Politics
Asylum Bill - A refugee's fight to get a shave
Published 10 May 1999
Nick Cohen continues his series on the asylum bill
The jubilant second anniversary celebrations of Labour's victory take the mind back to the triumph of hope over the hatreds of the Tory party and press on 1 May 1997. The gay-and-open-about-it Ben Bradshaw took on a queer-bashing God-botherer in Exeter, a city not previously noted for its sexual libertarianism, and won. Nick Budgen ran on an anti-immigrant ticket in Enoch Powell's old seat and was thrown out by electors whose sleep was once disturbed by nightmares of rivers of blood.
Because I used to work in Birmingham, I took particular pleasure from the success of Gisela Stuart in Edgbaston. Stuart was born Gisela Gschaider and did not move to Britain until she was a teenager. The party of the family went for her with undisguised racial hatred. She was misleading the voters by taking her British husband's name, said a local Tory councillor. "I'm knocking on people's doors telling them not to vote for a Kraut. She's wrapping herself in the Union Jack and it's a damned cheek."
Stuart has prospered since the marvellous defeat of xenophobia. She took the first step to ministerial office when she became a parliamentary aide to Jack Straw and now sits silently on a special standing committee as it scuttles the most bigoted measure in living memory into law.
Among the Immigration and Asylum Bill's most frightening propositions is the proposal to create a new currency - which wags in refugee charities have already christened the Asylo. Asylum-seekers will receive vouchers, which will give them an income 30 per cent below the income support poverty line, instead of benefits. They will be outside the cash economy save for £1-a-day pocket money for adults and 50p for children.
The long campaign by the government and its friends in the far-right media to portray asylum-seekers as bogus cheats has had its effect on race relations. Soon, refugees, the genuine as well as economic migrants, will be marked out as aliens every time they go to the shops. They must hope that native neo-fascists do not see them when they hand over their Asylos.
We can catch a glimpse of how the currency will work in practice by looking at Dover. Single refugees who don't declare themselves to be asylum-seekers at once on arrival - failure to display a proper and immediate understanding of Home Office procedure being a clear sign that you are a bogus fraud - already receive vouchers instead of the exorbitant sum of £45.30 a week in benefits. They are not allowed to work, even though refugees tend to be the most industrious of citizens, and have only one store in town where they can exchange the £1, £5 and £10 vouchers. The Premier Co-op at the bottom of the hill leading to the docks will not give change, cash being an incentive to fraudulent pleas for sanctuary, so asylum-seekers either lose some of what little credit they have or buy sweets they don't need to make up the difference.
The staff interpret instructions to supply only the essentials strictly. One asylum-seeker was turned away when he asked for a razor and shaving foam. He walked a mile to a Kent Social Services Office to complain. Social workers said the shop must be making a mistake. He returned. The shop still refused to serve him. He went back to the council office. A social worker plodded back with him to ensure he could have a shave. Needless to say, the production of Asylos in queues produces insults from locals unsuitable for a family magazine of the liberal left.
The Asylo is a debased currency. The Refugee Council surveyed 200 asylum-seekers and found that 120 could not get enough to eat and 150 could not afford bus fares. As with many other pieces of devalued paper money, a black market sprang up to trade in Asylos. A group of nuns, who do not wish to be identified for obvious reasons, are buying vouchers from single men and selling them to the faithful who may tear them up or try to spend them. Refugees are also selling vouchers at below face value to get hold of ready money.
When the bill becomes law, the Asylo's currency area will expand to cover married asylum-seekers and their children. The system will, the Home Office admits, cost more to manage than the payment of benefits - if, that is, a Home Office that is close to bureaucratic collapse can distribute the vouchers. But the Straws and Stuarts dismiss economic objections with the same contempt they have for moral qualms. They are lost in the fantasy that Asylos are necessary because our generous benefits "pull" in charlatans, and do not appear to know that Ireland offers single adults £63.51 a week (plus rent allowances and medical cards), Belgium gives them £99, Finland £53.47 (plus free accommodation) and Norway £51.70 - and they all pay cash - as well as the right to work.
Speaking of refugee children, my paper reported on Sunday that Straw was cracking under pressure and had conceded that he would house refugee kiddies. I'm afraid this looks like clever spinning. The Home Office has always wanted to house children: only by taking on this duty can it force asylum-seekers to live where it tells them. Crucially, Straw still refuses to reverse his decision to remove the young from the provisions of the Children's Act, which imposes a duty on local authorities to protect refugee children from abuse and help them cope with, say, the effects of torture or the murders of their parents.
As I write, the morning papers land on my desk. On the front of the Mirror is a picture of Cherie Blair rubbing her eyes in the Macedonian camps. Apparently she is "weeping for the refugees". She'll be blubbing buckets by the time her husband's finished wrapping himself in the Union Jack.
Nick Cohen is an "Observer" columnist
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