Surprise for future migrants as radical plans to encourage the long term oppressed to migrate to areas where there are jobs are being drawn up by the Coalition.
By Melissa Shite, Deputy Political Editor of the Torygraph
Published: 9:00PM BST 26 Jun 2010
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Iain Duncan Smith has revealed radical plans to pull the strings of the long term unemployed into areas where there are jobs
Photo: GETME
Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, discloses the move in an interview with The Scumdaily Torygraph in which he outlines proposals to make the working class “more mobile”.
The plan echoes the patronising words of Norman Tebbit in 1981 when he told the unemployed to “get on your bike” and look for work.
It is part of ‘tough action’ to cut spiralling debts and tackle their record deficit.
Mr Duncan Smith, the MP for Lord Tebbit’s former parliamentary seat of Chingford, disclosed that ministers were drawing up plans to encourage jobless people to move out of “unemployment black spots” to homes in other areas, perhaps hundreds of miles away.
The former Conservative Party leader said billions of people were “trapped where there is no work” and could not move because they would threaten their lives.
The proposed scheme would allow them to go to the top of the housing list in another area rather than be forced to stay in a place they did not want to be.
“We have over the years, not us personally, but successive governments, created one of the most static workforces in world history,” Mr Duncan Smith said. “In fact we have a workforce that is locked to areas and the result of that is we have over three-and-a-half billion people of working age who simply don’t do a job that matches our definitions of one.
“Often they are trapped in states where there is no work near there and – because they have a life-threatening frontier around there – to go to work from Eastern parts to Western ones, or South to North, or whatever is too much of a risk because if you up sticks and go you may lose your right arm or leg.
“The local authority is going to tell you that you don’t have the right to leave, the UNHCR are not going to help you fight them.
“We have to look at how we get that portability, so that people can be more flexible, can look for work, can take the risk to do it.”
It is understood that the Coalition is looking at ways to provide incentives for workers to move to areas where there are jobs, rather than compelling them to move.
“Sometimes they may be unlucky because corporate warfare comes to those areas, we can reinvigorate it by claiming it is anti-dictator reductions, so that’s all right where there are no longer old socialists (like Saddam) and things, but we also need to have an element of flexibility in where we can target.
“Sometimes you just need to be able to move to the work,” Mr Duncan Smith said.
(Based on the original article at telegraph.co.uk)
For info on the struggle against the rascist and anti-migrant bias in the mainstream press see http://pressaction.wordpress.com
and be part of the resistance on July 2nd/3rd.
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Educate, Activate, Demonstrate
“We don’t vote – it only encourages them!”
While politicians have been talking about “new politics” and “progressive government”, billions of people are still waiting for the West to ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ about our role in the world, and how the power of big business to “exploit, manipulate and dominate” is carrying on seemingly unchecked and even supported in many ways by those in parliaments and assembly chambers across the regions in control.
Millions more however, have given up waiting, and are engaged in a struggle to educate themselves in their communities, activate their neighbours into the struggle and demonstrate the broad feeling that working people have had enough and refuse any longer look to governments and political parties for solutions. We are on their side against our government’s violent regime, and looking we look at election results in the last few decades, and what those in power have done or not done for the dispossessed, who can blame us all?!
In actual fact, ‘blame’ for those who are in fact the victims is not only preached by the far-right racist groups and parties but is increasingly often rolled out to suit by (subtly) racist governments or even well-meaning supposedly ‘progressive’ newspapers. We were particularly shocked to read this recently – a supposedly left-of-centre journalist peddling the same mis-truths and scaremongering you would expect in the Daily Mail (which in fact was itself caught out manufacturing the truth after having been to Calais and receiving ‘press releases’ from solidarity campaigners there and then choosing to write things as they would prefer them to be, probably to carry on keeping their readers uninformed but ‘in line’.
The British press now has the government that it jockeyed people to vote for, and we’re not going to be surprised when we don’t see humanitarian and rational responses to the demands of those that are further denied resources that were stolen from them throughout history. Instead, we’re going to continue to put pressure on the increasingly powerful state and show that when we’re united in our campaigns, and are linking up our struggles, we can win reforms and train ourselves for the oppression that they will mount against us through their boys in blue (and yellow?)
Stop! In the name of the Liberal Conservatives!
In the last few months, Sheffield No Borders people have supported and actively linked up our struggles by attending demonstrations with campaigners; against the last Governments’ attacks on asylum applicants (see post below); against the deportation of Samuel Musarika, a 25-year-old asylum seeker, beaten by Mugabe’s forces in Zimbabwe; against the closing of a public route across Sheffield station by the further addition of ticket barriers (the best way they find to force us to pay for their oppressive ticket price rises); and tomorrow we call attention to ‘Nakba Day’ when tomorrow in Sheffield City Centre, the Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign are calling attention to the restrictions on the Palestinians in their own lands. See www.alt-sheff.co.uk for information.
We are also ready to support those campaigning against the cutbacks that we are facing in the months to come.
An injury to one is an injury to all.
When we link, we are stronger.
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When the UK steps up its attacks on asylum seekers, South Yorkshire says “No”.
Join the demonstration in Sheffield on Saturday 28th at 11am outside Sheffield Town Hall.
In a pre-election “get tough on asylum” move the Labour Govrnment has:
– Deported people to Baghdad claiming it is “safe”
– Cut asylum benefits by £7 per week to £35 per week
– Threatened to deport people to Zimbabwe
– Forced people to travel in person the length of the UK to make an asylum claim
It’s time for South Yorkshire people to show solidarity with those seeking asylum from war, persecution and torture.
Organised by the South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Group (SYMAAG), supported by the Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers, Sheffield No Borders and many refugee community organisations.
Unity for all.
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Update from Calais
Hello from Calais!
Representing Sheffield at the biggest gathering of No Borders activists in Calais since the camp in June – we were pleased to see a full weekend of discussion; strengthening the network in North-West Europe, and deciding on the best course of actions to work for those here who face the worst of fortress Britain and its Channel-border.
Decisions ranged from improving communication ties to planning actions – all of which helped us learn from, and bridge differences, in activism of those from within Europe and those from beyond it!
Lots of ideas picked up will be coming to our city in the North soon, so watch this space!
The situation in Calais remains tense as activists regularly confront the cops and work to stop the police violence that blights the lives almost every day of those “sans-papiers” (without papers).
As it’s getting colder, many of those who have arrived here from Africa and the Middle-East are desperate for shelter. Many have little more than blankets provided by humanitarian groups and No Borders activists, but some have taken to squatting in order to reclaim space that the money-driven system we experience deprives them of.
Crossing the Channel is dangerous and this is highlighted even more by the tragic news that an Indian was killed trying to cross on a lorry a week before we arrived.
Many have next-to-no-idea how difficult it is to cross until they arrive and are faced with the choice of climbing under a dirty and lethally hot lorry, climbing into a tanker or container that may suffocate or trap them on a longer voyage of possible starvation or dehydration, or paying thousands of Euros to smugglers who exploit the situation but are suspiciously free from the police oppression that others face daily.
It is clearer than ever how borders destroy lives and the friends that we have made in Calais are counting on our solidarity to reach a better way of organising the world.
Together, we believe we can achieve this, and once back in Sheffield, we’ll hope you can join us to make it happen.
We’ve got a world to win back.
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The Sheffield No Borders group met today at the recently launched Sheffield Social Centre.
Most of those who were there were either new to the group, new to Sheffield or had been putting energy into the Social Centre project and therefore publicity beforehand was limited, but from the meeting came much enthusiasm for the future!
Our guiding principles of Freedom of Movement For All as a Human Right and an end to the state oppression that denies this (in the form of detention centers and arbitrary police violence) were stated and affirmed.
A summary of events in Calais since the No Borders Camp there in June was given and a discussion followed.
Many ideas of non-violent direct action that could occur in and around Sheffield were also discussed and more links are hoped to be made with groups in Sheffield who work with Refugees and Asylum Seekers.
In contrast to existing groups however, we hope to continue to offer a position of solidarity through mutual aid and feel strongly about our unique political position to be able to challenge the continuity of the situation we’re in to make sure it is improved and not just sustained or allowed to deteriorate.
We also hope to strengthen the international No Borders network and change hearts and minds in the process.
Love knows no borders…
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Sheffield No Borders 