Blow to Government's Asylum Plans

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Blow to Government's Asylum Plans

Britain to Propose Draft EU Constitution

Britain Proposes New Iraq Oil Pricing Policy

The government's racist and inhuman plans to detain people seeking asylum in three vast refugee centres in the middle of the countryside were thrown into disarray after local councils unanimously rejected planning permission for two of the sites.

Home Office Minister Beverley Hughes indicated the government would appeal against the decisions to refuse permission for the centres, which were at the heart of the government's plans to target people seeking asylum in its programme of treating them as a major problem for the British way of life.

"The government is obviously disappointed," Beverley Hughes said in a statement following news of the councils' decisions. "We will give proper consideration to the detailed reasons given by the councils for their objection before we decide how to proceed. It is...open to us to appeal the decisions."

The government had proposed the centres for former Ministry of Defence lands at Bicester in Oxfordshire, Bingham in Nottinghamshire and Throckmorton in Worcestershire. It claimed that this would speed up the asylum process. But Cherwell Council and Rushcliffe Borough Council refused permission for the Bicester and Bingham sites late on July 11.

"A wide range of people for a wide range of reasons think that this is the wrong sort of centre and the wrong site for it," a Rushcliffe councillor said, adding that the council had considered objections from the Red Cross and refugee groups. This underlines that the objections had been, certainly in part, on humanitarian grounds.

Several immigrant and human rights groups had opposed the scheme, pointing out that the centres risked becoming "ghetto camps". The government envisaged the centres would each house up to 750 people, who would spend every night there while their claims were processed, and would be segregated from Britain's own health and school facilities.

The councils' decisions came hours before a meeting between Home Secretary David Blunkett and French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris to discuss "illegal immigration" and the future of the Sangatte Red Cross camp. The camp houses around 1,200 stateless Afghan and Kurdish people. Rather than addressing their desperate plight, the government, backed by press hysteria, focuses on its being a jumping off point for "illegal immigrants" into Britain and wants it closed. In this way it is being used as a pretext for racist propaganda in Britain, designed to divide the polity and divert from addressing the problems of the anti-social offensive.

Beverley Hughes said that from July 12 Britain would begin returning failed asylum seekers to Afghanistan and would consider paying them to return voluntarily. This, apparently, is in response to "the considerable improvement in conditions" in the country since the US- and British-led armed toppling of the Taleban government last year and the establishment of a transitional administration.

WDIE calls for people seeking asylum or a better life in this country to be treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve as human beings, and condemns the government for its racist and inhuman handling of the situation.

Britain is to propose a draft constitution for the European Union later this year as an alternative to federalist ideas in the constitutional Convention on the Future of Europe, diplomatic sources said last Thursday.

They said that the British proposals, which had been discussed with Tony Blair, would involve adding a preamble to the EU's existing treaties, not a complete rewriting proposed by the most enthusiastic integrationists.

"We are going to be putting forward an alternative in which you bolt on a new constitution on the front of the treaties, amending them as and where that's required," one diplomat said.

Although this contrasts with the approach suggested by the European University Institute in Florence, which at the invitation of the European Commission has drafted a rewrite of the treaties, the British government is pursuing its tactical line of placing Britain at the heart of Europe in its own interests and those of US domination of Europe. Thus it is opposed to a federal European superstate under the domination of Germany or a German-French axis. It has also so far resisted giving legal force to an EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Minister for Europe Peter Hain told reporters in this regard: "The principle of a new European constitution which simplifies the whole structure, gives clarity and defines where competencies go is not a problem for us, provided it is not a manifesto for a European superstate."

The Convention on the Future of Europe, which opened in February chaired by former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, is debating how to reform EU institutions so that the big power domination of the EU bloc can continue when up to 10 new members join in about 2004.

Giscard d'Estaing has sought to restrain the forum, dominated by members of the European Parliament and national legislators, from rushing to write a federalist constitution, it is reported. He agreed this week that his secretariat would put forward a "skeleton" in October.

The diplomatic sources said that the British draft would be issued before then, although it was not yet decided whether Britain would do it alone or as a joint initiative with others. A senior member of the Convention presidium said it would be tactical error for any state to put forward its own text. "Any draft constitution presented outside the presidium would be torn into little shreds," he said.

Tony Blair has put forward a series of EU policy initiatives in letters co-signed with different leaders on issues ranging from labour market reform to the appointment of a longer-term president to chair EU summits.

Peter Hain, as the British government envoy to the 105-member assembly, spelled out one of the government's key proposals in a speech to the Convention on Thursday, calling for the role of EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to be boosted. He suggested that Javier Solana should be given the right to propose EU foreign policy initiatives, chair meetings of EU foreign ministers, attend Commission meetings where foreign relations are discussed and have more say over the foreign policy budget. At present he has only a small secretariat, a relatively tiny £19 million annual budget and no direct control over the EU's development and humanitarian aid funds.

Britain's proposal on a draft EU constitution is of benefit only to sections of the European bourgeoisie and not to the British or European peoples. The various proposals on the degree of federalism or subsidiarity of the European countries represent merely dogfights between the European powers. The British working class and people must reject the whole concept of an EU bloc, which stands against the progress of the European peoples and their sovereignty, and is also presented as a diversion for the European working class in their struggle for socialism.

Britain has made a new proposal to try to reverse a precipitous drop in Iraqi oil exports that fund the UN humanitarian programme for Iraqi civilians, Western diplomats have said.

The British proposal would change the current system of pricing Iraqi oil at the end of every month to allow companies on a "Green List" advance notice of prices.

UN officials, Iraq and Russia blame the delayed pricing policy for a 25 per cent drop in Iraqi oil exports this year, which has created a revenue crisis for the humanitarian programme.

The problem began in late 2000 when the Iraqi government introduced surcharges of 50 cents per barrel of oil as a way of partially circumventing UN control over its only source of hard currency. At the insistence of the US and Britain, the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against Iraq has since October set oil prices at the end of every month – rather than the beginning – to prevent Iraq from taking advantage of fluctuations in the oil market to impose the surcharge.

The proceeds from Iraqi oil sales are the main source of revenue for the five-year-old UN humanitarian programme to alleviate the suffering of Iraqi civilians living under sanctions imposed on Iraq at the insistence of Britain and the US after the 1991 Gulf War. It allows Iraq to sell unlimited quantities of crude oil to purchase food, medicine and other humanitarian goods.

Washington and London have maintained that the so-called retroactive pricing policy has worked in cutting payoffs, which are described as illegal, to Saddam Hussein's government. Whereas the US and Britain have expressed readiness to consider alternatives that would have the same effect, this has been in response to the concern that the policy has created undue uncertainty in the oil market and discouraged traders and oil companies from purchasing Iraqi oil, thereby precipitating the crisis of revenue.

The British proposal, circulated to the 15 members of the sanctions committee, would create a dual system for pricing Iraqi oil: traders on a "Green List" would be told the price of Iraqi crude before it was loaded while companies not on the list would continue to learn the price they would pay after they had already picked up the oil.

Two weeks ago, France proposed setting oil prices every two weeks and adopting stricter standards for traders. The sanctions committee discussed the French proposal late last month but members were divided and no agreement was reached.

It has to be emphasised that the problem is one of the US and Britain's making. They have consistently flouted democratic world opinion that the sanctions are a form of genocide and a crime against humanity, and must be lifted. Instead, particularly the British government has come up with schemes which, while dressed up in humanitarian terms, have all sought to avoid lifting the sanctions. Its present proposals, while presenting a sop to public opinion, are of this character. At the same time, Britain and the US are bombing Iraq in imposing "no-fly" zones, which are themselves illegal. They are also trying in vain to get other states on-side in their plan for a "regime change" by outside force.

WDIE condemns the British government for its course of action against the Iraqi regime and people, which amounts to a crime against humanity, and demands that sanctions be lifted immediately, and all outside interference in Iraq's affairs and its sovereignty be ended forthwith.