My communication with Dawn Butler MP:
As ever, one of my favourite Labour Party sisters, I have hesitated to write this email, given how poorly I know you have been. I hope you are feeling as well as can be, and that your progress in fighting your illness is good. I was truly gutted to hear about it and didn’t want to add to your trials, these past few weeks. But what is expressed in this email has been haunting me for quite a while, keeping me awake for some time, as the situation regarding human rights, women’s rights and women’s personal safety, and the rights and vulnerability of migrants has deteriorated almost daily under this horrendous, repressive, greed-driven government. Finally, yesterday, with all the shocking information coming through about the Tories’ plans for their inhuman “processing camp” in Rwanda, I could bear it no longer. I feel that you are the most appropriate and relevant person to write to about this, for reasons I will explain shortly but, in the meantime, I have copied in a number of other people, some of them sisters of yours in the PLP, who I know will help you out in taking this matter forward if you can’t do it all yourself. There are definitely more you can ask. I have sent copies to Amnesty, The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants and Stand Up to Racism, but I don’t have a person I can hook this on to in these organisations, which would be better, and I bet you do. I don’t know of many in the Party with more steely determination and commitment than yourself, and then there’s a couple I’ve added for formality’s sake; the current Labour Women and Equality’s Secretary and then my Tory MP. He’s included merely for the sake of etiquette, for all the good he ever does when I ask for help – at least once a week now!
You will recall, I am sure, the magical and ground-breaking Labour Women’s Conference of February 2019, in Telford, which you fought to get us and headed up, as our Labour Secretary for Women and Equality, and what a great time we all had. I made contacts and friendships with so many great women, and learned such a lot. The process of getting ready for the Conference, had been exciting and stimulating too, and a great bonding process. As Women’s Officer for my CLP, (we hadn’t had one before, and certainly hadn’t ever dared to grasp the opportunity for female activity for so many of its members, in the way we did in that all-too-short, golden period of Corbyn’s leadership), and with you at our head, I encouraged the women in the constituency to be as active and as participatory as possible. With the very short notice we had for the Women’s Conference (another first, with a separate venue, and separate date from the main Conference) we really went for it, met several times, in places around our rather large and rural constituency to help with accessibility for our members, held working parties and formulated our own motion to submit, with all the work that entailed, and the research we did. Ours was one on the Mental Health Act. We did fund raising to ensure that people needing financial help could afford to attend the Conference, and I was proud to facilitate the attendance of an impressively large group of women, including a duly elected Delegate, and also an additional sister who was able to come under the heading of Delegate with Additional Needs. Several of those who came had not attended a large women’s event of any sort before. We had a ball! It was a cathartic almost damascene moment for many of them. And so, if I do nothing else, I owe it to them to tell this story and to get something done about it. I am determined that we don’t just write off that experience as if it didn’t happen, and as if we just accept our own powerlessness once more.
To make a long story short, there were many motions submitted, but these were whittled down to four (East Devon’s didn’t make it – though the experience of the process justified the effort) and eventually one of these motions won the vote to be adopted, and with a significant majority. A whole day had been set aside for the plenary; we gained a mass of information about the reasons for the motions that were presented, and although they were all excellent causes, I don’t think any of us could argue with the winner because it was such a worthy one. Indeed, I think we were all left rather shocked that such a dreadful array of situations existed in our country with regard to women’s needs and rights, but nothing quite capped the dreadful information we heard about that day, about the situation existing in this country for “Migrant women”. Amongst a lot of other appalling data, we learned that “Migrant women are disproportionately at risk from gendered violence including domestic violence, sexual violence/exploitation, ‘honour-based’ violence, forced marriage, FGM, trafficking and domestic homicide. Successive immigration policies exacerbate this risk, creating a context in which women are more vulnerable to violence.” The motion that was passed, was based on the fact that “There is no time limit on immigration detention- women can be locked up for days, weeks, even months and years. Detention is unnecessary and expensive – and also traumatic for women who are detained, many of who have already survived rape and torture”. We resolved to *End detention of asylum-seeking women *End the detention of survivors of gender-based violence *End the detention of pregnant women *Put a 28-day time limit on all immigration detention.
What we learned and vowed to stop through this motion, was that the UK is a truly awful place to come if you are a refugee or asylum seeker needing help, and that if you are a woman it is very much worse. Though the four resolutions were only part of that scenario, we all hoped that it would provide a springboard to look at the whole sorry mess of our migration laws, and particularly as they affect women who come here, essentially hoping for help but receiving dreadful abuse and even death!
To this day I remain unsure of whether this motion ever actually got a spot at the main Conference in September, and what in fact happened to it afterwards. There was certainly no feedback on this. Obviously, the main Conference was just engulfed in a great deal of smoke and mirrors about the ‘People’s Vote’, the take over and media hype from the Labour Party’s right went into full swing and, sadly, come December, the biggest political tragedy of my life time occurred, when Corbyn and the Labour Party lost the General Election. I, like so many of us who threw our heart and soul into trying to make the world a better place during those 4 years, and fought right until the last polling station closed on 12th December, literally became ill. I was broken by it. Lots of brutal things happened to me in the run-up to that election, some of them could be blamed on the Tories, but some happened at the hands of the new regime in Labour which was slowly taking its grip of the machinery of Labour’s Southside, and making it very difficult indeed to keep up morale. But we had Jeremy, we had nearly won once before against all the odds, and we ploughed on and fought for our very lives. Then the whole Country got ill, and just 3 months later it all shut down, and the rest is history.
So, first off, if the resolution was adopted by Conference, why have we not been fighting for the VERY pertinent points it raised, as a matter of Labour policy, and if it wasn’t presented, or adopted, then why not? Constitutionally and democratically that’s what was meant to happen – whether there’s been a regime change at the top of the Party or not, we surely still ought to be fighting for what we believe in and what we, the Women of Labour voted that February, should be Labour Party policy? And let’s be perfectly honest, this Country needs us to be working towards the 4 resolutions in the motion now, more than ever. If we had strongly pushed forward with these, we would have had something massively helpful on which to pin our justifiable objections to the revolting fascism of the current Home Secretary, and this inhuman, far right, regime. My contention is that we still could. There have been some pretty earth-shattering revelations during the 30 months of Johnson’s misrule, and especially with regard to the vulnerability of women, which has increased since 2010 at an alarming rate.  There are also huge on-going doubts about the Country’s policing, especially the Met, where women are disproportionately vulnerable to abuse, violence, rape and murder, and that doesn’t just apply to migrant women. People of colour are having just the worst time and have done for years. I believe that we in the Labour Party, who have a powerful appreciation of this situation, shouldn’t have to hang around waiting for the current leader to decide when we publicly address this problem. We can’t just wait for him to get the okay from a focus group before we discuss this and campaign for it. If we don’t speak up, and with some haste, then, inevitably, something truly terrible will happen – it’s a disaster that’s waiting to happen, on top of the disasters that already have, and that’s what has been keeping me awake at night.
The whole matter of the war in Ukraine has cast this issue into strong relief. The government has been so intent on keeping migrants out, despite just how culpable the Tories and their cronies in the international elite are, in terms of causing the war and creating the conflict. Their hostility to migration only extends to the poor and the vulnerable, while their own kleptocracy has fed Putin’s war machine and given a convenient home and money laundry to so many of those Russians who made their billions after the fall of communism in the 1980s. That, I suppose, is a separate crime which needs to be exposed, and for which we need to seek redress. Meanwhile, and notwithstanding the impossible visa application system the Home Office have installed to make it just about as difficult as they can for refugees to get into Britain, the people of this Country have individually and through community initiatives, stood up with generosity and compassion to offer places for people to stay, and volunteered to take in those arriving here. Given that we know the vast majority of those coming, or applying to come, are women and children, and how very vulnerable they will have been made by the whole process of even getting here, I think you can see where I am headed with this. This is not the safe, secure and fairly governed place we always thought it was. This is not a Country whose government is in the least generous to anyone but the top 2% of the wealthy, despite what Johnson and Sunak may say.Â
Now, I know that vast swathes of the population here are good, kind-hearted, caring people but, knowing what I do about the short-comings of this Country and its policing, I am fraught with anxiety about what could possibly go wrong for those who have already witnessed so much horror, have been through so much just to get here, and who will be so vulnerable in what’s essentially an unregulated and very hostile environment. And knowing just how dreadful the Tory induced poverty is even now, and will become ever worse just a few months down the line, we do need to start making a hell of a noise about this issue of how we care for the vulnerable, NOW. Everything about Tory Britain is unregulated. Buildings turn into torches, roads go into gridlock, hospitals declare emergencies and can’t cope with the sick, foster children wind up in unregulated homes, policemen murder lone women, schools have to get charitable help to feed our children, and so it goes on. I really do feel that somehow, we have to speak up about this. I think we need, first of all, to expose the current shocking situation for female migrants already here, and what a truly dreadful job the government are already doing to protect those who come here asking for help and sanctuary. I think the majority of the population are completely ignorant of this. They are fed on a diet of utter nonsense by most of the mainstream media.  But then I believe we really MUST demand that the least important part of this – the Visa – is not the regulatory aspect that deserves the greatest priority. Nor does the money, the £350 a month – always the matter that commands the attention of the Tory first when they are giving it to ordinary people; if it were billions for some kind of public contract to friends of theirs, they’d write it off! What is important is that any refugee coming here is regularly monitored and checked to see that their welfare is being taken care of, that children are finding help and schooling, and traumatised people are being counselled and nurtured. It’s vitally important that that doesn’t get “out-sourced” to some less developed country or some private tax-evading company, where it’s out of sight and out of mind! I am fighting my way through the terrible black cloud of depression that came down on me when we lost the election and lost Corbyn’s leadership. I am pulling out of the horrendous effects of long periods of isolation both from the Labour Party, when it ceased to be something I could actively participate in, and also from the dreadful isolation of lockdown. I don’t think, having participated in our Conference and having also grown up and lived in this country, where I believed we were culturally inclined towards becoming more inclusive, and where kindness and tolerance were accepted social goals, even though 7 decades of this have shown me it’s not working, that I could bear it if I got up one morning to hear on the News that the migrants who we took in from the Ukraine had been victims of abuse or violence! I can’t stand to hear any more news of how the vulnerable are the victims of the power and arrogance of those who are running this Country; the shame of this feels like it might kill me. Yet, unless we speak up and demand that something gets done to prevent this, it seems inevitable.  I don’t think I can take much more of hearing what else the Home Secretary has decided she will implement by way of sadistic torture for those who ask for our help. The notion that anyone would even entertain her idea about sending migrants to Rwanda to be “processed” as both a deterrent and a punishment is just so devastating to me that I know my trials to even face another day again are far from over yet. Every time I think about this it’s as if my insides shrivel with shame. That all sounds rather self-obsessed and dramatic on my part but, of course, the worst part about this is what on earth it must feel like to the migrants themselves. I don’t know how any refugee gets the idea that Britain is a place to head for. Knowing what I know about this Country, its government and its current record on human rights, with hostile environments and white van campaigns, shackled deportees who came here to help us in the Windrush years of the 50s and 60s being shipped off liked so much garbage, and the years of abuse and incarceration so many refugees endure, the fact they are legally prevented from working to help themselves, the measly pittance they are expected to live off and so much else, including the long list of terrible abusive conditions for women, why do people come here at all? I wouldn’t! If anything gives us an indication of the true human desperation of migrants heading for our shores, it’s that irony.  But then I would be even less inclined to ever go anywhere near Rwanda! We’ve seen more than any time before, exactly how horrendous it is to be caught up in a war, this time round with the Ukraine, with the media’s blanket coverage, the shocking images and first hand accounts. Lord, can’t we just be a Country that puts its arms out to the world and offers love? And who, bottom line to this, is making money out of this shocking new idea of Priti Patel? There has to be a rake off of public funds and a diversion of cash to some incompetent with a link to the government. It follows as night follows day.
I believe the Women’s Conference motion on “Migrant Women” was presented to the conference by a large list of CLP Women’s Groups – at least 6. I believe these need to now step up if they can to help make this part of public consciousness. I also believe the motion may have been partly formulated by the CLPD Women’s Group, now apparently known as Labour Women Leading. Whilst networking the Conference Hall in Telford in 2019, I found a large group of them sitting near the front, and a couple that I recognised spoke to the motion on the day. That’s why I have copied their group into this – I think they’ll help you, Dawn, if you can track them down. Also, sitting with them, and actively involved, was Claudia Webbe – who I have mountains of respect for. I know she will help. Zarah Sultana wasn’t there, but I’d bet she’ll be up to help with any campaigning, and she’s always, like yourself, someone who will speak truth to power in the House. We’ll need lots of people to do it. We need to find a way of making a really big noise and a prolonged one at that, if we’re going to make a difference. But I truly think it’s imperative we do. I really don’t believe that those tied in to the current Labour Leader’s cabinet or circle of friends will be much use to us in an active sense, though maybe some investigation into the funding for this Rwandan deal needs to be looked at by Meg Hillier in her role as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee? How was it tendered for, who else bid, and how did they get the contract, and is it being run and profited from by a larger corporation? That is certainly true of this ridiculous Tory privatised Visa system. No wonder it takes so long to get a Visa and people are travelling half way round Europe to do it. Even my scant ability to investigate has revealed that it’s in the hands of two corporations with annual profits of millions, neither of which is liable for tax in the UK because they are not even registered here! I don’t see why we can’t investigate the funding of scams like this one in Rwanda before the government parts with our cash, rather than waiting until it’s too late. It does feel to me that the Tories are now hunting for ways to remove the evidence of their misuse of public funds from under our noses with this idea, as well as their abuse and abuse of human rights, but that includes the dreadful waste of money it will represent. They seem to be running out of luck in hiding things in plain sight in Downing Street – Sunak has discovered this just this week. But must we always learn about their criminality the hard way, and in hindsight?
In the meantime, I intend to circulate this letter to every social media group I can – and I know an awful lot of them. There are thousands of people, and many of these are Labour or ex-Labour members, looking for an active way to make a difference, since the Party isn’t offering them that possibility in any other way right now. There is a regiment of us women out here Dawn – some would call us a ‘monstrous’ one – I am hoping that people will step forward with ideas and offers of help. There have to be women in the media prepared to bring this issue of abuse of migrant women to public attention, no matter how gagged our media is just now. I’d bet you have contacts you can use. If I had email addresses or phone numbers, I’d bet the women on the sofa of Good Morning Britain would be a great place to start. And what about Alex at The One Show? She seems to always be around, smiling gleefully, when a bombshell gets dropped. Can YOU do this?
So, the reason why I am sending this to you is that you were there, you heard what we all heard that day in February 2019, you will have a full collection of all the documents and back-up papers in your office, lots of which I never had, or have mislaid. You will know what happened to that Motion after it was passed from the Conference. You have lots and lots of contacts. People, particularly women, around this Country know you, and love and respect you, and will listen to you. You sat for at least a couple of years, next to Jeremy in the House of Commons, in full camera, with your beautiful face grabbing so much admiration and attention, and everyone knows you and trusts you for your truthfulness.  I know it’s a big ask, but this is a really big issue. I do hope you will at least be able to provide a rallying point for us. The shocking persecution of migrant people, and the horrendous situation among the women in that group is screaming out for us all to stand up against the bullies and exploiters in this government, and prevent a further tragedy. I do hope you can and will help.
Dilys Hadley
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