PROPOSALS to crackdown on asylum seekers show the Government is increasingly isolated on immigration issues, London's Green MEP Jean Lambert will tell a national demonstration to mark Refugee Week on Saturday (June 22).
Tony Blair's call for asylum seekers to be offered education and health services only at segregated reception centres scattered around the UK amounts to apartheid in public services and has attracted widespread opposition.
And his proposal to link aid and trade agreements to developing countries' record on re-admitting rejected asylum seekers has been attacked by all sides - from within the Government itself, other EU member states, the European Commission, employers, the law, refugee groups and the general public.
"Tony Blair and Jack Straw need to recognise that imposing economic penalties on the developing world will lead to an increase in migration, not the reduction they seek. If this Government is serious about reducing the number of migrants to the UK it should work to understand and address the "push factors" that drive migrants to leave their homes, be they political, environmental or economic," she said.
The rally, which will assemble in central London at 12 noon, has been organised by Barbed Wire Britain, the Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers, the National Civil Rights Movement and the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns.
ENDS
For more information contact Ben Duncan, Press Officer for Jean Lambert MEP
on 020 7407 6280