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We are the civil servants who put up 'Go home Paddington' notices in revolt
Like many civil servants, I joined because of the principles. We work here because we want to serve the public, to make vital services work well, and to help people. I work with dedicated, skilled and compassionate people. We understand that we aren’t the politicians; we just want to get on and make things work for the public.
But at the Home Office, it is unavoidably clear that the things we are now ordered to put into place – from borders to policing to immigration enforcement – are doing real harm to many people. As the report on the historical roots of the Windrush scandal showed, the Home Office has a long and ugly history of structural racism, with UK immigration policy shaped for decades to try to minimise the number of black and minority ethnic people in this country.
So it is little surprise that the barbaric Rwanda transportation plan – to forcibly fly people who have escaped trauma and horror to another continent – is presented to us by senior fellow civil servants as “humanitarian”. The laughably absurd idea that it has anything to do with preventing people smugglers is repeated with a straight face.
If the racial priorities in our work weren’t clear enough from the Windrush scandal, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has rammed the point home. Of course, innocent people bombed out of their homes must be offered help and a place to rebuild their lives if they choose to. Yet this is hardly the only war going on. The difference in response when there are white faces involved couldn’t be more stark. Whole new visa routes were created with vastly more “generous” conditions, such as not being banned from working or accessing vital public funds.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/13/civil-servants-go-home-paddington-revolt-rwanda-deportation
But at the Home Office, it is unavoidably clear that the things we are now ordered to put into place – from borders to policing to immigration enforcement – are doing real harm to many people. As the report on the historical roots of the Windrush scandal showed, the Home Office has a long and ugly history of structural racism, with UK immigration policy shaped for decades to try to minimise the number of black and minority ethnic people in this country.
So it is little surprise that the barbaric Rwanda transportation plan – to forcibly fly people who have escaped trauma and horror to another continent – is presented to us by senior fellow civil servants as “humanitarian”. The laughably absurd idea that it has anything to do with preventing people smugglers is repeated with a straight face.
If the racial priorities in our work weren’t clear enough from the Windrush scandal, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has rammed the point home. Of course, innocent people bombed out of their homes must be offered help and a place to rebuild their lives if they choose to. Yet this is hardly the only war going on. The difference in response when there are white faces involved couldn’t be more stark. Whole new visa routes were created with vastly more “generous” conditions, such as not being banned from working or accessing vital public funds.
/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/13/civil-servants-go-home-paddington-revolt-rwanda-deportation
Over the past week mocked up immigration enforcement notices have begun to appear on internal Home Office staff noticeboards, featuring photographs of Paddington Bear, stating that he is wanted so he can be placed on a relocation flight to Rwanda.
Elsewhere, staff have noticed a rash of Refugees Welcome stickers, affixed to Home Office printers and pieces of furniture in departmental buildings around the country.
The organiser of the Our Home Office protest group, bringing together staff opposed to Rwanda deportations, said unease about the proposed removals has galvanised employees from all over the government department to take subversive action.
“It’s still a small, low-level campaign, but it’s growing and is already networked in offices throughout the country,” the group’s founder said, asking not to be named in order to protect his job at the department. “The announcement of the Rwanda transportation plan was really a significant moment for a lot of staff members who were quite shocked by how barbaric a proposal it is, particularly the way that it seems to be against the refugee convention and the principles that we are trying to uphold of giving people fair treatment.”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/13/paddington-go-home-home-office-staff-pin-up-faked-deportation-notices
Elsewhere, staff have noticed a rash of Refugees Welcome stickers, affixed to Home Office printers and pieces of furniture in departmental buildings around the country.
The organiser of the Our Home Office protest group, bringing together staff opposed to Rwanda deportations, said unease about the proposed removals has galvanised employees from all over the government department to take subversive action.
“It’s still a small, low-level campaign, but it’s growing and is already networked in offices throughout the country,” the group’s founder said, asking not to be named in order to protect his job at the department. “The announcement of the Rwanda transportation plan was really a significant moment for a lot of staff members who were quite shocked by how barbaric a proposal it is, particularly the way that it seems to be against the refugee convention and the principles that we are trying to uphold of giving people fair treatment.”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/13/paddington-go-home-home-office-staff-pin-up-faked-deportation-notices
