How Do You End Child Poverty?

The Labour government has already made some tremendous efforts to reduce child poverty so far. These include Sure Start, increased child tax credit, working tax credit and the minimum wage. However, the 2010 target of halving child poverty has been missed by a long way. ‘Middle England’ will lose any remaining compassion to help pay towards ending child poverty unless they can see a coherent and precise strategy and evidence of this being implemented and producing results. Here are some policy solutions for a long term strategy to end child poverty:

Public service and redistributive solutions:

* State funded maids (yes seriously) as they have in France to help single mothers stay at work and keep the young kids looked after, washing, keep the house in order and meals cooked.

* Truly universal childcare 7 days a week, in every community. This will further increase gender equality in the labour market as well.

* A living wage.

* Tax cuts for the low paid.

* Much higher child tax credit for low earners.

* A preventive welfare state that helps prevents young teen pregnancies and other social ills from happening in the first place instead of just picking up the pieces afterward.

* Cohesive communities and an end to apartheid cities and sink estates. Community solidarity is needed. Incentivise housing developers to build mixed communities. What we have at the moment is middle and higher income residents ignoring and avoiding lower income residents and vice versa. Polarised residencies are a bad thing in themselves and are part of a divided society.

Economic solutions:

* Industrial Activism: Grow the number of well-paying private sector jobs using a smart state investing in the science, training and infrastructure that industry needs.

* Flexicurity: A flexible labour market complemented with a rapid and responsive state providing redundancy pay, benefits, training and job allocation for workers made unemployed, at risk of unemployment or about to be made unemployed. Wales’s pro-act and re-act could provide some answers.

* Make the job guarantee/training place for unemployed 18-24 year olds permanent and extend it to unemployed single mothers/fathers with low employability and little work experience.

* Introduce more progressive taxes on ‘bads’ such as fuel, cars and electricity and link them to citizens' incomes, in order to pay for the investments needed. Make sure these taxes don’t hit people on low and modest incomes. Much of the investments will pay themselves off through increasing the number of people in full time work.

Ending child poverty cannot simply be achieved through either increasing child tax credit or growing the knowledge driven economy alone, it will require both of these policies and many more. Labour needs to construct a coherent strategy to end child poverty and present it to the electorate, otherwise people may give up hope and interest thinking it’s impossible to ever achieve. This will also confirm that Labour is the most progressive force in British politics.

No, Ann: Women, Black, & Ethnic Minorities Young People Aren't Second Class Citizens

Ann Widdecombe has recently criticised David Cameron's selection process for Tory candidates, saying that it will lead to a Conservative government full of "second-class citizens". She’s concerned about older politicians who lost their seats in 1997 being passed over in favour of new, first-time candidates, and seems to think that selecting a more diverse range of candidates is primarily a tick-box exercise.

Now, Labour as a parliamentary party could probably be more diverse in terms of age, gender and ethnic origin, but at least we’re trying. All-women shortlists have contributed substantially to the growth of women’s representation within the Labour Party, while the Tories languish well behind. Women making up only 8.8% of Conservative MPs, compared to 27% of Labour and 14.3% of Lib Dem MPs. Discussions around ethnic minority shortlists illustrate how seriously our party takes increasing diversity.

Widdecombe’s assertion that she’d like more women and ethnic minority Tory candidates, as long as they get there on merit alone, is fundamentally flawed. In any sphere of public life dominated by older, white, ABC1 males, it’s going to be harder to come forward as a potential candidate if you don’t fit into that narrow category. Women aren’t so hard to find on the Tory benches because they’re less good than the men, but because they often don’t have the confidence or the opportunity to put themselves forward in the first place. As for Davey C’s efforts to attract more new PPCs, why not?

Surely it’s better to field candidates with new ideas, rather than those whose last brush with politics was failing to hold on to their seats twelve years ago. Being an active London Young Labour member, I could reel off a long list of names of fantastic, politically-minded and civically-motivated people young people who would make great MPs. Far better for the Tories to find some young people removed from the Westminster bubble and more in touch with their communities’ needs, than to keep selecting tired old has-beens.

So, you could vote for the Tories, a substantial number of whom think, apparently, that their non-middle-class white male candidates are mainly for show. Or, you know, you could vote for a party who believes that your ability to be an MP and represent your fellow citizens doesn’t depend on various biological details. Now there's something to think about.

Two Charged With 'Leaking' BNP List

Two people have been charged after a British National Party membership list was leaked onto the internet.

They are accused of breaching the Data Protection Act.

Dyfed-Powys Police said the pair were arrested as part of a joint investigation with the Information Commissioner's Office.

They are due to appear in Nottingham Magistrates Court on September 1.

The far-right BNP called for a police investigation last November after the names, addresses and contact details of some 10,000 of its members were published online.

Tory Apologised Over Sexist Joke

A Conservative Party association chairman apologised "unreservedly" after saying he would select a female MP only "if they were attractive”.

Asked on TV if he was happy to support David Cameron's call to put more women in Parliament, Alan Scard said: "If they are attractive, yeah, I would go for it."

Mr Scard, 63, who is in charge of Gosport Conservative Association in Hampshire, said afterwards that his comments were made in jest.

He later issued a statement saying: "This was a tongue-in-cheek comment and I apologise unreservedly if it's caused any offence.

"As a proud parent of two girls, the last thing I would ever want to do is say something sexist. We will choose the best person to represent Gosport young or old, male or female, entirely on merit."

Mr Scard was speaking to Channel 4 News about his association's selection of a new candidate to fight the Westminster seat of Gosport.

Expanding on his attractive comment, he said: "I know it's a sexist thing to say but you could get the blokes saying, 'Oh you know, I would vote for her because she's really attractive', but then the other women say 'Oh I don't like her, she's too attractive'."

Tessa Jowell, Minister for the Cabinet Office, branded his comments "deeply offensive".

She told the programme: "These comments, which are deeply offensive and hugely patronising to women, are exactly the type of Tory attitude David Cameron claims to have got rid of. In the last two weeks we have seen Tories denying homophobia exists, condemning the NHS and now this blatant sexism."

A Conservative Party spokesman said that all female candidates were selected on "merit". He said: "These remarks were inappropriate and unacceptable, and Alan Scard has rightly apologised.

I welcome the well deserved comments of Marie Birchall the Tories should take heed and stop using sexist languages.

“Eliminating gender inequality and achieving women’s empowerment are essential to the achievement of all the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the upholding of human rights”

Dare I say it, but taken from the 2007 Conservative Women’s Group Policy Paper, this sounded like a step in the right direction when it comes to the role of women in international development for the Tories.

For too long, women in the developing world have been denied agency and seen simply as the passive recipients of aid. After all, isn’t giving women a shiny new bucket in which to collect water a much simpler endeavour than challenging the power relations that ensure the toil of collecting water is the sole preserve of women and girls? Thankfully, this approach to aid is undergoing a much-needed overhaul and on the surface at least, it seemed like the Tories were keeping pace.

So, as someone with a passion for gender and development – and as a Labour activist proud of the giant leap that was Labour’s establishment of DfID – I awaited the recent Conservative Green Paper on International Development with mild interest. With the recognition of the central importance of women’s empowerment and firm commitments to gender equality as a crosscutting issue throughout Labour’s recent White Paper, the Green Paper certainly had a lot to live up to.

The result? Spectacular failure. Despite making up more that 70 per cent of the world’s poorest people, women and the particular challenges they face barely get a mention. Apart from when it comes to reproductive rights, of course (as a woman, perhaps I am unique in being interested in how other policy areas – the economy, justice or the distribution of resources, for example – might impact upon me?).

But then it got a little bit worse. Whilst advocating for longer overseas placements for DfID staff in fragile States, the somewhat blinkered Green Paper sees the main problem as being “no wives and children are allowed”.

With this one Freudian slip, the true extent of the Tories lack of commitment to gender equality is revealed. Not only does Dave welcome more Daves into his Shadow Cabinet than women, he also assumes – or maybe expects – that DfID’s leading ladies will step aside and leave the tougher development jobs to the boys. After all, these guys will of course be supported by their ever-obliging wives.

Note to the Conservatives – the world has changed and not only is this an insult to the countless female members of DfID staff who work in some of the world’s toughest environments, it is an affront to every woman who has overcome pervasive discrimination to prove her equality with men.

Harriet Harman has recently received a lot of flack on Labour blogs for her outspokenness on gender issues but I for one am proud to be a member of a Party whose leadership confronts gender stereotyping of this nature, not further entrenches it.

Cameron's Slips On NHS

Britain's biggest health union has warned that the Tories are not to be trusted with the NHS after David Cameron let slip his party's privatisation plans.

Mr Cameron made a desperate bid today to steady the ship following the uproar provoked by two senior Tories who slagged off the NHS on US TV.

Delivering a speech at Bolton Town Hall, Mr Cameron, whose party has threatened to slash public spending if in government, claimed that he would increase spending on the NHS.

But the devil was in the details - he went on to reveal Tory plans to open up the NHS to "new providers" and give people "greater choice" over services, two well-known euphemisms for privatisation.

Health union UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis said: "The events of the past week have shown that the Tories do not support the NHS.

"No amount of back-peddling from Mr Cameron will now convince people that it has their full backing.

"Anyone who thinks that the Tories are the party of the NHS is living on another planet."

Exposing The BNP's Anti-Muslim Whoopers

The BNP's anti-Muslim lies have been exposed in a ground breaking new report, In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda, published by Quilliam, the world's first counter-terrorism think tank. The report is the first of its kind to forensically take on and take apart the BNP's anti-Islamic propaganda.

BNP leader Nick Griffin has described Islam as "a wicked, vicious faith" and "a cancer eating away" at freedom and democracy. Quilliam outline that this is a deliberate change of tack for the BNP, which is embarking on a "conscious shift in rhetoric away from a more general racism to something specific."

The report, published last weekend, details ten myths peddled by the BNP as part of their "systematic demonizing campaign" against Muslims, whom they seek to portray as "inherently violent and backward," and whose hidden agenda is the "Islamification of Europe." Among the lies undermined by the report are the BNP's claim that Islam is "a religion which treats women as second class citizens automatically." The report quotes Fatima Mernissi, a Moroccan Muslim feminist, who says that where sexism exists in the Arab world, "it is neither because of the Qur'an nor the Prophet, nor the Islamic tradition, but simply because those rights conflict with those of the male elite."

The report also highlights the widespread BNP practice of taking examples of individual Muslims committing crimes and extrapolating such isolated incidents to imply all Muslims are criminals. Examples include Nick Griffin blaming the hard drugs trade on Pakistanis on Newsnight last month; Griffin telling an audience of fellow travellers "gang rape is a phenomenon that comes from the Muslim community" and the "Islamification" of the West had partly "been done by rape".

Report author Lucy James said:

"Nick Griffin and his party have made a conscious shift in rhetoric away from attacking Britain's blacks and Jews towards attacking Britain's Muslims. To do this, they have sought to portray a minority of violent Islamists as being representative of all Muslims. This needs to be challenged by all those who cherish living in a free, liberal and secular society."

Health Debate Heats Up As Obama Weighs in

If people wants to read my article on 12 August 2009 Re: America's Right Turns Its fire On NHS

it now turns out that the Tories are being two-faced is usually a bit like criticising the ocean for being too salty. But Gordon Brown's right to use the word, when his rivals have excelled themselves with their twisting and turning over the NHS.

David Cameron insists that "we love our NHS." Of course he does.

It would be political suicide for him to say anything else when British voters overwhelmingly back a public health-care system.

No matter which party they support, the vast majority of Britons know that the NHS is a national treasure.

It's cheaper and more efficient than anything the private sector could ever manage. It works wonders daily in healing the sick, caring for the elderly and bringing new lives into the world.

It means peace of mind for each and every one of us, from cradle to grave - in stark contrast to the sorry failure that is the US system.

The US spends more than twice as much per person as Britain - but about one-sixth of the population still has no health care at all, except what little they can glean from charity.

Hundreds of thousands of people every year are driven into bankruptcy by the cost of a medical emergency.

And just about everyone lives in permanent terror of losing their job, because it also means losing whatever barely adequate health insurance they might get from their bosses.

A scared worker is a compliant worker, one who won't stand up and fight for anything, be it better pay, shorter hours or the right to join a union.

In short, exactly the kind of worker the Tories want us all to be. That's why the Thatcher government worked so hard to weaken, undermine and underfund the NHS.

And it's why Cameron's cronies are happy to cuddle up to the US extremists and free-market fanatics who are peddling a pack of lies about the NHS in a desperate bid to stop any health-care reform in their own country.

If they could get away with it, the Tories would happily smash the NHS and take us back into the US-style Dark Ages.

US President Barack Obama has accused health insurance profiteers of holding the nation hostage by denying coverage to sick people.

At a town-hall meeting in Montana at the weekend Mr Obama emphasised that expanding coverage to the 46 million US citizens without health insurance, which is expected to cost $1 trillion (£606bn), is his administration's top priority.

"We are held hostage at any given moment by health insurance companies that deny coverage or drop coverage or charge fees that people can't afford," he said, noting that it was "bankrupting families and businesses."

Mr Obama vowed to "fix" the US health-care system "when we pass health insurance reform this year."

The president blasted sections of the media for only focusing on his reforms.

"These are the stories that aren't being told - stories of a health-care system that works better for the insurance industry than it does for the American people," he stormed.

Republicans, right-wing sections of the media and the insurance and medical companies who make mega-profits from private health care have been accused of being behind a series of rowdy and disruptive demonstrations at recent town hall meetings.

The AFL-CIO union federation recently called on trade unionists to attend meetings to fight back and show support for Mr Obama's health-care plan.

At one such afternoon meeting last week in Pittsburgh, United Steelworkers members from their Women of Steel organisation attended a meeting where Democratic senator Arlen Spector was due to speak.

Throughout the meeting Ms Spector faced booing, taunts and orchestrated interruptions.

She was called a "a socialist, fascist pig," by one man who stormed out, accusing Steelworker union members who made pro-health care contributions of being "plants."

Others in the audience decried the health-care plan as "socialism" and equated it with other measures that Mr Obama has introduced, such as the economic stimulus package.

And there was another worrying development.

A Steelworkers official took a photo of a man who was part of the orchestrated opposition to the health-care plan which clearly shows that he was carrying a gun.

The man also brandished a flag bearing the legend: "Don't tread on me."

British National Party Causes Panic Vs Anti- Fascist March In Derby

The mere fact that nearly million voters voted for the British National party in June's Euro-elections are certainly angry and no doubt racist to varying degrees, but how many of them would really be up for sending a gunboat down the Liffey? Very few, because there are surely not a million people so lunatic that they would want to start a war on these islands. Yet that would surely be the result of the BNP pledge of "welcoming Eire as well as Ulster as equal partners in a federation of the nations of the British Isles".

Just like the cheery talk of welcoming Ireland back into the union, the party's Derbyshire garden party over the weekend provides the flimsiest veil for a programme that is not only nasty, but rooted in delusion and paranoia. Alongside the tea, cakes and patriotic memorabilia – designed to create a "family" atmosphere and reinforce the half-respectabilty afforded by winning two Euro-seats – the Red, White and Blue festival featured a clutch of white crosses to commemorate people supposedly killed "as a result of anti-white violence". Persecution complex by day gave way to evening self-confidence, as far-right fanatics outside the camp gave fascist salutes and shouted "sieg heil".

We report today how the BNP shipped in fascists from overseas to address its gathering. The party leader, Nick Griffin, no doubt regards links with far-right parties abroad – many of which are much better established than his own ragbag outfit – as a way to make the BNP look serious. Tellingly, however, his attempts to form a grouping in Brussels failed, as even fellow extremists feared the damage that would be done by associating with the BNP.

It is not hard to see why. A handful of BNP leaders may nowadays don suits, but a large proportion of the activists, councillors and candidates remain boot boys, often with criminal convictions for violence. Mr Griffin's one fellow MEP, Andrew Brons, has a genteel manner but was, as a young man, involved with Nazi-style groups that engaged in arson attacks on synagogues. He has German, and quite possibly Jewish, ancestry making his embrace of the most exclusive form of British nationalism a source of psychological speculation.

The brutal mindset of Griffin himself was betrayed only last month, when he suggested that the Europeans should "sink several ... boats" carrying African immigrants. Mindful, perhaps, that few of those who had voted him would truly support drowning men, women and children at sea, he added as an afterthought that they might be thrown life jackets. The hope must be, as has already happened in some town halls, that the more the public gets to know the BNP the more they will lose patience with people who are as unpleasant as they are odd.

Four Charged As Far-right Festival Brings Chaos To Derbyshire Village

Far-right activists from Europe spoke at the British National party's annual gathering this weekend despite protests by more than 1,000 anti-fascists who blockaded the event for several hours.

Roberto Fiore, the leader of the Italian party Forza Nuova and a friend of the BNP leader Nick Griffin, spoke to several hundred people at the Red, White and Blue festival about the "threat to Europe from Islamic extremism" on Saturday night.

Fiore, who once said he was happy to be described as a neo-fascist, was joined by Marc Abramson, from the Swedish National Democrats.

Police arrested 19 protesters during the demonstration. The BNP said one of its members had been arrested.

Four people have been charged: three with public order offences and one with unlawfully obstructing the highway.

The annual Red, White and Blue event has been held on a farm owned by a BNP member near Codnor, Derbyshire, for the past three years, and is described by the far-right party as a family festival.

However, the mood at the event threatened to turn ugly on Saturday as far-right supporters outside the camp gave fascist salutes to protesters and shouted "Sieg Heil".

Weyman Bennett from Unite Against Fascism, one of the groups who organised Saturday's demonstration, said it had been a success.

"We managed to disrupt the event with peaceful direct action but the attendance of people like Fiore and the actions of some BNP sympathisers shows the real extremism that we are facing," he said.

The weekend-long festival and the subsequent protest brought chaos to the small Derbyshire village. Many residents said they were fed up with the festival.

Joe Osborne, 70, whose property backs onto the site, said that he feared there would be a repeat of an incident last year when he said men were goose-stepping down the street in the early hours of the morning and shouting "Heil Hitler".

"It really upset my wife. It may seem funny to them but the second world war is something that is very real to us."

Other residents blamed the disruption on the demonstrators. "We didn't have too much trouble with the BNP until the protesters came," said Simon Pitt.

Saturday's demonstration attracted trade unionists, teachers, students and anti-racist campaigners from across the UK.

Mubashar Yaqub, 18, who had travelled from Burnley with two friends, said: "Racism is a problem in our area and we just wanted to come and make the point that the BNP don't have any answers to the problems everyone is facing, and to let them know they are not welcome."

Sarah Palin May Be Able To Capture America’s Attention, But She Is Not A Leader

Human nature leads most of us to search for logic and reasoning in a series of seemingly connected events. That has surely led many to try and uncover the strategic genius behind Sarah Palin’s recent maneuvers that will catapult her to the Republican nomination in 2012. You can stop, there is no strategy.

Palin is unquestionably a phenomenon with an instinctual ability to capture America’s attention. But even though she has influence, she is not a leader. There is no plan to manipulate the anger and paranoia on the American right to advance her political fortunes; she merely reflects the hysteria because she believes it. She is irresponsible, but not cynical. While even her limited success is a sad commentary on the state of the American polity, Sarah Palin is not going to be president.

Whether it’s because she is picking a fight with David Letterman, resigning as governor of Alaska, pushing for higher carbon emissions, or claiming Obama wants to kill her Down’s syndrome baby, Palin has spent the summer in the headlines. Any politician would love to get her level of media attention and it’s natural to think there has to be some kind of plan or purpose for the media onslaught. But if you look at it closely, it’s more luck than strategy, intuition rather than evil genius.

Palin couldn’t have picked a better time to capture days worth of headlines when she made her resignation announcement on a Friday afternoon of the three-day Fourth of July weekend. Not much else was happening – and if there was a ‘plan’, it would have been the perfect time for her to announce she was leaving the governor’s job to pursue another political office or to build a political movement. She would have been marked as the frontrunner for the Republican nod in 2012.

But there is no plan because she simply abandoned her post because she didn’t want to do it any more. She stumbled into all the coverage by happenstance after delivering an incoherent statement that led to days of negative analysis and headlines and even George Will [a controversial conservative commentator] labeled her a quitter. The criticism may have endeared her further to the fringe on the right, but she is finished as a viable national politician.

But she can still command attention. It is easier to think that Palin doesn’t actually believe that Obama’s push for healthcare reform is masking a secret plot to exterminate unproductive members of society because to think that she does is terrifying. But that’s how you have to understand Sarah Palin – she’s not using the wing-nuts, she’s one of them. What do you have to believe about your political opponents to actually think their objective is to kill old people and children with learning difficulties?

Palin is fascinating, but not in a ‘look at the silly Americans’ kind of way. Her predominance represents the chickens coming home to roost for a Republican party that has embraced an anti-intellectualism and anti-elitism run amok. If Barack Obama’s life story says that in America, anyone can be president, Palin’s story would have been everyone can be president. Fortunately, this summer has proved that’s not true.

Ken Gude is the associate director of the International Rights and Responsibility Program at American Progress

Tory Backbencher Fights Deselection

St Albans Conservative association to decide whether Anne Main should be able to stand as their MP at next election.

The Tories face further embarrassment over expenses today as a backbencher fights a deselection bid.

The St Albans Conservative association's 300 members are to decide whether Anne Main should be able to stand as their MP at the forthcoming general election.

This evening's meeting follows allegations that Main's daughter lived rent-free at a flat paid for by the taxpayer.

The row is another headache for David Cameron, with Alan Duncan, the shadow leader of the Commons, battling to hang on to his job after complaining that MPs were being forced to "live on rations".

The Tories have a majority of just 1,361 over Labour in the St Albans constituency, with the Liberal Democrats close behind in third place.

It is understood that Main, who won the seat from Labour in 2005, will address the meeting before an association spokesman does likewise. Members will then be asked to vote on whether to deselect her.

If the bid to remove her is successful, the 52-year-old backbencher will remain a Conservative MP but will not stand as the party's candidate at the next general election – though she could stand as an independent.

A Conservative party spokesman said simply that the issue was a "matter for the local association".

The claims against Main are being investigated by parliamentary sleaze watchdog John Lyon. The Conservative party's scrutiny panel has deferred ruling on Main's expenses while the probe is ongoing.

A number of MPs have announced their intention to stand down following the expenses scandal, while Labour barred five of its MPs from seeking re-election.

Scores have also been ordered to repay money they claimed, while a new independent body has been established to govern MPs' pay and perks.

Life At The Sharp End

"These attacks have no place in our workplaces - immigration raids should not be accepted by anyone, particularly because of the fear that raids cause among workers, frightening them, terrorising them," says RMT union activist Clara Osagiede.

She is referring to the increasing trend of bosses colluding with the UK Border Agency and calling in immigration agents on their own workers.

Osagiede points out that "migration is not a crime when companies want to exploit workers, but it becomes a crime when workers start to organise and demand a union."

"This exploitation is based on the fact that people will keep quiet. But despite my employers' threats of calling the police, it was important not to be afraid"

Jose Stalin Bermudez is a UNISON rep who was victimised and sacked by bosses at the School of Oriental and African Studies after leading a campaign to end poverty wages among cleaners. He confirms that companies are stepping up deportation threats against "foreign workers who stand up for their rights.

"When I first came to Britain I worked as a kitchen porter and in other such jobs in restaurants that migrant workers do. I didn't speak English and no-one cared who I was because migrant workers are invisible workers," he says.

But Bermudez insists that "more and more migrant workers are refusing to remain invisible."

Unite shop steward Edwin Pazmino, who was sacked by Mitie after organising his colleagues as part of the union's Justice for Cleaners campaign, emphasises that, as migrant workers fight back, "the bosses are retaliating more and more.

"After we won the London living wage, the company changed our shifts to make us work at night, but workers with children couldn't do that, so the bosses used this as a reason to sack us," he explains.

The company's management then called in an immigration raid against the remaining workers soon after, shattering what remained of union organisation among the cleaners.

Osagiede insists that the testimonies of migrant workers on this page highlight how crucial it is for unions to develop a strategy "to resist this racist offensive.

"Unions must fight back against the companies that collude with immigration agents to systematically arrest and deport black workers, Asians and Latin Americans," she says.

The names of the three migrant workers who have given their stories to the Morning Star have been changed to protect their identities.

Rocio

Last month, Mitie managers in Willis sent a letter of invitation to the two shifts of workers for a chemical training course, and some had to go in at 5am.

Workers from the night shift were receiving the training when immigration officers raided the room and detained the undocumented workers.

At 8.30, other police detained more cleaners as they arrived at the building from Liverpool Street station.

I had had an ominous feeling about the timing of these meetings. When we went in, everyone was looking around at each other, some asking each other what was happening.

Not even 15 minutes had passed when police started to enter from doors on either side of the room, saying they were from immigration. No-one moved.

One of the police had a file, which only had the names of the illegal workers and photocopies of their documents, but not the names of the legal workers.

They called the workers' names one by one and interrogated them, asking where they had got the documents and where they lived.

Many workers were scared and some were crying. Some were told to sign papers that they hadn't even read, but they didn't know what they were signing.

The legal workers were allowed to leave, but the others were left behind until they were taken away and put in two vans.

As a result of this raid one Ecuadorian, five Bolivians and one Brazilian were arrested, taken to a detention centre and deported on July 15.

Cristina

I had lived in London for two years, working as a cleaner in a hotel and as a factory worker - usually several shifts a day.

But my visa expired so I became 'illegal.'

In the hotel I was paid in cash and the supervisor took a cut of the wages, so I left and I took a new cleaning job where the company deliberately took on staff without papers.

I worked for three months, but received no wages.

The supervisor was Latin American too, so he talked with the workers in Spanish and told us: 'You have no right to work, so no right to be paid,' but I complained and was sacked.

The company threatened to call immigration, but I said to them that I wasn't going to walk away and would get my wages. They were surprised because they thought they were big and they thought I was nothing.

I became involved with the union and the Latin American Workers Association and won this fight for the wages I was owed. Then I found out that other workers were experiencing the same problem as me and I tried to tell them about the union.

But those who I spoke to were afraid to speak out and told me they'd rather keep quiet. This exploitation is based on the fact that people will keep quiet. But despite my employers' threats of calling the police, it was important not to be afraid.

But the management of this company did tell the police about me and I was arrested.

The only certainty from all this is that we should not be afraid to denounce those who exploit immigrants.

Having courage is essential and we must unite and defend our rights, even if sometimes we are scared.

Cristina was deported to Chile at the beginning of August.

Joana

School of Oriental and African Studies managers carried out a raid on the very day that people were protesting about the sacking of union rep Jose Stalin Bermudez.

Not long before, the ISS cleaning company had signed a union recognition agreement for the cleaners at SOAS.

At 6.30am on June 12, ISS called a meeting for all cleaners. After we arrived, a manager was calling out names and checking certain people and within minutes the meeting was raided by 50 immigration agents, even wearing riot gear, who entered through the fire doors and detained everyone.

The police surrounded us - the ones on the list - with two or three to each person. I knew what was happening, but it was a big shock.

Following the raid, the cleaners were locked in the room and one by one they were led into another room, where their immigration status was checked.

No-one was allowed representation or a translator. A union representative was also refused access to the room.

ISS requested this police action. I know because two SOAS managers were present during the raid and talking and laughing with the police.

Those detained had been working at SOAS for many years - they had settled in London. Deportation will be devastating not only for them but also for their families.

They wanted to show that they are more powerful than the union because the union had been pushing very strongly for our rights.

The union has been making noise and they want to silence this.

If you have no papers you are always afraid, but the union had been organising anyway and we had won the living wage when this happened.

Three Colombians, two Bolivians, a six-months pregnant Brazilian, a Nicaraguan and a Venezuelan were deported on June 13.