“Temperate” Tony McNulty bars officials from speaking.Grassroots resistance grows in Glasgow.
Assistant Director of the UK Immigration Service, Rolf Toolin, agreed to meet this Monday with delegates from last week’s occupation of the Reporting Centre at Brand Street, Glasgow, to hear concerns at the criminalisation of people forced to sign on at the centre every week, and of communities living in fear of dawn raids.
However, at the last minute, Immigration Minister Tony McNulty pulled the plug, banning Toolin from meeting the delegation which included MSPs Tommy Sheridan and Sandra White, representatives of the Church of Scotland and Robina Qureshi of Positive Action in Housing.
This latest order from down south follows McNulty’s recent condemnation of the growing anger in Scotland at the increase of violent deportations and the damage they are doing to our communities. It seems that Westminster is anxious to ensure that officials in Scotland do not listen to people’s concerns, and certainly do not speak about it.
The Children’s Commissioner, Kathleen Marshall has been listening to the children of communities like Knightswood in Glasgow, where dawn raids on “wee quiet families” are common. She said these deportations were “completely inhumane, I think we’re terrorising these children and families”, and has called for a public outcry in Scotland.
This has been echoed by Scottish Communities Minister, Malcolm Chisholm, who described the Vucaj family’s treatment as "totally unnecessary, heavy-handed and over the top". First Minister, wee Jack McConnell, even mumbled something about a protocol involving informing social workers that weans are getting their door kicked down before first light and carted off to prison.
“Intemperate Language”
On the BBC Politics Show, McNulty responded to criticism of dawn raids in classic New Labour doublespeak. He denied that they happen, but vowed they will continue, and condemned anyone who raises concerns. The denial was to do with timing and clothing: "We are not knocking down doors at four in the morning with people suited and booted in riot gear”, he said, adding that most of the removals took place between 0530 and 0700 BST, and that officials wore stab-vests and restrained people when they needed to. And he criticised the “intemperate language” of people like the Children’s Commissioner.
The day before that interview, before the sun rose at 7:46 am, Sinan and Songul Kupeli, Glasgow residents of five years, were dragged from their beds and handcuffed in front of their daughters Suna, aged 9, and Yagmur, aged 6. The family were bundled into a van and driven overnight to Yarls Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire. Suna and Yagmur will never see their schoolmates at Blackfriars Primary School again. Songul will never again tend the grave of her baby daughter, born and died in Glasgow. And we are told to exercise self-restraint.
Haud me back…
My dictionary defines intemperate is being the opposite of temperate, which is an adjective meaning “exercising moderation and self-restraint”. It comes from the verb, temper, which means to harden or strengthen. An example is “to strengthen through experience or hardship; toughen: soldiers had been tempered by combat”.
So I suppose what McNulty is saying is that we should be used to this by now, we should be tempered, toughened, by these continual attacks on our communities, and that we should restrain ourselves (lest we need to be restrained by his officers?)
Well, it doesn’t quite work that way. The more the people of Scotland hear about families like the Vucaj and Kupeli families being torn from their homes and communities in such violent abductions, the more intemperate our language will become, and the more we will unite to resist the racist attacks of the Labour Government. People don’t become immune to this. The more it happens, the angrier people get. Does McNulty understand that, I wonder? Surely a top New Labour politician can’t be that thick?
And as for self restraint? As we say in Glasgow, haud me back… Local action groups are springing up all over Glasgow. Glaswegians old and new are coming together to organise to resist deportations. In the next month, action planning meetings are scheduled for the Gorbals, Knightswood and Sighthill. These meetings are for planning action, by the way, not just listening to speeches. Check www.openborders.org.uk for details of these and other action meetings as they are confirmed.
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Links:
reports on cancelled meeting with immigration high heid yin:
Scottish Housing News: http://www.scottishhousingnews.com/dailynews.asp#H46098
BBC report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4415966.stm
For info on Temperate McNulty and his voting record (strongly for war in Iraq, strongly for “anti-terrorism” laws, strongly for ID cards, etc etc) see:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/tony_mcnulty/harrow_east
