Migrant Tales insight: Another excellent posting by Migrants’ Rights Network on how immigrant communities challenge politicians who spread lies and reinforce prejudices about migrants. We need such a campaign in Finland. Writes Don Flynn: #MigrantsContribute! is a social media-style name for a campaign that aims to bust into the mainstream with its core message that, far…
Category: Don Flynn
Migrants’ Rights Network: UKIP’s strong showing challenges supporters of migrants’ rights to do better
By Don Flynn* There’s no point hiding the fact that the right wing party made effective use of public anxieties about immigration to build its position. But all the evidence on how the argument is running shows that it can still be turned round. But we’ll need a new upsurge of activism in support…
Migrants’ Rights Network: Public moods on free movement: Should we just follow the herd?
Don Flynn* The new report on free movement in the EU from IPPR argues that pro-migration groups have to triangulate their advocacy with the antagonistic moods that currently hold sway. But do they need to go quite so stridently in the direction of arguing that they dictate the need for a ‘new…
Migrants’ Rights Network: Refusal to face the realities of migration opens the door to racism
Migrant Tales insight: This excellent piece by Don Flynn sounds very familar to what the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS) are doing in Finland to get people to vote for them in the MEP elections on May 25. PS chairman Timo Soini has spoken at Ukip gatherings on a number of occasions and are in many respects…
Migrants’ Rights Network: Why we need a new anti-racist movement if we are to secure the rights of migrants
Don Flynn* Anti-racism and the battle for the rights of migrant seem to have moved some distance apart in recent years. It is time to reverse that, and re-forge a unity between the two that will be able to take on the challenges that come from growing xenophobic moods. The coalition of groups supporting the…
Migrants’ Rights Network: Living in an Age of Migration
Don Flynn* Immigration studies has emerged as an important discipline in colleges and universities across the world, with scores of research centres being established in the UK alone over the last decade or so. Contributions have come from sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, political scientist, economists and philosophers over this time, giving anyone who…
Migrants’ Rights Network: Brokenshire vs. Cable – Is immigration good or bad for the economy?
Don Flynn* Is immigration just an accident, prompted by the selfish behaviour of the metropolitan elite, or a vital component in the functioning of a globalised economy? That was the issue at the heart of the spat between two government ministers last week. Decision on who is right will decide the future direction of immigration…
Migrants’ Rights Network: When single markets and the inequalities of global trade provide the basis of a ‘right to migrate’ (Part 3)
Don Flynn* This is the final blog in a three part series which sets the reasons why we need a clearer and more precise idea of the rights which migrants need if they are to prosper in the modern world. Here we argue that the assertion of a ‘right to migrate’ is…
Migrants’ Rights Network: Wanted: Truth and clarity about migration to the UK today
MT comment: Is it a coincidence that the same issues but in a different context are taking place in Finland and elsewhere in Europe? Even if elections are supposed to be a time when we celebrate our democratic rights, for some, like migrants and minorities, it has come to represent a day of uncertainty, even…
Migrants’ Rights Network: An atlas of migration that tells the story of globalisation and barriers to freedom
Don Flynn* David Cameron’s intervention during the EU leaders’ summit meeting in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius last week has made it clear enough that the issues of immigration and Europe are going to be heavily intertwined during the political debates of the coming period. Read full story here. Cameron’s claims that the…