Hello everyone,

Sunny summer greetings to you all.

School’s out for summer – and many of you are likely getting ready to pack and head off on holiday. Before you do, I wanted to share an important update.

We basked in the glow of Refugee Week (16 – 22 June) – our latest blog wraps up what was a wonderful, inspiring week. Importantly, we truly felt the power of community in everything we did, and renewed impetus to step up our fight for migrant justice. And we certainly need it.

The news agenda is filled with hostility and far-right violence reminiscent of last year’s racist and Islamophobic riots – scroll down for a full update on recent events, in Waltham Forest, Epping and beyond. 

But first, help us grow stronger:  
 🧡 Feeling the power of community doesn’t stop with Refugee Week. As migrants in our community continue to face hate and discrimination, we must come together. Please join us!
 📲 Follow us on Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook for regular updates. 

Never hesitate to get in touch: [email protected]. 

In solidarity,
Anne

WFMA Update

In the News 

Far right violence in Epping

On Sunday 13th July, anti-migrant violence broke out in Epping, outside the Bell Hotel, known to house people seeking asylum. In addition to racist chants and intimidation, there were clashes with counter-demonstrators and two staff members, working as security guards at the hotel, were assaulted and injured. The attacks are being treated as racially aggravated by police who are carrying out an “extensive” probe into the incident. 

A few days later, on Thursday 17th July, far-right mobs returned to Epping for more racist violence and clashed with the police. They have threatened to return on Sunday 27th July.

🪧 A counter demonstration has been called, from 2.00 pm. 

Political response to these events is not short of shocking. Epping Forest District Council Reform UK Councillor Jaymey McIvor and Reform UK more broadly, including Lee Anderson MP, have been fanning the flames of division. Two local Conservative MPs, Neil Hudson MP and Alex Burghart MP joined Epping’s Conservative council leader in calling for The Bell Hotel to be closed. Disappointingly, the government’s message was more of the same, falling over itself to look tough on immigration, including threatening to conduct more immigration raids against food delivery couriers. 

📝 Praxis have shared a letter for individuals to sign on to calling on the Deputy Prime Minister, who is also the Minister for Communities, to challenge far-right violence in our communities.

The truth about hotels 
Violence outside hotels is not new, nor are the lies that accompany it. Hotels are always described by the far-right as luxury accommodation with all the mod-cons – because let’s face it, hotels tend to conjure positive connotations of holidays and relaxation. 

Hotels housing people seeking asylum are nothing of the sort. Often over-crowded, dirty, with poor quality food, they are places where people are forced to wait for months if not years – because of the ongoing Home Office backlog in processing applications – with a huge impact on their mental health. But, we rarely hear this reality. All we hear is the vilification, the dehumanisation … and the astronomical cost to the tax payers.

With little to no housing support available through local authorities or housing associations, before the pandemic, the Home Office opted to outsource accommodation for people seeking asylum, increasing its reliance on private hotels. 

A recent Helen Bamber Foundation and Asylum Aid report ‘Suffering and squalor: the impact on mental health of living in asylum accommodation’, highlighted that ‘in 2019 the government paid Mears, Serco and (in London) Clearsprings Ready Homes £4 billion to provide accommodation to people seeking asylum over the next 10 years. These private contractors operate on a profit-based model – with, to give one example, Clearsprings making £62.5 million during the 12 months to January 2023.’ This is a vital piece in the puzzle – but no-one is talking about it. 

Instead, we hear former housing minister Robert Jenrick blaming ‘mass migration’ for rising rents, without a mention of the root cause – i.e. former PM, Margaret Thatcher, selling off social housing stock en masse, completely decimating it and leading to the severe housing crisis we are living through today!

Some of you will be familiar with the Waltham Forest Anti(-immigration) Raids Network (WARN), a local group that alerts residents about immigration raids taking place in our neighbourhood. On Wednesday 25th June, a callout came through about immigration raids taking place Walthamstow High Street and Hoe Street, involving four different agencies: Immigration Enforcement (ICE), the National Crimes Agency (NCA), the Met Police and Waltham Forest (WF) Council Officers. 

We were shocked to hear that WF Council workers were involved in these operations – known as cross-agency ‘fishing’ raids. They are an intimidating mechanism that target racialised communities and are central to creating a climate of fear and hostility. 

We are working with others to ascertain WF Council’s role, especially in the context of the Borough of Sanctuary (BoS) Framework, in which it clearly states that as a BoS, WF will ‘continue to call out and challenge central government policy that creates a hostile environment towards migrants. In particular, holding the government and their partners to account to provide reliable and high standards of safeguarding for children and vulnerable adults in contingency accommodation. Act as a lead Local Authority on joined-up campaigning for migrant rights.’ 

If you are interested in reading more about this issue, which is set to intensify under the government’s current plans, Migrants Rights Network produced an excellent report on the subject. In ‘Immigration Raids – An Anatomy of Racist Intimidation’, they highlight some important background information, including about multi-agency raids’: “In July 2023, we sent an FOI to the Home Office to confirm reports that Immigration Enforcement visits are, or were going to be, carried out in joint capacity with local councils based on environmental and health and safety concerns. The Home Office confirmed that: “Where there is intelligence of abuse of the Immigration Rules, Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) Teams conduct enforcement visits. Some of this activity includes working in conjunction with other partners, including local authorities, who will identify any environmental and/or health and safety concerns.”

For more information about WARN, you can e-mail: [email protected]. 

“One in, One Out” 

‘One in, One out’ may sound like a club policy. It’s not. It’s an agreement between Britain and France aimed at reducing small boat crossings across the Channel, ‘smashing gangs’, and more generally intensifying anti-migrant rhetoric. 

Under this deal, France will agree to take back people seeking asylum who have crossed over to the UK and who cannot prove a family connection to the UK. For each migrant France takes back, the UK will grant asylum to one migrant from France who can prove a family connection to the UK, and hasn’t attempted to cross. 

While this policy may provide a safe route for those with genuine family connections, it will likely punish those without access to safe and legal routes, pushing more people fleeing persecution into taking more dangerous routes to reach the UK and being denied the right to claim asylum. As Right to Remain point out in their recent blog, we need a compassionate, long-term strategy to address an increasingly complex crisis and that means a genuine attempt to address the lack of safe routes. 

At the same time as the Anglo-French summit was taking place in London, pictures re-surfaced showing French police slashing small boats with knives to prevent people from crossing. A practice that was condoned by UK cabinet minister, Heidi Alexander.

Disappearances on the move
Meanwhile, at global level, the situation is becoming extremely sinister. In their latest report, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN Human Rights) examine the alarming rise in the number of preventable deaths and disappearances of migrants, refugees and people seeking asylum, identifying systemic factors – such as border militarisation, lack of legal migration pathways, and impunity – as key drivers.

What more, Greece recently announced plans to suspend asylum claims for people arriving by sea from North Africa, a dangerous move that could see people seeking safety pushed back to danger without their claims ever being heard.

Myth Busting

In our Spring issue, we launched the ‘myth busting’ series to share evidence-based information, which is sorely missing from public discourse on immigration. This time, we focus on migration. 

People have ALWAYS migrated and always will. We could go back to the dawn of time and trace people on the move, within countries, regions and continents. The history of migration is too long complex and complex to cover here, so let’s pick out a couple of stories – and there are millions more, literally – that illustrate early migration in Britain. 

The British Library host a ‘Treasures Gallery’, a permanent exhibition which shows a number of interesting, significant and quirky books, maps and manuscripts, such as Magna Carta, and some documenting migration.

Among them you will find William of Malmesbury’s ‘Deeds of the Kings of the English’ which contains the earliest account of Jewish people coming to England in the mid-12th century; information about the May Day Riots, 1517, when hundreds or rioters attacked the homes and shops of migrants, threatening their lives and destroying their possessions; and Wyatt’s Rebellion, 1554, which erupted after Queen Mary I’s decided to marry Phillip II of Spain, igniting anti-Spanish feelings.

At the time, about 1% of the population were migrants. They came from France, the Netherlands, Scotland and a small number from Africa, most of them were skilled crafts people fleeing persecution. Yet, in spite of the relatively small numbers, anti-migrant sentiment was already brewing.

Fast forward 500 years, and the countless brutal episodes of imperialism, colonialism, enslavement, exploitation, war, murder and genocide that make up our history – a history that still impacts current migration patterns – and here we are facing similar challenges. Animosity towards migrants and xenophobia  prevail. One of the things that has changed, however, is the sheer number of forcibly displaced people and refugees across the world. 

According to UNHCR, at the end of 2024:

• 123.2 million people had been forced to flee their homes globally due to persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and the growing impact of the climate crisis – that is more than 1 in 67 people. 
• Among them were nearly 42.7 million refugees. In addition, there were 73.5 million people internally displaced – i.e. within the borders of their own countries – and 8.4 million asylum-seekers. 
• There were also 4.4 million stateless people, denied a nationality and lacking access to basic rights such as education, health care, employment and freedom of movement.
• 69% of all refugees and other people in need came from just 5 countries: Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela, Ukraine, South Sudan. 
• 37% of the world’s refugees and other people in need of international protection were hosted in 5 countries: the Islamic Republic of Iran, Türkiye, Colombia, Germany and Uganda. The UK is the 18th largest refugee hosting country. 

According to various parliamentary research briefings, in 2024, it was estimated that non-UK born residents made up around 18% of the population in England and Wales, and asylum seekers and refugees made up around 16% of immigrants to the UK.

In Europe, Germany received the highest number of people claiming asylum in the EU+ with 319,710 claimants, followed by Spain (163,755), France (163,190), and Italy (158,560). The UK came fifth, with 97,107 claims – that is only 8% of the total number of people claiming asylum across EU+ and UK combined.  

In the year ending June 2023, people arriving irregularly – including via small boats – made up less than 5% of overall immigration figures.  Most were fleeing war and crises, and had no other way of seeking protection in the UK than to make dangerous journeys.According to the Refugee Council:

• There were 85,112 asylum applications (relating to 109,343 people) in the UK in the year to March 2025, a 15% increase from the previous 12 months.
• The top five countries of origin of people seeking asylum were Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Bangladesh and Syria.
• There were 38,023 people detected arriving by small boats in the year to March 2025. This was an increase of 22% compared to the previous year.
• Between April 2024 and March 2025, six in ten of small boat arrivals were from just five nationalities: Afghan (15%), Syrian (11%), Eritrean (11%), Iranian (11%), and Sudanese (8%).
• Since January 2022, 95% of those who crossed the Channel claimed asylum in the UK, and a third are still waiting for a decision. Of those who did receive a decision, 51,361 (66%) were granted of protection.

What these numbers don’t do, they don’t capture each person’s story, which is what we prefer to focus on. 

If you, or anyone you know would like to share your story of migration, please contact me:  [email protected] 

Campaign

Back in Waltham Forest, last Thursday we attended the launch of new grassroots coalition. 

A number of local organisations, including Hornbeam, the London Renters Union, Palestine Solidarity Campaign WF, RS21, Right to Grow, Unison East London Branch, Unite East London Branch, WARN and WF for Palestine, joined forces around a set of key demands to WF Council ahead of next year’s local elections, including:

• Divest from genocide
• Build more social housing 
• Enact the right to grow
• End council complicity in immigration raids
• Ensure no-one is forced out of the borough when facing homelessness 
• Protect community spaces

The event took place in Fellowship Square and was attended by hundreds of supporters and activists. Faiza Shaheen, Zack Polanski and Lucy, disability rights campaigner, gave inspiring speeches.