In this opinion piece Dr Justin Thacker, director of Church Action for Tax Justice, states that Africa contributes $41 billion more to the world that it receives. Tax dodging by multinational enterprises is costing the continent far more than its receives in aid. The myth believed in the global north is that Africa is poor, but the reality is that it is rich, and we have become wealthy and stayed wealthy because we have been taking its wealth. "If we truly want to help Africa, we must begin by stopping the stealing".

Global Justice Now's 2017 Honest Accounts report detailed how money moved between Africa and the rest of the world. Each year while $162 billion flows into Africa, $203 billion flows out making Africa a net annual contributor to the rest of the world to the tune of $41 billion. In the colonial era past these funds were taken through slave trade, but in the contemporary period ways include debt servicing and especially the way in which the global north facilitates tax dodging.

Africa has the gold and diamonds we like to wear; the oil that fuels our lifestyles, and the copper and cobalt that go into much of our technology. So each of is probably using or wearing something right now which was dug out of African soil. Zambian copper, South African gold, Ghanaian oil and more are all very profitable and taxes, when paid, go to support the Zambian, or South African or Ghanaian public services – paying the salaries of teachers, funding healthcare. However, companies extracting these minerals use ingenious ways to avoid* paying those taxes, and they do this to the tune of $60-70bn a year – three times the amount the continent receives in official aid. Thacker points out that while each of us may not be personally stealing from Africa, "we are the ones who buy the goods from those companies and it is our government that is facilitating these practices. We may not be directly involved but through our consumer decisions and through our lobbying (or lack of it) we bear some responsibility."

​Read the full article here.

* The result arenot dissimilar to this UK property developer avoiding payment of £45m to a new community-benefit levy in one of London's poorest boroughs with a 49% BAME population.

This is a Facebook post written by Steve Burton in Leicester. He has given permission for us to reproduce it here.

You’re 31, working in the clothing and textiles industry in Leicester. You live in a small 3-bedroomed terraced house with your wife, two children, your elderly parents and your 28-year old brother. Work is in a small unit in a Victorian factory that used to be a huge engineering works but was split in dozens of ramshackle units back in the 1980s. You are crammed into a tiny space with all the other workers and machines. Health and Safety at work is something for big companies, not for small firms like yours.
The toilets, that you share with two other units, are a disgrace. They are never cleaned, there is no hot water, no soap, no towels. You are expected to bring your own toilet paper, although you are strongly discouraged from any kind of break during the working day – you are expected to do that kind of thing in your own time. In the six years you have worked there, you have seen so many of your fellow workers sacked on the spot, at the bosses whim, so you know better than to even raise the subject, let alone complain about the conditions. Your boss knows he can act with impunity – most workers do not understand the complexity of workplace legislation, and it has been made clear that they face instant dismissal if they join a union.
You earn £4 an hour. Someone told you about a legal minimum wage, but you can’t ask your boss about that because he’d sack you. Your brother works cash-in-hand for a local builder, and you live in constant fear that you’re going to be found out and thrown in jail – not least because you don’t know who would look after your parents. Your wife’s part-time cleaning job has disappeared, and she is not eligible for any government money. You live from pay packet to pay packet, just managing to scape by each week. There is never enough to save, never has been.
Before lockdown, you could take your family to the temple at the weekends, meet up with family and friends, share food, support each other, but you can’t do that in lockdown. You are terrified that you will pick up the virus and take it home to your parents – your mum is diabetic, your dad has never been well since he recovered from TB.
You friends in a richer part of town have been furloughed, which means they are being paid twice as much as you for not going to work. You think your boss is getting furlough money for you too, but you don’t really understand the scheme – you are still working 9 or 10 hours a day for the same pay. When you tried to ask other people about it, you were told that if you don’t like it here, you should go home.
The current spike in Leicester is your fault. Although you stay at home when you’re not working, along with the rest of your family, following the rules as well as you can, it’s your fault. You are to blame. No one has told you what you should be doing differently, or how you would survive if you weren’t working, but never mind all that – you are to blame. It’s all your fault.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's announcement of a "commission" into racial injustice has been met with incredulity. David Lammy, author of one of a number of existing recent reviews and reports, stated: "It is time for action on the countless reviews, reports and commissions on race that have already been completed." The commission was announced by Johnson in an article he wrote for the Telegraph about his hero Winston Churchill.

The Independent Editorial, noting Churchill's famous wartime red stickers: "ACTION THIS DAY", says: "Instead of action this day on racial injustice, Mr Johnson promises some vague internal 'commission' that might come up with some suggestions by Christmas." It continues Johnson wants to "kick the debate to the other side of Christmas when, presumably, the impending issue of a no-deal Brexit and the continuing response to the coronavirus pandemic may bury more bad news for him. It is so crude a tactic it suggests Downing Street takes the electorate for fools."

If our Prime Minister is serious about #BlackLivesMatter this is not how to #GetRacialJusticeDone.

Bishop Dr Joe Aldred of Churches Together in England, and a trustee of MJR, in an interview on Premier Christian Radio has criticised the US Government for its response to protests that have swept the country following the death of an unarmed black man, George Floyd.  Bishop Aldred argues that the protests are a natural response to injustice. Floyd's death was not an isolated incident and people are crying out for change.

"What we've seen is that the black life in the eyes of a racist, white system has been devalued - it tells a tale of a story that has been running for centuries. It is truly sad. There is no peace, without justice. And so, one needs to look not just at the tragic killing, yet another killing, of George Floyd. One has to look at the system, the unjust system within which that operates".

Read more here.

This article from the Independent by Sinai Fleary about the Windrush compensation scheme features the story of Leeford Hammond – just one of many individuals who's lives have been blighted by the "Hostile Environment". Leeford came to Britain in 1971 at the age of 15. He settled in London and ran an estate agency. In July 2017, after a number of problem-free trips, he was refused entry back into the UK from Jamaica. This was despite having indefinite leave to remain and living and working here for over 40 years.  He was stranded in Jamaica for 6 months, separated from his wife and 5 children, and had to use his pension fund to pay for legal fees, and as his health suffered, medical bills. After finally being granted a visa he arrived back in the UK in October 2017 to find his business in ruins with no clients. Hammond filed his compensation claim in April last year, but has heard nothing since, and is now in danger of losing his home.

The article says the compensation scheme is complex and slow and adds to the suffering of those who try to claim. It has been estimated that the compensation total could be between £200-£570m. So far £62,198 has been paid out to 36 claimants. "When the scheme was launched, promises were made of a quick service and to 'right the wrongs' but in recent years, many Windrush victims have died before they received a penny or an apology. The tragedies of people like Sarah O’Connor, Jashwa Moses and Hubert Howard should have sparked some urgent changes to the scheme." 
​Read more here.

The Independent has reported that 25 Jamaicans who were granted a last-minute reprieve from a deportation flight two weeks ago are still in detention and unable to reunite with their families. Lawyers have said this could be illegal on the part of the Home Office as their removal was ruled unlawful by the courts.

One of them, Reshawn Davis, 30, who has been in the UK since the age of 11 and has a seven-month-old British daughter, said that despite this he was still in detention and hadn’t been informed by the Home Office what was happening with his case. Mr Davis was facing deportation on the basis that he was convicted for robbery 10 years ago under the now-unlawful “joint enterprise” rule – for which he spent two months in prison. Read more about Reshawn and others here.

In the light of the recent deportation to Jamaica, this article looks at the provision for legal advice in detention centres. And finds it sorely lacking, speaking of "systemic failures". For example, a survey by charity Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) found that most detainees waited over a week to see an adviser on the rota in one of 40 half-hour slots per week. This often makes their services useless, as the Home Office offers only a 72-hour notice period before removal – one reason why challenges to deportation so often happen at the last minute.

This makes it all the more remarkable that last-minute legal interventions managed to get so many potential deportees off the flight as "brilliant, committed immigration lawyers worked hard to uphold their client’s rights, no matter how complex their case; fought tirelessly to ensure that everyone had access to justice, no matter who they are".

Read the full article.

The government is planning a secret flight to forcibly remove more than 50 people to Jamaica, the first since 2016. Due to the Windrush Scandal, a planned charter flight to Jamaica last spring was cancelled and charter flights to Jamaica (but not other countries) were suspended. Until now. In addition, many are still facing Windrush-related issues, and neither the results of the Windrush compensation scheme consultation nor the consultation into “lessons learned” have been published. Read more, including details about some the people who are being deported in this article.

The flight is due to leave on February 11th. A protest outside 10 Downing Street is being organised for Thursday February 6th at 6pm. Send an email for more information.

In this recent article May Bulman reflects on a decade at the start of which the “hostile environment” didn’t exist. The term had been bandied around by ministers, both Labour and Conservative, but nothing was in effect. But in the last ten years, however, "a stream of policies were quietly formulated with the sole aim of making the UK a hostile place for undocumented immigrants". And now those two words encapsulate the root cause behind a string of Home Office immigration scandals.

In the last three years in particular, criticism of the Home Office implementation of flawed immigration policy has become frequent and public as many stories of injustice have come to light (Photo: British-born Mohamed Bangoura was unable to be reunited with his mother after a holiday). The Windrush Scandal is perhaps the best known, but there are many others, such as thousands of asylum seekers and migrants being wrongly denied emergency NHS healthcare. The Grenfell Tower tragedy also highlighted flaws in the hostile measures. In many cases the Home Office only took remedial action once cases had been reported in the media. Read more here.

Eighteen months after the government apologised and promised to “do right” by those affected by the Windrush scandal, complex problems are still being experienced by many Windrush descendants. This recent article describes one family's story as three generations struggle to prove they are British in a protracted fight for documentation which has left a London-born woman facing homelessness with her two-year-old son.

Courtney Lawrence, 25, was denied emergency housing in May because officials said she needed to show a passport to prove she was eligible for council support, despite the fact that she was born in the UK and has never left the country. As a result she was forced to sofa-surf with her son for five months; she has subsequently been given emergency accommodation in a Travelodge hotel. Her parents both came to the UK as children over 50 years ago.

Though it may have been pushed from the headlines by other news, the "Hostile Environment" would still seem to be in full effect. Read the full article here.