“No To Xenophobia” posters will appear at Tube and railway stations across the UK
The Movement Against Xenophobia says it emerged “out of frustration at the constant anti-immigrant, anti-immigration policies and rhetoric coming from the Coalition Government, the populist media and organisations such as Migration Watch.”
It argues that migrants play a “positive role in the UK, financially, culturally, socially and in differing arenas such as public services, sport, the arts, academia, business science, cuisine, construction, agriculture and retail.”
Its campaign posters, which have appeared at locations including outside Tube stations in central London, feature prominent British migrants under the headline “I am an immigrant”.
The individuals featured included Polish firefighter Lukas Belina; Mohammad Taj, a bus driver who arrived from Kashmir 40 years ago; Rosemarie Ramkissoon, a Trinidadian mental health nurse; and Barrister S Chelvan.
Mr Chelvan, who arrived in the UK from Sri Lanka at the age of four, told the BBC: “The seismic shift recently has been to concentrate on EU migrants. That didn’t really used to be part of the debate 10 years ago.
“The reason for this is that various political parties felt they were losing the debate on Europe on other issues, so migration is the easiest way of opening the anti-Europe debate.”
Saira Grant, the legal and policy director for Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), said the tone of public discussion about immigration was “contributing to a climate of hostility and fear”.
The JCWI campaign is not party political, she said, but she did argue it was “absolutely ridiculous” for parties to put a specific cap on net migration. The only party to endorse such a cap were the Conservatives at the last election, who were criticised for missing a target to reduce immigration to “tens of thousands”. In fact, most recent figures show the different between the number of people entering and leaving Britain rose to 298,000.
The posters are now on display at 400 London Tube stations after more than £44,000 was raised for the campaign. Larger posters will appear billboards at railways stations across the country.