“Trade unions must vote down anti-refugee motion at Labour conference”: statement launched by Black members in UNISON Time for Real Change

Posted: 24 September 2024

Photo by Rasande Tyskar, CC BY-NC 2.0

The statement below was initiated by Black Members in Time for Real Change, the left grouping in public-sector union UNISON, campaigning against the ‘Border Security Command’ motion at Labour Party Conference 2024. It was originally online here. More than 500 members of many different trade unions signed. Before the vote, when the motion’s supporters realised the probability that they would lose in the face of opposition among major unions and party delegates, they withdrew it. We reproduce the statement and signatories here as a record from the campaign.

We invite all supporters of this statement to join our organising call, discussing next steps in the struggle within the labour movement for migrants’ rights and free movement, online on 10 October: register here.

As trade unionists, we call on Labour-affiliated unions to vote down the anti-refugee motion going to Labour Party conference on 24 September.

Pro-migrants’ rights motions submitted to the conference, advocating measures to humanise the UK’s immigration and asylum system, have been ruled out of order. The remaining motion – see here – advocates “a new Border Security Command”, “new counter-terror powers to tackle organised immigration crime”, and “arrangements to speed up returns and increase the number of safe countries to which failed asylum seekers can swiftly be returned”.

In other words, it endorses the Labour government making the asylum system even more brutal than it was under the Tories. It says nothing about safe routes for refugees to come to the UK, let alone any other measures to make the immigration system more progressive.

We call on Labour-affiliated trade unions to stand up for working-class solidarity, for migrants’ rights, and for their own policies, by voting against the motion, speaking against it, and campaigning against it by making their opposition public in advance.