MEND Statement: Who else is to blame for the firebomb attack on a UK immigration centre?

We are appalled at the attack on a centre housing recently arrived asylum seekers.

There are several important questions that need to be answered in relation to the current political climate that led to this attack.

1) How much of a contributory factor were the continuous political attacks on those seeking asylum in the UK, by ministers and other senior politicians, journalists and right wing think tanks? Indeed the home secretary chose the aftermath of the attack to speak about cross-channel asylum seekers as “an invasion.”

2) The extensive far right sympathies of the attacker were well known on social media, so why did it take two days for police to treat this as terrorism?

3) Sir William Shawcross, the Independent Reviewer of Prevent has stated previously that there has been too much of a focus on the threat from far-right terrorism. With yet another far-right inspired attack, does the Government agree with this?

4) Why are conditions in this centre and others so squalid? Forcing so many people to live long-term in accommodation designed for short-term use is an abuse of human rights.

We call upon the Government to spend less time demonising vulnerable and already traumatised asylum seekers for political gain and more on ensuring asylum claims are processed faster.

Image Credit: Alisdare Hickson from Canterbury, United Kingdom, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons