Laws that are unjust will inevitably be broken. Here is a basic reading of our history, and indeed how numerous rights and freedoms were secured in the first place. Ruled as we are by a desperate man lacking a moral compass, our sinking government has brought forward plans to detain asylum seekers across the UK in preparation for their deportation to Rwanda. After both the European court of human rights and the supreme court declared the government’s scheme unlawful – not least because Paul Kagame’s authoritarian regime could plausibly deport them to the country from which they fled – the government railroaded through legislation, absurdly declaring Rwanda to be safe. Here is the very definition of a law to be disrespected: one drawn up to override the courts and thus the separation of powers, to turn a lie into a legal fact, in support of an unworkable and immoral scheme that imposes pain on the traumatised purely to bolster a prime minister’s imploding administration.
Civil disobedience will take many forms. Asylum seekers will simply avoid reporting to the authorities, disappearing from the system altogether: indeed, the Home Office reports it cannot locate more than six in 10 migrants identified for deportation. But a network of activists across the country is poised to take action. We have lived through a decade of protests, speaking to a growing willingness to take to the streets to defy authority. Social media plays a pivotal role, not least when it comes to migrants’ rights: Anti Raids Network, for example, uses X to promote calls by local groups to mobilise activists to stop deportation raids. One such callout in Solihull yesterday asked for help stopping a deportation van: “There are unmarked enforcement vans in the car park, and we think these people could be at risk of being taken to detention.”
It’s an approach with proven success. Three years ago, hundreds of Glaswegians massed on Kenmure Street and freed two men who had been detained by UK immigration enforcement, chanting, “these are our neighbours, let them go” as they did so. It was in this spirit that the Glaswegian Scottish National party MP Anne McLaughlin drove to Easterhouse, on the city’s edges, yesterday, in response to a callout. “It’s the first of these roundups this time,” she tells me, “and I think it’s really important that people are there from the start, so that the Home Office know that, wherever they go, there’s crowd of people to resist what they’re doing.”
Civil disobedience, Savan Qadir from No Evictions Network, tells me, is about “responding to the circumstances proportionately”. If someone is arbitrarily detained, that is seen as kidnapping – “literally that person doesn’t even know where they’re going” – then nonviolent civil disobedience is used to disrupt it. But activists face no lack of challenges. Resources have been stretched by the sheer number of anti-migrant laws – not least the Illegal Migration Act, passed last year, which blocks people from claiming asylum if they arrive by an irregular route, regardless of the circumstances they have suffered. Laws clamping down on the right to protest have intentionally suffocated the ability to resist. That there are so many political mobilisations is a double-edged sword: the mass demonstrations against Israel’s unfolding genocide in Gaza both take up time for would-be activists, and also bring in new recruits awed by the experience of collective strength.
There’s also the less noisy, but practical work, too. Activists have to balance offering material support for those who are at risk of deportation, often without knowing it, without inadvertently causing panic among those who are not. Some migrant support groups set out stalls outside reporting centres, making sure that anyone who enters is given contact details so they can be offered support.
Many activists report frustrations, too, with mainstream refugee organisations, which have focused on providing services to those menaced by deportration, but which can do little when the law imposes blanket bans on asylum claims and prevents any legal appeals. But above all else, they’re filling a vacuum left by the Labour party. Few believe the latter has any serious plans to repeal Tory crackdowns on migrants and refugees; there is even the possibility of renewed punitive laws.
But there is a possibility for hope. Anti-migrant sentiment was far more pervasive a decade ago, whereas now – even with overall numbers of people arriving on British shores significantly higher – polling suggests immigration is only the fourth most important issue for voters, behind the cost of living crisis, NHS and the economy. Given that the Tories have no solutions to the first three – indeed, all have been worsened by their policies – it is unsurprising that they opt for the fourth, particularly appealing to a hardcore who have defected to Reform. “We know we are being played,” as Eiri Ohtani, director of Right to Remain, puts it. “We know we’re being used to hide the real issues by politicians.”
And this is why the core message Ohtani offers – “we need to normalise solidarity” – has so much potential. That means not simply looking at solidarity as an emergency action, such as stopping a deportation, but treating asylum seekers – and anyone else who is struggling, regardless of their immigration status – as fellow citizens in a local community who need our support. The failure of every flavour of Toryism in the last 14 years to do anything other than drag down living standards and trash the public realm is what leads Rishi Sunak to construct a life raft from the suffering of the most vulnerable. With the opposition missing in action, it falls to an army of activists to repel a Tory attempt to use the often deeply traumatised as electoral fodder. But the state of Britain is too abject, and attitudes towards those arriving here too improved, to save the Tories from impending electoral apocalypse. Never has “the cruelty is the point” been more apt as a phrase, but rarely has it been so doomed to failure as a strategy.
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
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