A senior civil servant at the Home Office confirmed last week that the former prison premises of Northeye on the outskirts of Bexhill are no longer being considered as prospective accommodation for asylum seekers. 

The site was purchased by the UK government in September 2023 at a price of £15.3m despite known risks of asbestos contamination (see Home Office Slated Over Northeye Purchase in HIP 265). The original purpose, as stated by the then Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, was to provide basic accommodation for up to 1,200 adult male would-be immigrants on a voluntary basis. Later, following the enactment of the Illegal Migration Act, plans emerged to use the premises for detention of men deemed to have arrived illegally – in particular, those crossing the Channel on small boats. 

Humanitarian campaigners such as Bexhill Stand Up to Racism and local pressure group No to Northeye pointed out multiple flaws in these schemes, and the change of government in July this year put them on hold.  Now the Home Office is reported to be considering instead the purchase of hundreds of smaller properties to substitute for current placements in hotel accommodation and has decided that the Northeye site “is no longer needed”. 

Sir Matthew Rycroft, the department’s permanent secretary, told a public accounts committee: “We will be working with our colleagues to see if it would be suitable for any other part of government and, if not, then we will be selling it.”

Last year, then Bexhill and Battle MP, Huw Merriman, a junior Minister in Rishi Sunak’s government, refused to condemn the Home Office plans. However, his successor, Dr Kieran Mullan, has lost no time in approving their reversal. He issued a statement: “I want to thank campaigners and cross-party councillors across all layers of local government for fighting against this plan…I’ve done all I can to support them. I am especially pleased for the residents of the Northeye Estate for whom the uncertainty and worry is over.”

Uncertainty will, however, continue. The site is zoned in the Rother Local Plan for potential housing development, but the National Audit Office investigation into the purchase revealed that repairs to buildings at the site, including contamination clean-up, were estimated to cost more than £20m. Who is going to meet that cost, and when?

Amidst a flurry of news about cross-channel migration, including stepped-up border security and multiple drownings, there has been no word from Sir Keir Starmer’s government about the future of Northeye – the former prison premises outside Bexhill which the Home Office purchased last year for the stated intention of detaining illegal immigrants. 

Progress towards this prospective usage seemed to have stalled under previous Home Secretary James Cleverly while Rishi Sunak put all his energies into pursuing the policy of deportations to Rwanda. Sir Keir made it quite clear on his accession as prime minister that the Rwanda scheme had been abandoned. It has been replaced, at least in the new government’s rhetoric, by the launch of a new Border Security Command which will enrol “hundreds of new specialist investigators” and use counter-terror powers  “to smash criminal boat gangs”. 

However, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced on 21 August “a major surge in immigration enforcement and returns activity”, claiming that the government has new plans for the next six months “to achieve the highest rate of removals of those with no right to be here, including failed asylum seekers, for five years (since 2018)”.  This will entail “increased detention capacity”, according to Ms Cooper, as well as an increase in the rate of determination of asylum claims and negotiation of agreements with foreign governments to accept returns. 

EXPANSION OF DETENTION CAPACITY

In her speech she identified the reopening of two former detention centres, one at Campsfield House in Oxfordshire, the other at Haslar outside Gosport, to serve her immediate purpose as Immigration Removal Centres. Together these would accommodate an additional 290 detainees on top of the current capacity across the country of approximately 2,300. But with over 23,000 would-be immigrants arriving by small boats across the Channel this year as of 15 September – a slightly higher rate than the total of 29,437 (according to Home Office figures) over the whole of 2023 – the government is also reported to be “studying options” for further expansions of detention capacity. 

With regard to Campsfield, closed since 2019, a Home Office spokesperson said they “have held discussions with local councillors and other stakeholders to ensure the impact of the plans on the local community and environment is fully taken into account”. However, newly elected Liberal Democrat MP for Bicester & Woodstock, Calum Miller, and leaders of both Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council all publicly oppose the plans to reopen. Councillors on Cherwell District Council, which is the local planning authority, have complained in a letter sent to the Home Secretary of “a complete lack of parliamentary scrutiny”. 

The plan to reopen the Haslar site seems, on the other hand, to meet with the approval of at least local Conservative MP, Dame Caroline Dinenage. AVID, a national network of visitor groups to people in immigration detention, has pointed out that it was closed in 2015 after numerous reports of mistreatment and inhumane conditions. But Dame Dinenage praised the removal of asbestos from the site during the period of closure, and earlier this year welcomed the plan, describing the refurbishment as “high quality” and remarking positively on “the 200 jobs” which reopening would bring.

OPPOSITION TO NORTHEYE

Asbestos has been identified as a problem at Northeye too.  And the local MP (Dr Kieran Mullen, newly elected in July) is also a Conservative, unlikely in principle to oppose the government’s detention programme. However, at the beginning of August he was reported by the BBC to have called on the government to “let people know what is going on”, and to have stated that “bringing in hundreds and hundreds of people” into “a quiet residential road in a town that’s already struggling with infrastructure” wouldn’t be “the right decision”. 

In this view he aligns with his Bexhill constituents who opposed the use of the site for migrant accommodation and/or detention purposes in demonstrations and counter-demonstrations last year – from the Stand Up To Racism pro-asylum activists on the political left to No to Northeye local residents concerned at threats to indigenous security and property values on the political right. Any Home Office move to revive the original plan will no doubt be responded to with a dusting out of respective placards and renewed marches. Another local campaigner Jeff Newnham, who raised nearly £20,000 from a crowdfunder appeal to bring a legal case for judicial review, has indicated that he still intends to proceed with it in this circumstance. 

On the other hand, newly elected MP for Hastings & Rye Helena Dollimore endorses Labour’s policy as committed to restore order to the system so that it is “swift, firm and fair – with the rules properly enforced”. The new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill announced in the King’s Speech in July, she said, “will bring in new replacement arrangements, including fast track decisions and returns to safe countries”.

And the Home Office is indeed reported to have signed new return agreements with Vietnam, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Serbia and Georgia to follow a previous fast-track removal deal with Albania. But the fact is that the majority of illegal entrants, at least those arriving in small boats crossing the Channel, are from countries which can hardly be described as “safe” – apart from Vietnam, the five most common nations of origin being Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey (highly oppressive and discriminatory as far as many Kurds are concerned), Eritrea and Iraq. How is Ms Cooper going to negotiate safe return for dissident nationals from these?

AMNESTY  CRITIQUE

Steve Valdez-Symons, refugee and migrant rights programme director at Amnesty commented: “It’s dismaying to see the new government reheating the last government’s rhetoric over ‘border security’ and ‘smashing gangs’ even while neglecting the pressing need to provide safe asylum routes and a clear guarantee of asylum to refugees arriving here.

“People in urgent need – including those fleeing war and persecution in places like Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria and Iran – will keep coming to the UK and other countries, and the government needs to establish safe routes that reduce the perils of dangerous border crossings and the risk of exploitation by ruthless smuggling gangs.

“This ‘securitised’ approach to asylum and immigration will simply deter and punish many of the people most in need of crossing borders, people who are therefore often most vulnerable to criminal exploitation.”

In 2019 the Home Office awarded six regional contracts across the UK for a ten-year period to provide accommodation, support and transport services for asylum seekers pending decisions on their applications for leave to remain. Clearsprings Ready Homes Ltd was the only group to bid in the south of England, thus obtaining what seems to be a monopoly contract running until September 2029 to provide these services within this region.

It not only runs the Napier Barracks in Folkestone but spot-books hotels – including those identified in Hastings – to house the huge increase in numbers.

Just how profitable its operations are was revealed last October when its accounts filed with Companies House showed an astonishing level of profit for the year ending January 2022. On a turnover of £502m –up from £163m the previous year – the company made before tax profits of almost £35m, compared to £4.4m in 2020-21.

The beneficiary of at least 75% of these profits appears to be a single shareholder, a Mr Graham King of Rayleigh, Essex, via a holding company, Clearsprings (Management) Limited.

The directors state in the accounts: “Demand for accommodation for asylum seekers has remained high throughout the year. This has been driven by an ever-increasing influx of asylum applicants to the UK due to high levels of political and economic turmoil in many countries. Contingency accommodation including hotels has increased over the year…The number of arrivals per year is expected to continue at a high level for the foreseeable future.”

The company website makes more qualitative declarations: “We don’t just provide accommodation, we also deliver transportation services, repairs and maintenance and safeguarding support for residents. We also work closely with non-government organisations, local voluntary groups, statutory services, local authorities and landlords to ensure the properties are fully compliant and the welfare of the residents is closely managed… The welfare and safeguarding of our residents is at the heart of our business, and is the key focus when delivering our services.”

The company was invited by HIP last week to describe what communications it has had either with local authorities (Hastings Borough Council and/or East Sussex County Council) or with local voluntary groups over the recent spot-booking of two hotels in Hastings; also how the welfare of the incoming residents is “managed” and what safeguards it undertakes for any minor-age children. It has not responded.

BY HUGH SULLIVAN

On 24 January the UK Parliament debated allegations published in the national Observer newspaper the previous weekend that dozens of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children were being regularly targeted and “kidnapped” by criminal gangs from a Brighton hotel where they had been placed by the Home Office. Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick told MPs: “We take our safeguarding responsibilities extremely seriously and we have procedures in place to ensure all children are accommodated as safely as possible while in those hotels.” There was, he claimed, “24/7 supervision, with support from teams of social workers and nurses. Staff, including contractors, receive briefings and guidance on how to safeguard minors… The movements of under-18s in and out of hotels are monitored and recorded, and they are accompanied by social workers when attending organised activities.”

Whatever the reality of this depiction, Mr Jenrick did not address the fact that other dispersal hotels which are supposed to house adults only are also accommodating a substantial proportion of minor-age children for whom no such safeguarding systems are in place. A spokesperson from East Sussex County Council (ESCC) confirmed last week that they “do not oversee the welfare of people in the adult hotels”, but that their Children’s Social Services department has taken into care “some” unaccompanied asylum seeking under-18s who were originally assessed by Border Force as adults.

“There are different ways in which we can become aware of children in adult accommodation”, the council spokesperson said. “The children themselves can ask for an assessment to be done, through the management of the hotel, or voluntary sector organisations can help them make that application.”

Enter the Buddy Project

One such organisation is Hastings volunteer group the Refugee Buddy Project (RBP), who are rather more forthcoming on the scale of the problem. Alex Kempton, Director of its Operations and Campaigns, says that, out of 82 men accommodated since November in local hotels spot-booked by private company Clearsprings Ready Homes Limited on behalf of the Home Office, nine identified themselves to RBP staff during a registration process as under 18. These were flagged to ESCC, who conducted age assessments and, when satisfied that they were children, removed them and placed them in care.

The spot-booking and mass displacement, to Hastings and other south coast towns, followed clearance and closure of the Manston detention centre near Ramsgate. Hastings Borough Council (HBC) leader Paul Barnett complained to the Home Office in the immediate aftermath that no advance notice had been given to the council by either Clearsprings or themselves, and HBC issued a statement indicating that they were “pressing the Government and their agents to clarify how they intend to support [the asylum seekers] locally and how long they expect them to reside here…We are keen to understand what longer term dispersal plan they intend to put in place.”

Asked last week what responses they were getting, a HBC spokesperson said they were having “a presence at meetings” addressing current accommodation figures, health concerns and general wellbeing issues. “The responsibility lies with the Home Office and [Clearsprings] for the safety and security of residents. The long-term plan of the Home Office is to reduce numbers at the hotel and take those accommodated into core Initial Accommodation or into dispersal accommodation. This however, is a matter to be addressed to the Home Office.”

Government stance

Mr Jenrick told MPs on 24 January: “I want to end the practice of putting children in hotels, but the key to that is stopping people crossing the channel in the first place. If we continue to have tens of thousands of people, including very significant numbers of minors, crossing the channel every year, I am afraid that there is no choice but to accommodate people for a short period of time in hotels before they can flow into better accommodation within local authorities.”

Ms Kempton is scathing. “It used to take up to six months for the Home Office to make a first decision on asylum claims. Now it routinely takes two years. In the meantime all asylum seekers are routinely housed in substandard accommodation and forced to rely on charities like ours to ensure they and their children can get to school and do their homework at home, as well as eat and live with some modicum of dignity.

“Allowing the situation to get this bad is a political decision, serving the government’s narrative that we are ‘being overwhelmed’.

“In the absence of statutory services, we have led the response here, actively engaging with the men, going into the hotel and assessing their needs, helping with financial support, and distributing donations of clothing and hygiene items gathered by the Hastings Community of Sanctuary. But the risk to unaccompanied children is immense. For the Home Office to throw the responsibility back to the local authority as if these children are some football which can be passed from one service to another with no one taking full responsibility is frankly disgusting.”

Well over a thousand people – men, women, children and babies – have crossed the English Channel from France on small boats during the past few weeks. Politicians refer to them as migrants. Supportive campaigners call them refugees. On one day alone, Monday 6th September, blown by a warm easterly breeze and floating on calm seas, 785 of them made the passage, according to the Home Office Border Force. 

Many of the boats reached the local waters of Rye Bay and Eastbourne to be “intercepted” or “rescued” by RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) vessels, including the local Hastings lifeboat. Others seem to have reached the shore unescorted. A French press agency report quoted an anonymous eyewitness at Dungeness as noting that the Border Force “hadn’t been able to keep up” with the number of arrivals. “I found five sitting over on the beach the other morning — they’d burnt their mobile phones in a fire…You used to get a boatload now and again. Now you’re looking at three, four, five, if not more, in a day.”

The agents who organise these boatloads of human cargo were described by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Parliament last week as “criminal masterminds” indulging in a “vile trade” taking money from “desperate frightened people” to take them on a “very, very dangerous journey”.

Tide of refugees

Illegal boat crossings by prospective migrants have been a feature of Channel life for several decades, gradually stepped up as the tide of refugees from wars and oppressive regimes in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea and elsewhere has flooded over continental Europe. But with free movement between the UK and France curtailed by Brexit, Home Secretary Priti Patel has been attempting to find more aggressive ways of combatting them.

In August 2020 she appointed a former Royal Marine and National Crime Agency officer Dan O’Mahoney as Clandestine Channel Threat Commander with the primary responsibility, she declared, of “making the Channel route unviable for small boat crossings”. He was to collaborate closely with the French to adopt “stronger enforcement measures”, including interceptions at sea and the direct return of boats. 

It was claimed that France subsequently doubled the number of officers deployed daily on French beaches, purchased more cutting-edge surveillance technology, and doubled the number of successful interceptions. But clearly this was not enough. In July this year Ms Patel signed a “co-operative” agreement with French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin. The UK would provide a financial package of £54.2m. France would re-double the number of police patrolling potential cast-off beaches between Boulogne and Dunkirk, expand patrols further south-west, including around Dieppe, and bolster hinterland surveillance.

Turn around

Less than two months on, inter-governmental relations have frayed. Ms Patel warned her French counterpart last week that the cash might be withheld if more boats were not intercepted. She also announced that, in certain circumstances and subject to her approval, UK Border Force vessels might force boats carrying migrants to turn around in the Channel, leaving French coastguards to intercept them in their territorial waters. According to a BBC report, a Border Force team has been training for months to begin such operations.

The French Interior Ministry retorted that such moves would flout international maritime law, under which people at risk of losing their lives at sea must be rescued. It also warned that there would be “consequences” if Britain refused to hand over the money.

Pierre-Henri Dumont, French National Assembly member MP for Calais, complained: “We are just doing our jobs and trying to save lives in the Channel and make sure that it does not turn into a graveyard. The UK needs to address the causes that make people want to claim asylum in the UK. Many of these people are from former British colonies.”

In all this, the people making successful crossings, as opposed to the ‘traffickers’ who make it possible, have received no penalty. They are treated as victims whose method of arrival, illegal and dangerous though it may be, is in practice condoned. 

Bill in Parliament

That will no longer be the case if the Nationality and Borders Bill currently being debated in Parliament is enacted. Among its provisions is one that makes it a criminal offence to knowingly arrive in the UK without permission. That means in effect a stripping of the right to asylum. Any adult who arrives illegally will risk being held indefinitely in a mass reception centre, deported or sent to an offshore holding facility, and be liable for up to four years in prison.

Critics argue that this is incompatible with the UK’s obligations under international law and weakens the protection available for people fleeing torture and persecution. The 1951 Refugee Convention specifically protects people seeking asylum from refusal on the grounds of their method of entry, taking account of the fact that for many in flight there is no viable way of seeking permission to enter a country in order to apply for asylum.

Hastings & Rye MP Sally Ann Hart has, however, supported the Bill in Parliament. She says that many constituents have written to her over a number of months, concerned at the growing numbers of ‘illegal’ channel crossings, and that the key objectives of the bill are to break up smuggling gangs, while also increasing “safe and legal routes” for refugees to reach the UK.

Hastings Community of Sanctuary (HCoS) is campaigning against it. HCoS and Amnesty member Pal Lustra calls Mrs Hart’s stated objectives “a falsehood…Nothing in this bill will do either of these things. Instead, the provisions in this anti-refugee bill are likely to further demonise people seeking protection and safety in this country. Seeking asylum is a basic human right. But this bill will make seeking asylum without approved entry illegal and a criminal offence.”

Legal advisor OLIVIA CAVANAGH gives a glimpse of what the harsh legal process is already like for those seeking sanctuary; in particular, her young clients who have made the torturous journey to what they hope will be safety and a chance to live in peace.

CREDIT: Safwa Chowdhury, HCos Campaigns Team

I have worked as an immigration advisor since 2008, representing adult clients and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC), who are the most vulnerable of all. Some UASC clients are cared for in Hastings by the local authority and Hastings is one of the very few dispersal areas in the South-East for adults and families.

On starting a case, the first thing we do is take detailed statements – most often through an interpreter – on a client’s life in their home country, their reasons for fleeing, and their journey to the UK. Telling their stories can be difficult, but I hope it may also be cathartic: it is possibly the first time they have been able to explain their experiences to someone who is actively listening. 

The journey to the UK alone can be incredibly traumatic: unaccompanied minors from Darfur typically travel for a period of around three years from Sudan to the UK, often surviving slavery and torture in Libya, dangerous journeys by sea to Malta and Italy, and again across the English Channel to the UK by small boat or concealed in a vehicle. Many are only just into their teens at the start of their journeys, unprotected and alone in an acutely dangerous world.

There is no ‘typical’ day, but the sheer intensity of our work is relentless, with constant and unpredictable Home Office and court deadlines, overseeing the complex funding of cases, and the onerous record keeping. We normally run cases from the time a person claims asylum, at appeal (in the event that an application is refused), and until the case concludes, often years later, with a grant of leave to remain or, fortunately much less often, with a refused case that cannot be taken further. 

During this time, we can be one of the few points of contact for our clients so we assist with such things as accommodation and medical appointments on a voluntary basis. In Hastings we are very lucky to have the Links Project to support clients during their years of waiting. 

The Covid-19 pandemic added another layer of delay from the Home Office, which took an entire year to organise remote asylum interviews. They then suddenly set up as many interviews in two weeks as we would normally see in a year, adding greatly to the workload. The first lockdown also coincided with the busiest time I can remember due to the increase in small boats arriving along the south coast. Our waiting list jumped from the normal six referrals to 20. Luckily, clients adapted well to the online appointments necessitated by lockdown.

HO Refusal Letter
CREDIT: Olivia Cavanagh

We routinely bring in medical experts for physical and psychological-scarring reports, as well as country experts on current conditions. We follow case law and Home Office policy to represent our clients, which the Home Office itself often fails to apply. Caseloads are high due to the constant demand and the challenge of keeping our organisation financially viable. 

How we are funded is in fact central to the job and this alone can make us particularly despondent, and is the reason many representatives stop practising. Over the past decade, it has become significantly harder for people needing legal representation to obtain access to justice. The 2013 cuts to free legal aid restricted help within immigration law to children’s cases, asylum applications, some domestic violence cases, trafficking cases, challenges to immigration detention and judicial review applications. Sadly, all other categories, including free legal help for family reunion for refugees, is no longer offered.

Accessing funding from the government’s Legal Aid Agency (LAA) causes one of the biggest stresses of the job. Every phone call (whether answered or not) and email must be recorded. The LAA will not release payment until the Home Office has interviewed an applicant and acknowledged receipt of our representations in support of the application. This can be years after the case is started. 

We often work to a loss because the fees finally awarded are entirely insufficient to cover the real time it takes to do justice to someone’s case. There is a constant attempt from the LAA to claw money back; indeed, we live in genuine fear of the LAA and often under-record time for work done. In the last 15 years this funding regime has caused many long-existing, well-respected legal organisations to stop operating, in turn leading to a dearth of legal representatives. 

The inefficiency of the Home Office, stretching cases out unnecessarily for years, and routinely refusing clearly valid cases that go on to be allowed at appeal, represents a huge waste of public funds. For our clients, living their lives on hold often causes or exacerbates mental health issues and creates high levels of anxiety. 

They cannot return to their own country for at least five years once they are granted asylum; with up to three years getting here, another two or three in the asylum process – this can mean a decade before they have any chance of seeing their family again. 

Claiming asylum is not something anyone takes lightly. Once clients are finally granted leave to remain the most difficult time begins, as they are effectively cut loose from our service and must navigate their way alone to find accommodation and work; meanwhile our service needs to start on the next case…

• Olivia Cavanagh is a member of Hastings Community of Sanctuary (HCoS) Campaigns Team. For more information, please visit the Hastings Community of Sanctuary webpage, where you can sign the Pledge of support and follow
@HastSanctuary on Twitter. See also Hastings Supports Refugees Facebook and togetherwithrefugees.org.uk

Mr Philp refers to “illegally facilitated crossings” and to “illegal migrant routes”, but describes the migrants/refugees themselves as “vulnerable people” being “exploited”. The problem for him and his policy is that, although facilitation is no doubt illegal on both sides of the Channel, claiming asylum on arrival is not – and neither is the manner of entry a valid ground for rejection of an asylum claim. 

Mr Philp boasts of 20,000 people being granted asylum or protection – “one of the highest figures in Europe”. How many of those arrived without illegal facilitation of some kind? If only 155 Channel-crossers have been sent back “since last January” (it’s not clear whether he meant January 2020 or 2019), that suggests that most have legitimate asylum claims which are eventually upheld.  Or, if not, then the stated policy of returning failed applicants is surely not being implemented in the majority of cases. 

Pett Level Beach – scene of recent cross-Channel landings
PICTURE: Andreia Loureiro

Evidence from Care4Calais

HIP asked Hastings & Rye MP Sally-Ann Hart last week following the parliamentary exchanges to comment further on these issues. She has not been forthcoming. However Clare Moseley, based in Calais and founder of the support group Care4Calais, was more responsive. 

On the suggestion that migrants/refugees are being “exploited” by criminal gangs into making crossings that they otherwise wouldn’t, Ms Moseley referred to “the system failure that provides a business model for people smugglers to exist.  If there was a safe and legal route, this would put the people smugglers out of business and many problems would be solved. Blaming people smugglers for the failure of the system is nothing more than a distraction.

Blaming people smugglers for the failure of the system is nothing more than a distraction

“It’s critical to remember that between three and four times more people claim asylum in France every year than do in the UK. There are many refugees all over France claiming asylum – it’s only the ones around the Calais and Dunkirk areas that are trying to get to the UK.  

“Research shows that the top reason for people moving on to the UK is having family here – family ties run deep. Other factors are more practical: for example, if you speak English you have more chance of being able to find a job and you can navigate everyday tasks like understanding public transport or going shopping.”

Hastings Community of Sanctuary

With regard to the lurid allegations made by MPs Giles Watling and Natalie Elphicke – of pregnant migrants being forced on board at gunpoint, and of threats to throw children into the water to drown unless allowed to proceed to British waters – Felicity Laurence, who leads on Communications and Campaigns for the local refugee support group, Hastings Community of Sanctuary, is sceptical.

“We have been unable to find any corroboration of such allegations,” she says, “and in my view it seems irresponsible to repeat such claims in Parliament or indeed any public sphere without watertight, documented evidence which should have been explicitly referenced. The implication apparently intended to be given is that such incidents – if indeed they have taken place at all – are somehow typical of the Channel crossings under discussion. According to all the evidence we have, this is unquestionably not the case.”

Covid-19

Home Office statistics have been released showing that, although there had been a general upward trend in the number of asylum applications since mid-2018, the number of applications fell sharply following the Covid-19 lockdown. In the four weeks prior to 23rd March, there were around 2,500 applications, however in the next four weeks of lockdown there were less than 800, a fall of 69%.

On the other hand, according to the Care4 Calais website, conditions for would-be Channel-crossers in Northern France have worsened. In the tight lockdown imposed there by President Macron, the few volunteers who were left on the ground were doing their best to support the homeless population with dwindling supplies, only providing basic food and water through heavy PPE equipment. A Government promise of housing for those living on the streets has yet to appear, and the lack of basic sanitation plus inability to self-isolate have added to the daily challenges. 

This year the theme of Refugee Week (15th-21st June) is ‘Imagine’. It’s important that we do try to imagine, so we can begin to understand how people seeking refuge in the UK are treated – very differently from the rest of the population. 

During the pandemic, refugees in shared accommodation where Covid-19 outbreaks have occurred have faced difficulties in accessing tests. They have also faced more hostility than before the pandemic and have less money because of the difficulties in applying for and collecting allowances – a lack of support from the Home Office which may constitute a breach of human rights. It is also harder for them to access digital tools like Zoom that the rest of us rely on to get through lockdown. Especially given that most online support and material is not designed for speakers of English as a Second Language.

PICTURE: Sarah Gomes Harris

The Hastings, Rother & Wealden Refugee Buddy Project has been very active during the past two months. Pre-lockdown, it was already making use of online environments to communicate with Buddies and supporters, which made it easier to transition to develop the online projects that are taking place at the moment.

One campaign that was launched this spring in response to the increased arrival of people on boats is the #RefugeesWelcome social media campaign. Buddy Project Director, Rossana Leal, says: “We thought it was really important to offer a compassionate narrative which we know hundreds of local people share.” 

• Full details are on their website: therefugeebuddyproject.org/refugeeswelcome 

Stitch for Change: Pandemic Patchwork Stories is another project, ongoing through Refugee Week, which, according to Alex Kempton of Hastings Community of Sanctuary, involves creating a: “giant patchwork of individual stories, experiences and names, stitched together into one quilt –
a record of community action
and a shared narrative of the pandemic.” The aim is for people to come together and make individual patchwork squares with images or words that express how they felt during the pandemic, or a message of solidarity. Weekly sewing workshops are held on Zoom to provide help and support. When the squares are sewn together, the quilt will be displayed in a local gallery. 

• For more information and inspiration, go to: therefugeebuddyproject.org

The Buddy Project has a full programme of events for Refugee Week, including sharing of personal stories and recipes (via online videos); online exhibitions from the De La Warr gallery by three local refugee artists; and a diverse range of films about migration and the experiences of refugees.

Sister organisations, Hastings Supports Refugees and Hastings Community of Sanctuary are organising a virtual version of their popular annual Festival by the Lake on Isolation Station Hastings see hastings.cityofsanctuary.org events page. On 21st June you can picnic in your own back garden to show solidarity with all those facing discrimination and enjoy “an afternoon of great live music, poetry, talks, creative fun for kids, an online raffle and more”. 

Rossana invites everyone to take part in Refugee week: “Share the #RefugeesWelcome social media cards on your social media, send us your photos for our Video of Welcome, watch the films we will be sharing with you, cook the recipes our refugee buddies are sharing, send us your patchwork squares for the quilt, join Festival by the Lake on Isolation Station.” 

The Buddy Project has joined various networks together and stands with people seeking refuge, despite the deliberate hostile environment generated by the Home Office. It describes itself as providing: “a safe space for people to come together and have some very difficult conversations about racism and privilege”, important ongoing discussions and debates that we should all get involved in. In the longer term, the group needs sustainable funding if it is to survive. 

• Click here to see the Buddy Project’s full Schedule of Activities for Refugee Week 2020.

• For more information about Festival by the Lake online click here and Stitch for Change click here

By Charlie Crabb

On the afternoon of 8th April, out on my daily walk with my partner in Hastings Country Park, we were approached by two policemen. They asked us if we had seen anyone hiding in the bushes, as there had been a landing of, to use their term, ‘illegals’. A boat had been found along with half of its human cargo, and a search was now on for those who had escaped inland. 

About half an hour later, as we were making our way home on Barley Lane, we came upon a large roadblock, with at least ten Sussex Police and Home Office vans blocking off the road to other vehicles. There must have been around 50 officers altogether on the site. We were surprised at this number, gathered in a small area despite the coronavirus guidelines, none wearing (as far as we could see) protective gear such as gloves or masks; we were also concerned for the welfare of the migrants who had been detained. 

The jovial and light-hearted atmosphere amongst the officers was particularly shocking. When we asked one of the immigration enforcement officers if it was okay to walk on through, he replied: “Yeah, you should be fine down there as long as you haven’t got a funny accent”. 

We continued along Barley Lane, and saw three migrants who had been detained. They looked young, they weren’t wearing shoes, and one of them appeared injured. It was a very distressing sight. On the basis of the language used and the general attitude shown by the officers, I seriously doubt their commitment to the wellbeing of these vulnerable people, especially at this time of crisis.

Hastings Supports Refugees gave rise to both Hastings Community of Sanctuary and the Hastings Buddy Project, in both of which Jane also plays a central role. She is on the Hastings and Rother Buddy Project Organising Committee, as well as the Hastings Community of Sanctuary Steering Group – and is also an active buddy in the Buddy Project. 

Jane has organised many workshops for people seeking refuge here, based around her professional expertise as a costume designer and maker, and other events – including several pop-up boutiques where people can go and find lovely clothes donated with love and accepted with dignity.  

She has represented our Community of Sanctuary at the annual Sanctuary in Parliamentary event and is part of our team who met from time to time with our former MP Amber Rudd to discuss our concerns about different aspects of Home Office policy.

She also organised the vigil held at the Mosque in solidarity with and mourning for the people murdered in the attacks on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. 300 people came to that vigil at short notice in the middle of the day – a powerful indication of the spirit of solidarity in our town, which Jane herself exemplifies in such an outstanding manner. 

Like all of us involved in these groups Jane contributes all of this on a voluntary basis, in her case alongside running a hectic professional career and a family.

Perhaps it’s churlish to mention quality dining out in connection with the suffering that surrounds us, but we all have to eat as well as relax. We hope Jane will benefit from one of the Albion’s famous pies as a small a token of recognition.

Festival by the Lake

What got you involved with refugees?
In 2015 when the refugee crisis broke, the world mourned after the body of Alan Kurdi was washed up on a beach in Greece and people were shocked to see the squalid conditions within the Calais ‘jungle’. Here in Hastings, a group of like-minded strangers joined a conversation on Facebook. Our main concern was “what can we do to help?”. The result was the forming of Hastings Supports Refugees. 

How did you start?
We set up a dedicated Facebook page for the ten or so of us to exchange ideas and work out ways to help. Within a week we had 150 members and by the end of the month we had 650. That number has steadily grown: we are now over 1,600.

How do you see your main purpose?
Our main aim is to fundraise to help support organisations working on the ground in refugee camps. In the early days we raised money for shelters in the Calais Jungle – before its demolition. We also provided seed money for an embryonic organisation that became the Refugee Youth Service, working with unaccompanied minors in camps across Europe. We regularly support the work of both Care4calais and Refugee Biryani and Bananas, both with monetary and physical donations. 

How has the local community helped?
Each year we organise a food drive for Calais and the Hastings Food bank. The first year we held it outside Debenhams in the town centre with choirs singing and people dancing. We collected one metric ton of food aid that was sent to Calais and over 1,500 meals for the food bank. Hastings is an amazing and generous town and has never ceased to amaze me with its response to a crisis. 

How do you raise money?
Our main fundraising event each year is Festival by the Lake, now in its 4th year. Held at Ashburnham Place during Refugee Week, this year on Sunday 21st June, it’s a time to celebrate our diverse community, with refugees and asylum seekers who are settled locally playing an important role. A day of music, art, food and swimming in the lake. 

How have things developed since setting up?
In 2018 Hastings Supports Refugees was instrumental in our town joining the national City of Sanctuary network and helping set up the Refugee Buddy Scheme. Hastings is a Home Office dispersal area for asylum seekers; this plus the highly successful Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement scheme means high levels of support are needed locally.

And the future?
Since we started, I’ve learnt more than I ever thought I’d need to know about the horrors of conditions in camps the world over. Though it is exhausting, and can feel as though we are putting a sticky plaster on a haemorrhage, we continue to try to help our fellow human beings who through quirks of fate and geography find themselves in situations we can’t even begin to imagine. 

The Government are unsympathetic to the plight of refugees and the cause is no longer as newsworthy as it was. But this does not mean the war in Syria is over, or that the situation in Afghanistan or Iran, Sudan or Eritrea to name but a few is any better. So Hastings Supports Refugees continues its work trying in any small way we can to help alleviate the suffering of our fellow human beings who through quirks of fate and geography find themselves in situations we can’t even begin to imagine. 

• For more information visit Hastings Supports Refugees Facebook group: details of this year’s Festival by the Lake can be found on the Facebook events page

• Read our other Community Ledges
Alison Cooper
John Knowles
Claudine Eccleston
Alan Turing
Rachel Holtom
Ruaidhri Guest
Erica Barrett
The Horse & Groom Pub
• And read what it takes to be a Community Ledge here

Hastings & St Leonards took part in a national campaign on 15th June aimed at persuading the Home Office to allow asylum seekers to undertake paid work after six months of residence if their claim has not been determined. 

Stalls were set up in both St Leonards and Hastings Town Centres where members of Hastings Community of Sanctuary engaged the public in conversations about the issues and encouraged them to sign petitions and postcards which will be gathered together nationally to present to the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid.  I am a leader of this campaign 

We were encouraged by how many people came to our stalls to find out what ‘Lift the Ban’ was about and were willing to sign up to the campaign. They recognised that a policy change would enable people seeking asylum to live in dignity by providing for themselves and their families, to have the opportunity to use their skills, integrate into their new communities and improve their mental health.

In the evening, local councillor for Central St Leonards, Trevor Webb, organised a ‘One Hastings Many Voices’ event, where a variety of local musicians from many backgrounds entertained the audience, alongside poems, refreshments and speakers. The Mayor and Deputy Mayor were there to support the event together with Cllr Colin Fitzgerald, cabinet member for Equalities and Community Safety at Hastings Borough Council. Cllr Fitzgerald recounted a story he had been told earlier that day of a woman from Eastern Europe who had been harassed on a train because of her accent. He told the gathering that this is not the kind of society we want to be a part of, and that everyone should be welcomed and respected when they come to the UK.

We were delighted to welcome Alex Mvuka Ntung to the event. Alex spoke movingly about his lived experience of coming to the UK as an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo and what the ban on working had meant to him. Copies of the account of his journey, a book called ‘Not My Worst Day’ were available to buy. He described how he had been able to make Hastings his home town.

Our Hastings & St Leonards Lift the Ban day of action was very successful in terms of uniting everyone to change the current situation which prevents people claiming asylum from working, forcing them to live in poverty for months and often years at a time. Our day ran alongside a national month of action with events already having taken place in London, Middlesborough, Glasgow and Yorkshire. Our stall will have been repeated at the Festival by the Lake on Sunday 23rd June. After that we expect to have hundreds of petitions and postcards to submit to the national campaign.

• For further information, please contact Jay Kramer on 07758 636055 or email jaykramer1@hotmail.com