It really isn’t. Jim Ratcliffe, who is a billionaire and owns part of Manchester United, remarked some weeks ago that our country has been colonised by immigrants. He intended it as a negative remark, joining in the antiimmigrant rhetoric of the far Right. Oddly enough, he was right. Our country and most of the countries of the world have been colonised by immigrants over millennia since humans first left Africa. Most of us are immigrants or descended from immigrants.
I decided for this blog that it was time for a rant about this, as I am more than furious about the new proposal from our current government to restrict indefinite leave to remain for refugees who are already settled here and asylum seekers who are hoping for refugee status. This new law makes it much more difficult for them to integrate into the community, as their leave will be reviewed every 30 months and they may have to wait up to 20 years for settled status.
Asylum seekers first arrived here in Lancaster in 2016 as our city became a City of Sanctuary and in 2017 a group of us set up a charity to support them. I am pleased to say that RAIS Lancaster continues to flourish and provide much needed services for the growing community.
Over the eight years that I worked with RAIS, the vast majority of people I met from all over the world had good cause to be here. They were fleeing war and persecution. When they got leave to remain their spouses and dependant children could join them as they settled down. They studied at our colleges and universities, worked, paid taxes and became part of the richness of our diverse country. They should not be punished for doing the right thing, following the rules and jumping through numbers of hoops to get to where they can feel safe.
We all know that without migrant workers the NHS, most of public transport and the care system would probably collapse. Last year refugees and migrant workers contributed over 21bn to the economy in taxes. Mr Ratcliffe took his money to Monaco to avoid paying tax.
So immigration is an asset, not a problem. Immigrants enrich our society and our lives. Without them we would be poorer. and demonising them diminishes us.
Over the years of working with asylum seekers and refugees I wrote a number of poems about the people I met and got to know. This month’s poem of the month Reporting to the Home Office was published in my pamphlet Just Above the Waterline (Wayleave 2021). The poem is a retelling of a true story, about when one of the volunteers for the charity took an asylum seeker to sign on, as they had to do regularly, with Border Force officers, at a police station. They were always terrified of being arrested and detained, which could happen at any time.
My reading life
Is very slow at the moment. Books everywhere not getting finished and some not even read. Writing this makes me think of me school reports ‘could do better’. I promise I will have more to say next month, although the garden has just started needing my attention…
My writing life
No headlights to dazzle me this month..
The weekend of 21st-23rd March saw the Lancaster LitFest spring weekend. I attended the poetry day and heard, among others, readings by Sarah Howe and Blake Morrison. On the Saturday morning I attended a workshop led by Karen Lloyd on writing about environmental breakdown. Karen’s latest book of lyrical essays/memoir is entitled Earthworks (Saraband 2026). I found the workshop provided a lot of ideas and inspiration for writing about these issues and I enjoyed Karen’s excellent teaching.
That’s it for now.