, documented/undocumented, and citizens/non citizens, whilst protecting a system that puts the needs of capitalism before the needs of people. Through No Borders, we are struggling for freedom of movement for everyone, not just those that are deemed worthy by the system. At its core then, No Borders is a position that rejects this categorisation, which defies racist distinctions and believes that where people are born and their ‘nationality’ should not dictate their lives. Rather, we call for Freedom of Movement for All and for collective, autonomous forms of organisation.

Since 1999 people acting under the No Borders banner have been directly targeting the structures and organisations that uphold the system of migration management. They have set up many No Border camps round the world to take action, learn together and bring attention to the reality of border controls. In the UK the No Borders network is a platform for exchange of information and experience among groups and individuals involved in different political struggles with an anti-capitalist perspective. We also work together with self-organised groups of migrants and act in solidarity with detainees, workers struggles and those threatened with deportation. Alongside migrant groups, we are involved in campaigns against a range of corporate and state targets including detention centres, airlines that deport people, corporations and security firms profiting from the system of migration management, the International Organisation for Migration, and against ID cards.

We call for a radical movement against the system of control, dividing us into citizens and non-citizens. We demand the end of the border regime for everyone, including ourselves, to enable us to live another way, without fear, racism and nationalism.

City of Shame

2006-11-12T09:44:00.000-08:00

Dallas Court Reporting Centre

Address: Dallas Court, South Langworthy Street, Salford [map]
[About Dallas Court][example of previous demo][and another one]

Snatch Squads/Dawn Raids
Address: Dallas Court, South Langworthy Street, Salford [map]
[example of previous action][and more]

Airport detention centre 'Pennine House'
Address: Pennine House, Manchester Airport, Terminal 2
[What are detention centres?][About Pennine House][previous action]

International Organisation for Migration
Adress: Piccadilly House, 49 Piccadilly M1 2AP, Tel: 0161 2121 463
[About the IOM][previous action]

2006-07-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

manchesternoborders (at) riseup (dot) net