Across the country Home Office detentions have been thwarted by local people and activists forcing the release of detainees. What’s behind the grassroots backlash?
t was 9am on 13 May 2021, when Nick, 63, and Ishbel, 62, got a text to say there was about to be araid in Kenmure Street, which lies in the Glasgow district of Pollokshields. Both retired, and living just a 10-minute drive away, they were there before the enforcement van had found a place to park. Ishbel ran to the front door of the tenement; Nick, a bit slower walking with a stick, made for the front of the van. As Ishbel observed: “They’ll not be able to move as long as we’re standing there.
Nearly a year later, another raid also had to be abandoned after community protests – this time in Nicholson Square, Edinburgh; then in June came aanti-raid action in Queen’s Road, Peckham, London. Tactically, such protests are clearly a conundrum for the authorities: they can’t immediately bring in a large number of officers, because they’re “going into communities, this isn’t a football stadium”, Anwar says. That leaves them scrambling for backup as the demonstration gathers strength.
Zoe Gardner, who has just left the policy team of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, says anti-raid groups started as “offshoots of other political groups, especially anarchists, going back years”. Certainly, Nick and Ishbel have been involved in direct action since the “lock change evictions” in the noughties.
The chairman of Migration Watch UK, Alp Mehmet, describes these anti-raid protesters as “vigilantes”, saying: “There can be no excuse for preventing the police or immigration authorities from enforcing the law.”
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