Received from: National Education Union
Congress notes that:
i. the Nationalities and Borders Act (NABA) effectively takes Britain out of the Refugee Convention and its established international refugee laws and practices
ii. the government’s own equality impact assessment of the NABA finds that it will discriminate on the grounds of race and nationality, by disadvantaging asylum seekers especially from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran and Sudan.
iii. parts of the Act empower the home secretary to secretly strip British people of their citizenship, disproportionately impacting Black British citizens.
Congress believes that:
a. the NABA, including its two-tier system of legal and illegal refugees, the Rwanda offshore detention policy, the threat to the citizenship of millions of British people, is racist
b. the trade union movement should mobilise alongside other campaign groups to oppose racist division when workers are being hit by attacks on living standards in the cost-of-living crisis
c. joint trade union and campaign group actions, including the legal challenge against pushbacks in the Channel, have been successful.
Congress instructs the General Council to:
1. work across the TUC to raise awareness of the cruelty of the NABA, challenge all racist scapegoating, as well as monitor and evidence its impact to highlight its failings
2. encourage unions to mobilise their memberships to collectively challenge aspects of the NABA that they are required to undertake that are potentially in breach of international law or the European Convention on Human Rights
3. support campaign groups or charities that are legally challenging aspects of the Act and take up opportunities to mount legal challenges where appropriate support, publicise and encourage involvement in any public mobilising campaigns.
National Education Union