Thread by @_BvdM

Exclusive: Leading charity heads and barristers have condemned the #BordersBill as "overtly racist" newstatesman.com/politics/2022/…

100 civil society figures, including the heads of @samaritans, @RunnymedeTrust and @MABOnline1 described the bill as “a route to disenfranchisement and even deportation of people of colour on an unprecedented scale”.

Signatories also include the barrister @JolyonMaugham and authors @neilhimself and @nikeshshukla

The open letter describes clause nine as “merely the pinnacle of a raft of legislation that has already subjected the citizenship of millions of Britons of foreign heritage, including those born and raised in the United Kingdom, to the caprice of the home secretary”.

It warns that the bill “will effectively make the government unchallengeable and refuge and asylum practically impossible”, and calls on political parties and MPs to “reject it at the first opportunity”.

The #BordersBill "raises a guillotine over the necks of black and brown people in the UK," Jolyon Maugham told the @NewStatesman newstatesman.com/politics/2022/…

You can view the full open letter here, via @WritersofColour mediadiversified.org/2022/01/04/joi…

See our video below on the implications of Clause 9 of the Bill, would would affect the citizenship rights of an estimated six million people in England and Wales (2 in every 5 people from an ethnic minority)

https://twitter.com/NewStatesman/status/1468278738865770497

The #BordersBill also targets asylum seekers. Clause 10 would create two classes of asylum seeker, based not on whether they are at risk of persecution but on how they arrived in the UK.

The Bill would allow Priti Patel to discriminate against those who arrived irregularly or via a third "safe" country. She would be allowed to restrict their access to public funds, their rights to family reunion and their rights to acquire British citizenship.

If they happen to give birth to children during those ten years, those children would also be denied citizenship (until the age of 10, or until their parents get citizenship).

The UNHCR @Refugees describes Clause 10 of the #BordersBill as “a recipe for mental and physical ill health, social and economic marginalisation, and exploitation," and says it means that “more women and children are likely to attempt dangerous journeys”. newstatesman.com/politics/2022/…

Read the full open letter, organised by @UK_CAGE and @WritersofColour, here mediadiversified.org/2022/01/04/joi…