Campaigners are to stage a protest in the centre of Bristol this Saturday (April 23) calling for the Government to drop controversial plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda. Organisers are calling for people to gather at The Centre by the fountains from noon on Saturday to protest against the Nationality and Borders Bill and the plan to fly some of the people who cross the English Channel by boat to Rwanda.
The protest is the latest in a series held by the Bristol Defend Asylum Seekers Campaign. Its spokesperson Jo Benefield said there already was a growing backlash against the Government's proposals.
"The Nationality and Borders Bill returns to the Commons this week and in spite of opposition from MPs of other parties and the House of Lords, it will almost certainly become law due to the Conservative Government majority," she said. "Our four local MPs have publicly stated their opposition to this proposed legislation as have our Bristol City Council."
Read more: Flotilla of boats to move through Bristol to show solidarity with refugees
A letter rejecting the Government's asylum 'off-shoring' plan has already been signed by a number of city councillors, and organisers hope a big turn-out on Saturday will 'show the strength of feeling' against the plan from Bristol, which is a City of Sanctuary. The proposal was condemned by the Archbishop of Canterbury over Easter, but backed by North East Somerset MP Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Mr Rees-Mogg has suggested that migrants crossing the Channel in small boats are "supporting organised crime". The MP said on Radio 4's The World This Weekend programme that he disagrees with the Archbishop of Canterbury’s view of the Government’s new immigration policy to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Archbishop Justin Welby said in his Easter sermon: “Sub-contracting out our responsibilities, even to a country that seeks to do well, like Rwanda, is the opposite of the nature of God”. Mr Rees-Mogg reacted by saying: “I think he misunderstands what the policy is trying to achieve, and that it isn’t an abandonment of responsibility, it is in fact a taking on of a very difficult responsibility.
“The problem that is being dealt with is that people are risking their lives in the hands of people traffickers, to get into this country illegally. Now, it’s not the illegal bit of it, it is the encouragement of people traffickers that needs to be stopped.”
He added: "Ninety per cent of people coming are young men who by coming via people traffickers are jumping the queue for others”.
“They are in doing so not only risking their lives but supporting organised crime. What we need to do is focus on legal routes into this country of which there are quite a number.”
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