Challenging ‘Fortress Europe’: Refugee Solidarities in 1990s Britain

In the first months of 2023, the Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and then Home Secretary Suella Braverman have vehemently reiterated their commitment to ‘Stop the Boats’ as a cornerstone of government policy. The campaign, described as ‘inhumane and diversionary’, has been the subject of widespread criticism, as the government determines which refugees are welcome to the UK. In a post-Brexit world, the policy focuses attention on the stretch of water between this small island and mainland Europe.

While the connections between the UK’s exit from the European Union and immigration restriction are evident, it is important to remember that the freedom of movement promised by earlier entry into the Single European Market was not available to all. 1992 – the year of the enactment of the Single European Market – represented a juncture in migration across the twelve member states. Who was going to be free to enter and move across this single market of labour, capital and goods? Who would get to belong to Europe? As European borders shifted, so too did bordering regimes and the policing of asylum and migration. Though longer trends of restriction were at play, 1992 was a coalescing moment for states seeking to ‘harmonise’ immigration policies in the wake of the single market – a moment when national borders were transformed into European frontiers.

The restrictions of Fortress Europe and the ‘new European racism’, as A. Sivanandan termed it, were met with substantial resistance. As my research demonstrates, in their campaigns against Fortress Europe, refugee, migrant, anti-racist and humanitarian groups adopted and purveyed the language of rights for all, regardless of citizenship status. This was a significant juncture: the deployment of rights was historically innovative, shifting discourses around refugees and asylum away from the host/guest dynamic, and concomitant expectations of welcome and gratitude, which had dominated refugee agency response across the twentieth century. These might specifically be human rights, as in Amnesty International’s railing against abuses in detention centres; equal rights, as in test cases levied by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants; or a more capacious language of rights to ensure minimum standards of treatment. Across the variety of campaigns operating in anticipation of 1992 and the harmonisation of policy under Maastricht, claims rooted in rights insisted on the humanity of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, making the point that their lives counted as lives.

What is striking is that rights were central to the strategy of groups from a wide range of political positions, who might loosely be separated into two categories: reformers and radicals. ‘Charter ’87: A Charter for Refugees’ emerged from a human right milieu and placed more emphasis on reform of the asylum system rather than its fundamental overhaul. The organisation was founded in 1987 by Louise Pirouet and Antonia Hunt, who had herself arrived in England as a refugee from Austria in 1938 at the age of three. Both women were substantially involved in Amnesty International’s work, a key organisation in the ‘breakthrough’ of human rights from the 1970s, who were increasingly taking an active interest in refugees because of restrictive immigration legislation and policies of deterrence. Charter ’87 sought the incorporation of the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees into British law as one mode of guaranteeing rights for refugees, as well as six areas for intervention for minimum standards for those seeking asylum in the UK. As Pirouet explained in a letter to the Church Times in 1989, Charter ’87 ‘exists to campaign for the humane treatment of asylum seekers and refugees.’ This emphasis on humanity and sanctuary as a moral cause was key in securing support from their target groups: religious leaders across all faiths, cross-party MPs and members of the House of Lords, professional groups, including lawyers. Crucially, all involved in this campaign went to great lengths to reassure potential supporters that they were not seeking any liberalisation of asylum law, or to provoke any increase in numbers. They also maintained a separation between refugees and immigrants.

This separation was just one of several criticisms levied at Charter ’87 and other reformers by other more radical campaigners. Other groups and activists mapped the deprivation of rights to refugees and asylum seekers onto broader immigration issues and onto the experiences of Black Britons. This included Refugee Forum, formed in 1984 at a conference of migrant, immigrant and refugee community groups supported by the Greater London Council. Led by Ronnie Moodley, whose background was as a Christian pastor and a refugee, it had close relations with the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism and Evangelical Christians for Racial Justice and was deeply embedded in the anti-racist movement. Its radicalism included its tactics, involving highly publicized sanctuary cases for those threatened with deportation and the open organisation of an ‘underground railway’ for asylum seekers: secret safe houses where those without permission to stay in the UK were housed. Yet the charter that the Refugee Forum developed was not particularly different from what Charter ’87 was calling for: this convergence centred around due process and fair practice described in a language of rights. The difference was in the style and tactics through which these rights were defended – especially in hiding asylum seekers from the authorities – and how they were enmeshed in anti-racist efforts and collaborations that shifted the focus beyond refugees.

While these campaigns had limited success in turning the tide of the UK’s treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, an important legacy of these campaigns was the continued employment of rights by campaigners in their fight to resist Fortress Europe, even as Britain made its exit. Most recently, in the summer of 2022, the first plane designated to take asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda was prevented from leaving because of a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights. Rights for refugees, asylum seekers and migrants have become one of the few obstacles to draconian measures of deterrence and removal: this is the legacy of the campaigns of the 1990s.

This post anticipates a forthcoming article in a special issue of Contemporary British History exploring Britain in the 1990s.