Thread by @ZoeJardiniere

There are genuinely so many ways in which the #AntiRefugeeBill is going to ruin people's lives. It wont even be possible for me to cover half of it.

The list of new clauses & amendments they will debate in parliament today, only on ONE section out of 7 barely fits on my screen.

British democracy: Where our parliamentary representatives get about five minutes per life-ruining, justice-denying, cruel, ineffective, barbaric measure in the #AntiRefugeeBill.

For those interested in why 51 is highlighted up there, it's one of the government's new ones. Snuck in last week so most wont even hear about it, yet it's one of the worst of them.

It imposes a four year prison sentence on anybody who is unable to renew their immigration status

Four years for anyone who we talked about in #WeAreHere - people who came here to work, study & join their families.
- people who have kids here, communities, lives
- people who were unable at some point along the TEN YEARS we impose on them, to pay thousands & jump through hoops

These people are not criminals in any meaningful sense of the word. They are not people who have harmed anyone in any way. They are usually people who have lost their immigration status because of a crisis, or poverty.

This is astonishingly cruel. jcwi.org.uk/we-are-here-ro…

All this measure will do is make it incredibly much harder for these people to get the help they need to get their lives back on track.

It will force them further out of the protections of our society and enrich and empower the hand of traffickers & exploiters over them.

The #AntiRefugeeBill could have been designed in its entirety to satisfy the needs and line the pockets of criminal gangs, traffickers, smugglers, exploiters and abusers.

It disempowers ordinary people seeking to build lives alongside us in the UK in favour of empowering crooks.

So the #AntiRefugeeBill debate has begun. I will try to keep calm.

@Bambos_MP currently making a very strong case against the horrendous provision that allows the government to revoke a person's citizenship without even notifying them.
parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/1f…

@Bambos_MP Bambos carrying on now very strongly on @BellRibeiroAddy's excellent amendment to remove huge profits made from extortionate fees for children to register as British citizenship.

Cost of registration is £1,012
Cost to Home Office £372
£642 remaining is profit made off our kids

@Bambos_MP @BellRibeiroAddy These astronomically high registration fees trap people who have grown up here and are British in all but paperwork priced out of their rights.

These people can even end up liable to deportation later in their lives. Financial barriers to citizenship are completely unjustified.

The eye-twitch I have developed over the last couple weeks has gone absolutely mad today.

David Davis made a principled speech against deprivation of citizenship without notice. A rare Tory with a backbone, standing up against some of the worst impacts of the #AntiRefugeeBill

The lovely @AnneMcLaughlin tries to get MPs to imagine what it means, given none of them have experienced anything like it, to have to save for years on a minimum wage job to be able to afford £1,012 and access your right to citizenship.

LOL some honesty in parliament!!
@AnneMcLaughlin rightly points out that the opposition was not listened to in Committee Stage and will likely not be listened to today, that will not stop them from fighting, but it is public opposition that will turn the tide on this agenda!

Damian Green talking about how HK visa scheme leaves many of the brave young activists who protested for democracy against the brutal repression of the Chinese State without an appropriate safe route to come to the UK arbitrarily because of their age. Another good intervention.

The brilliant @BellRibeiroAddy raises the kids who are made undocumented because they cant afford to pay extortionate citizenship registration or visa renewal fees that are profit for the govt.

Barnstorming attack on how #AntiRefugeeBill will target black & brown kids hardest.

@BellRibeiroAddy She's absolutely right, our research has shown how so many of the people who are living without an official immigration status in the UK lost their status quite simply because they were unable to afford to pay repeated fees to renew their "temporary" leave jcwi.org.uk/pages/category…

Alistair Carmichael makes an interesting point about how foreign policy decisions always eventually come back to the house as domestic policy issues.

Where we are implicated in action abroad, those issues and people never stay out of sight & mind forever.

Can only hope the whole house will consider this point in the light of Afghanistan.

Afghan refugees will not disappear. They are our responsibility and they will not be made to disappear by this cruel Bill that seeks to criminalise them...

But more on that later, no doubt.

Rob Roberts is speaking to his amendment which would exempt many migrant NHS staff from some immigration fees.

Look, who would be against that? (Tories.)
But if the fees are unjust for one group of migrants (a relatively high paid group at that), then they are unjust for all.

Increeeedible tone-policing bollocks from Richard Graham who says Bell shouldn't call the Bill "hostile and horrible" because it's about terrorism???

Several members ask him to withdraw his comments which apparently link children seeking to register as citizens with terrorism?!

Tulip Siddiq is very angry about power to strip people of citizenship. Also raises ethnic disparities in how power is used.

"if a criminal was born here, raised here, became radicalised in this country, why do we think it is the responsibility of any other country to try them?"

I'm so sick of the Tories saying "it's not about skin colour" and that pointing out the stats on how these measures impact by far most strongly on black and brown people in the UK is "scare mongering" and "divisive"

What's divisive is the racist impact of their bill.

It's getting heated. Good on Tulip, though. What she has said is said too rarely.

Terrorists and criminals from our country are OUR responsibility.

Alexander Stafford should really know how much of a complete idiot he sounds. But his arrogant tone suggests he thinks he's giving a great speech. Deeply sad.

Sorry, ok. That was a slight drop in my usually impeccable standards of professionalism.

Anyway he thinks it's great we should deny people citizenship, doesn't see any reason why anybody should have to be informed when they are, & certainly doesn't care about the unequal impact.

I will never understand why Tories, like James Daly right now, think pointing out how Labour made bad legislation in the past is a gotcha in defence of the Tories making it worse today

"What does it matter if they have notice or no notice?" He goes on. Well.

Jeremy Corbyn's right on the money saying the Bill's treatment of refugees is "nothing less than disgusting and appalling"

He supports the good amendments, no surprise.

Stephen Timms, highlights families on the ten-year route to permanent residence who have to apply, at huge cost, every 2.5 years.

Sometimes the Home Office takes so long to make decisions, that people lose their jobs between applications because they can't prove right to work.

A really excellent speech from Timms, as always highlighting the absurd and counter-productive impact of having a "temporary" immigration status with No Recourse to Public Funds for a decade or more on families who are long-term, stable residents of the UK.

Here we go, Kevin Foster - Home Office Minister wrapping up. You'll be shocked to learn the government has not been moved by any of the speeches given during the debate, and he'll be reading a pre-prepared speech dismissing all concerns. Democracy.

When I say wrapping up, I do mean wrapping up on section 1. The nationality section of the Bill.

Oh don't you worry. We're getting to asylum next and it's all gonna get a whooooole lot more depressing. Strap in, folks. I'll be here all night.

Tom Purseglove, another Home Office Minister, talking to the asylum sections of the Bill. I'm going to absolutely struggle to get through this section.

We've begun by saying that France, Belgium & Germany should be responsible for refugees, not us...

Because apparently people smugglers aren't used to bring people to those countries? Or, more to the point, we don't care.

The government MPs will try again and again tonight to frame kicking refugees out of the UK as a humanitarian measure. No one is fooled.

John Redwood intervenes to ask what impact the measures in the Bill would have on small boats crossing to the UK.

I wonder if Purseglove's answer will include his own department's impact assessment which states clearly that there is no evidence to support the approach taken...🧐

Hilarious that Purseglove has the gall to say that negotiations with France and other European countries are already producing results? Er... if the results are being stonewalled out of meetings to discuss migration with our counterparts and people drowning at sea, I agree...

Purseglove says it is "farcical" to suggest anybody could be unsafe in France, where they have a fully functioning asylum system.

Human Rights Watch disagrees. Safety if more than being in a country like France. It is being able to rebuild your life. hrw.org/news/2017/10/2…

Ere we go @Bambos_MP

"This Bill is a sham. It does nothing to create safe routes to asylum. It does nothing to break people smuggling gangs... It is a smoke & mirrors trick designed to deflect attention from the government's failings & incompetence in the area of asylum"

@Bambos_MP Bambos highlights how the end of safe routes that existed in the EU to help unaccompanied children with family members in the UK to come here safely, has left them destitute across Europe, with no way of coming to the UK except relying on smugglers.

Incredibly frustrating that when challenged by a Tory about the lack of concrete alternatives that Labour is offering, he didn't take the opportunity to talk about New Clause 10, which would make a real difference to refugees, enabling them to travel to the UK in a regulated way.

He also raises the lack of safe routes available to people in Afghanistan. This is absolutely true.

This is fundamentally why we must never criminalise people who escape through irregular means and make their way here, where they have reason to believe we will protect them.

"Criminalising people seeking protection is a clear breach of our obligations. These measures will criminalise Afghans fleeing persecution by the Taliban.

It is simply cruel to criminalise people fleeing torture, moreover there is no evidence it will deter irregular journeys" 👏

Tom Tugendhat is not exactly giving the speech of his life here. I suppose coping with the moral injury of supporting a Bill that will criminalise your supposed colleagues from Afghanistan that you spoke so passionately for 3 months ago must have an impact I guess.

The brilliant @Stuart_McDonald is up.

Far from fixing the asylum system, the government is "Endangering, criminalising, warehousing, offshoring and depriving of their rights those who simply seek our protection."

@Stuart_McDonald Stuart goes on-

"The mere entry or arrival in the UK for the purpose of seeking asylum is not a crime. And isn't it extraordinary that this has to be debated?"