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Joint Statement: Not In Our Name

In Scotland we have a proud history of protest, of raising our voices against the injustices that blight our society and speaking truth to power.

We – the undersigned – are proud to work in a country that values compassion and fairness. Though across our communities and sectors we work to achieve different things, today we are united in our opposition to the UK Government’s Nationality and Borders Bill.

We name the Nationality and Borders Bill for what it is: an anti-survivor law, an anti-refugee law, an anti-safety law. It is a gift to abusers and exploiters, and we have no doubt that it will harm survivors of sexual violence, gender-based violence and those who flee persecution. It will harm children and young people, increasingly the victims of forced displacement and exploitation in the world. It will harm all of us and our values.

This anti-survivor law betrays what has gone before.

The UK with many otherstates said never again. We resolved after the horrors of the Holocaust to establish an international legal system to protect the displaced, the persecuted, the refugees who need safety and to rebuild their lives. That is why we have a Refugee Convention. It is for survivors. It has protected millions of the most vulnerable in our world over generations, and that is something we should be proud of.