On Tuesday the racist Nationality and Borders Bill comes back to the Lords, at the same time as the hated Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill, which undermines the right to protest. Both these bills will fall if the Lords stand firm and refuse to back down.

The Lords’ amendments to the Nationality and Borders Bill would:

Get rid of the biased treatment against asylum seekers which denies people the right to claim asylum, win refugee status, have recourse to public funds and the right to family reunion Force the government to give notice if they want to remove people’s citizenship Stop the criminalisation of “illegal entry” when practically every legal route has been removed) Stop the criminalisation of those who help people who arrive by sea Allow unaccompanied child refugees to join their family Give more protection to victims of trafficking.

Even with these amendments the Bill will devastate lives beginning with mothers and rape survivors. It is based on charges dreamed up by pathological liars: whilst planning to strip everyone of their rights, Priti Patel claimed the Bill was needed to protect women from men jumping the asylum queue. She also backed Cressida Dick’s defence of police violence against women and communities of colour.

It takes brutes like Boris Johnson and Priti Patel to propose sending asylum seekers to Rwanda to suffer and die away from any public scrutiny. They are following Australia, which was condemned for deporting asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea where they couldn’t escape rape and other violence; and Israel which was forced to back down from a scheme to pay Rwanda to take deported asylum seekers after people held mock slave auctions in protest saying, “we are not slaves to be traded among nations.” Opposition to the UK government’s Rwanda plan is so widespread that Home Office civil servants are threatening to strike or quit.

The public In Britain has welcomed Ukrainian refugees more than the government. In fact, there is a massive and growing movement, spearheaded by asylum seekers, on beaches, in churches, schools, villages, towns and cities, determined to defend the rights of all those seeking refuge. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York oppose the Bill, Scotland and Wales have rejected it. Ireland is launching an amnesty policy giving thousands the security of status. All asylum seekers’ lives matter.

WE HAVE A RIGHT TO BE HERE -- after 500 years of slavery and plunder by Britain, from colonial times to the present day, we are owed plenty.
Papers for all would be a start.