“If every city took 10 refugee families, if every London borough took 10 families, if every county council took 10 families… in a month we’d have nearly 10,000 more places for vulnerable refugees fleeing danger, seeking safety.” Yvette Cooper, The Guardian, Sept 1, 2015
When Yvette Cooper was running for her party’s top job exactly ten years ago, our current Home Secretary was full of solutions she does not seem to be able to recall these days!
I know this not only because I can Google it, but because Yvette Cooper stood on the platform with me, in front of hundreds of people at community events and promised that if she were in power, we would be a different country from that of Theresa May’s hostile environment.
Ten years ago, our current Home Secretary went on to say that Britain had a duty to accept many more people fleeing totalitarianism, and to fail to do so would be “cowardly, immoral and not the British way”.
The most recent development regarding so-called hotel accommodation is a case in point: hotels are presented as an unavoidable solution, as if there were no other possibilities. The majority of journalists are scratching their heads. If there is only something we could do, now we can’t keep them on barges or send them to Rwanda?, they often ask themselves.
I do want these so-called hotels to close, because I’ve seen some of them and heard stories of terrible conditions people are forced to live in, from bed bugs to windowless room shared by four people.The companies that profit from these places of misery used the COVID-19 lockdown to set up a system that was neither designed nor planned by the government. More importantly, this way of housing people is not humane, it is not needed or necessary.
And what of the alternatives? They exist. They have always existed.
They are erased from the story we are told. In the 1990s, the UK resettled thousands of Bosnians displaced by war. From 2014 to 2020, more than 20,000 Syrians were resettled directly into homes through the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, supported by councils and communities. The Afghan schemes, though bungled, have so far brought more than 34,000 people to safety. The response to refugees fleeing Ukraine dwarfs them all: over 223,000 people welcomed into our homes, supported by government resources, communities, and councils.
Again, I don’t have to Google it, because over the last three decades, I have seen, worked for and campaigned for alternatives. Starting with the Bosnia Project in the ‘90s, helping resettle my people fleeing from the war and genocide. This was a government-funded resettlement scheme run by the UNHCR, Red Cross, Refugee Council and Refugee Action. When the Syrian exodus started, I was part of an effort to protect refugees, and Migrants Organise became one of the first registered community sponsors, after we campaigned for the Community Sponsorship visa scheme. Our volunteers raised tens of thousands of pounds and we jumped through the bureaucratic hoops in order to welcome families to London.
As George Orwell warned in 1984, “The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.” The way immigration and asylum issues are reported and legislated in the UK often follows this pattern. The selective amnesia is not accidental. Remembering that alternatives existed would puncture the story that there is no choice and expose what the government is doing.
We hardly hear these days about the “hostile environment policy”. That is not because it came to an end, but because it has been normalised. Make no mistake, this hostility is not the failure of the system – it is the system!
So why are Afghans, Syrians, Sudanese and Eritreans condemned to drown in dinghies and forced to live in prison-like hotels full of bedbugs, while Ukrainians were welcomed with open arms? Not because the government can’t offer alternatives. Because it won’t.
For the systemic hostility to work, the systemic erasure of alternatives is required. These alternatives have already been demonstrated in practice. The politicians and media framed the debate as if people who are willing and prepared to welcome refugees do not exist. The good people of Britain have been systematically erased from discourse, too.
But we do exist and we are here, ready and willing to offer solidarity and practical support. We have solutions starting with hosting schemes, where individuals and families welcome displaced people into their homes, supported by government funding and local authority infrastructure (Ukraine, Bosnia).
Community housing and resettlement programmes, where local groups and councils take responsibility for sponsorship, housing, and support (Syria, Afghanistan). No one wants to talk about these any longer because the discourse that ‘we don’t want refugees here’ has been completely normalised.
Direct placement into social housing or private rental accommodation, with state assistance for landlords and tenants. In the first week of the picture of Alan Kurdi on the front pages of our newspapers, we were inundated by hundreds of people offering spare bedrooms, entire flats and houses for Syrian refugees.
Partnership with voluntary, community and faith organisations, many of which have long histories of offering shelter and support going back to WW2.
What we are witnessing, then, is not the absence of alternatives or lack of imagination or even resources, but the suppression of memory. This strategy closes down the space in which a different, more humane approach could be put in place again and, more dangerously, opens up a space for right-wing scaremongering and violence.
When I came to this country as a refugee in 1993, I was able to work, study, and had a support and community that helped me rebuild my life and get over the trauma of war and loss. I know that there is no need for us to waste £8 million a day to make security company bosses richer and mistreat people in need of protection.
Remembering that there are alternatives to current cruelty matters because it exposes the narrative for what it is: not an unavoidable response to “crisis,” but a deliberate narrowing of political possibility. It reveals a complete lack of journalistic skill and professionalism in many media outlets that consistently fail to do their research, ask questions and hold the government accountable. It also makes apparent a total and utter hypocrisy and a lack of leadership of our current government.
Migrants Organise, in addition to supporting people in these so-called ‘hotels’, is currently organising on Housing Justice, platforming voices of people who are forced to live in inadequate accommodation and works as a part of the Homes4All coalition of charities and voluntary organisations, campaigning for alternative, dignified housing for all.
Join our campaign and get involved, organise and speak out. And remember that another world is possible! As Nelson Mandela said, It always seems impossible, until it is done!
Zrinka Bralo is the CEO of Migrants Organise- watch our story here.
Stay informed. Join our newsletter.
