Episode 49: Safe Passage for Refugees

In this episode, we speak with Paul O'Connor the senior national officer at the Public and Commerical Services (PCS) union - one of the largest unions in the UK, representing workers across all government departments and in the private sector.    Paul tells us about the safe passage for refugees policy the union's members wrote with Care4Calais, and why it is a genuinely humanitarian way to stop the small boat crossings of the Channel.    We also touch on working class solidarity, anti-fascism and, the Bibby Stockholm, the hostile environment, and how a string of governments have created the asylum-seeker backlog.  --Get in touch---   Twitter: @FleetCivil   Mastodon: @[email protected]   Instagram: thecivilfleet   [email protected]   civilfleet.com   Support:  ko-fi.com/civilfleet   ---Show Notes---   For more on the PCS union, see: pcs.org.uk   For more on PCS and Care4Calais' Safe Passage Policy, read about it here: https://care4calais.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Safe-Passage-Policy-Paper.pdf   If you'd like to email your MP about PCS's safe passage policy, see here: action.pcs.org.uk/page/134188/action/1    Ben and Paul speak about the Tories throughout this episode. The Tories is the nickname of the ruling Conservative Party.   For more on The World Transformed, the festival Ben mentions in the episode, see here: theworldtransformed.org   See here for more on the UK Border Force training to push refugees back across the Channel already, here: https://thecivilfleet.wordpress.com/2022/01/14/uk-border-force-may-have-begun-attempts-to-push-refugees-back-across-the-channel-already-evidence-suggests/   For more on Channel Rescue and Care4Calais, see episodes 11 and 17 of The Civil Fleet Podcast   Ben and Paul speak about Priti Patel a few times in this episode. She was the UK's Home Secretary from 2019 to 2022. She was replaced by Suella Braverman. The Home Secretary is a similar governmental role to interior minister in many European countries.    For more on the UK's treatment of refugees, the Rwanda Scheme, the Hostile Environment, the Illegal Immigration Act and the Bibby Stockholm see episodes 21, 25, 32, 38, 39, 40, 42 and 44.   Paul mention Detention Action. For more on them, see: detentionaction.org.uk   Ben and Paul speak about the FBU, which is the Fire Brigades Union. For more on the union's solidarity work with refugees, see here: https://www.fbu.org.uk/news/2023/03/05/trade-unions-unite-solidarity-refugees   Paul mentions the Scottish Rolls-Royce workers who refused to work on fighter jets bound for Chile in the 1970s, when the country was ruled by the western-back dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. For more on that, check out the documentary film Nae Pasaran, here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/naepasaran    For more on the vast amounts of money the UK government has spent in France trying to stop people from crossing the Channel, see this Al Jazeera report from March 2023: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/10/uk-to-fund-france-detention-centre-as-leaders-agree-migration-deal