Subject: ASYLUM SEEKERS AND ANTI-FASCISM (from the newspage on the Red Action site) > ASYLUM SEEKERS AND ANTI-FASCISM > > 13th June 2000 > > On June 1, an audit commission report entitled Another Country warned of the > political dangers of a breakdown in the compulsary dispersal of asylum > seekers. It highlighted in particular the �30 million shortfall between what > local councils spent on supporting asylum seekers and what they have managed > to reclaim from the government. > > It urges urgent action on this including the possibility of a lottery cash > injection. �30 million was after all what the government recently granted > the Dome. In the meantime the report finds evidence of some doctors refusing > to register asylum seekers because consulatations take three times longer, > while some schools are resisting the acceptance the chidren of asylum > seekers if they cannot provide language support. > > The report also warns councils not to provide services to asylum seekers > that are not available to other residents. It cites cases when asylum > seekers were given money for furniture that was not avalaible to homeless > people. In another case asylum seekers were provided with taxis to take them > to new accomodation while local people had to use public transport. This > appears to be a lesson the liberal left seems determined not to learn. > Rather than take government to task for their failure to properly fund hard > pressed councils they are eager to be seen championing the rights of the > refugees over and above, and at the direct expense, as the report shows, of > the host community. There is no awareness that even if the perception of > preferential treatment that they and Guardian editorials demand was a myth > it would still have to be sensitively addressed for fear of compounding > working class alienation. > > Instead of demanding not only adequate, but extra resources to help 'grease > the wheels of local integration' the liberal left, with the SWP prominent, > feel their time and money is better spent plastering run down estates with > posters insisting 'Refugees wecome here'. 'You'll take it and like it' is > the authoritarian message. A strategy that is determined to lay down welcome > mats for the BNP in areas where till now they have had no resonance cannot > be anti-fascist. No weasel words can disguise the fact that in the real > world this is not anti-fascism but its opposite: not 'bravely confronting > prejudice' but recklessly creating it. > > > ________________________________________________________________________ > Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com >
