Austria’s recent election results show that we all need to do more to win the argument for the benefits of refugee protection and a compassionate, common-sense approach to migration. The Austrian People’s Party (OVP), and the smaller and further-right Freedom Party (FPO), have worked in coalition government before to oversee a drop of over half…
Party conference season is usually an opportunity for political parties to step away from Parliament, debate the future and present the guiding principles of their plans for the future. There is much to discuss and digest from the season – but very little on migration, despite the combination of Brexit, the Europewide refugee situation, and…
The newly leaked immigration policy paper is a disaster waiting to happen. The paper outlines an approach that has been called a “Britain first” approach but it is nothing of the sort; driving down standards for foreign residents is not the same as improving standards for citizens. For instance, a spousal income threshold…
The weather in Lesvos is improving, the sea is calmer and clearer, and so the number of migrants making the perilous Mediterranean crossing to Europe is increasing. So are the deaths. So far 2,365 people have perished since January this year. Here we go again. With no let-up in the Syrian war; and fighting, human…
The EU Withdrawal Bill (formerly the Great Repeal Bill) goes back on the government's commitment to safeguard the rights of EU citizens resident in the UK before Brexit. The Government keep stating that they wish to uphold EU citizens’ rights. And yet the Bill grant them the power to amend, water down or remove rights…
Candy Young is a dancer from the US who met and married her husband – a fellow performer - while working in the UK. She was able to stay on via a student visa for her course at the University of Huddersfield, and the couple had their first child shortly before she graduated. But she…
As 750 Austrian troops are deployed to the Italian border, powers across Europe are once again choosing blunt force over compassion for some of the world’s most desperate people. The escalation of military action in and around the Mediterranean represents a worrying trend in policy and thinking – that the current situation at Europe’s…
The Government's new counter-offer to EEA nationals after Brexit is far too little, far too late. Their headline claim is that under this offer, all Europeans with five years of continuous residence would be able to continue with their lives. But that’s not really the case - those we have spoken to are bitterly disappointed…
The Government’s halfway-house offer signals a clear and worrying intent to continue use EU nationals in the UK as bargaining chips – just months after Europeans were openly referred to as “negotiating capital” in a Home Office letter. The new offer is strong on spin and weak on detail. There is a risk that huge…
