Temporary halt to Glasgow refugee evictions won
By Matt Dobson
After large scale protests, including activists preparing to occupy properties against evictions and lock changes and legal challenges, multinational SERCO has been forced to grant a temporary halt to plans to evict refugees in Glasgow.
SERCO now state: “In order to facilitate the path of a legal adjudication, Serco will extend the notice period by 21 days for the six people currently subject to lock-change notices.
“This will allow them more time to prepare their representations or to move out of their properties.
“We will also pause all further lock-change notices to other asylum seekers who have received negative decisions whilst the law is being tested and clarified.
“This will also give stakeholders who support asylum seekers more time to prepare for what is likely to be an increase in the number of people seeking their help.”
The retreat by Serco is partly in response to legal challenges by Govan Law Centre but is also as a result of the political pressure of working class people, youth and trade unionists who have protested and prepared to occupy against evictions in their thousands.
If SERCO had persisted with the lock changes scheduled for Monday, they would have found that close to a thousand people had committed to physically block evictions in Glasgow .
Housing Associations who rent the properties to SERCO were also feeling the pressure as they were lobbied by activists demanding they refuse to co-operate. A number, including Parkhead, had committed to publicly stating they would not allow SERCO to change “fixtures and fittings” in properties.
On Saturday 4th August, a protest of 300 gathered outside the Home Office in Glasgow and burned SERCO eviction notices. This was after two of the threatened Afghan refugees went on hunger strike outside the building, one of whom is tragically stateless, growing up in Scotland after being born in a refugee camp in Pakistan, whose government say he cannot return. Police Scotland also brutally arrested protesters on Friday.
Speakers at the rally on Saturday included Brian Smith, Secretary of Glasgow City Unison and Socialist Party Scotland member who brought solidarity from council workers. Brian called for the public contract with SERCO to be ended and housing services for asylum seekers to be brought back into the public sector. He also called for a united working class struggle for decent jobs and homes for all and for an international socialist solution to the capitalist crisis.
Socialist Party Scotland activists in Glasgow have been active in this campaign. We have helped mobilise trade union support from PCS and Unison and through the Refugee Rights campaign, who organised a solidarity protest in London today at SERCO headquarters.
We call on all activists to use the next 21 days to step up the campaign to defend refugees from evictions including, where needed, the tactic of occupation.
We support the demands raised by the refugee support organisations that Housing Associations refuse to co-operate with SERCO and refuse permission to change “fixtures and fittings”. And that the HA’s and the council should immediately draw up temporary tenancies with the refugees to prevent them having to move.
This fight must be linked to a wider, united struggle in the city against cuts and austerity. Refugees face eviction now but many of the cities tenants face rising rent arrears and the threat of homelessness with the roll out of Universal Credit in Glasgow from September.
This crisis starkly shows It’s time that elected politicians, including the Glasgow SNP-led council, stood up and fought the Tories by setting a fighting no cuts budget and demanded more funding for the city.
