One year in Erskine

Nathan Hennebry discusses the Erskine hotel demonstrations of the past year and how deprived communities can fight for their living standards.

Overcrowding leads to chaos at Manston asylum seeker centre 

On Sunday, a terrorist detonated petrol bombs at a Kent Asylum Seeker Processing Centre, shortly afterwards taking his own life. The evacuation of this centre led approximately 700 asylum seekers to the now infamous Manston Processing Centre, following what had already been weeks of chaos involving overcrowding and reports of harrowing conditions even leading to the outbreak of disease.

Home Office faces backlash for misleading migrant website

The Home Office has been admonished for creating a website that pretends to supply independent advice to asylum seekers contemplating moving to the UK, but omitted the fact that Priti Patel’s department is at the bottom of it.

Home Office undermines investigations into deaths in detention

Amid the renewed onslaught against asylum seekers and immigrants, new claims have emerged that suggest many potential key witnesses to deaths in detention have been deliberately deported, preventing them from giving evidence in inquests. Furthermore, the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, has ignored the concerns from a coroner, voiced last year, that the actions of the Home Office could have impaired investigations.

Sharp increase in modern slavery during the pandemic

Amid the pandemic, reports of sexual and criminal exploitation have severely increased, as stated in new figures calculating the extent of modern slavery and trafficking in the UK. Compared with the preceding year, cases of sexual exploitation, which includes people held captive in brothels and those strong-armed into prostitution, increased by a quarter in 2020. Almost a quarter of cases concerned children.