Note to listeners: this episode was prerecorded in September 2022.

This summer, on a small road in south-east London, a crowd of people prevented immigration officers from detaining a local man. Protestors sat on the ground in front of the van he was held in for hours, shouting “Let him go!”. From Pollokshields to Peckham, over the last couple of years we’ve seen how people can come together to physically stop immigration raids in their communities and protect their neighbours.

But with the government giving the police more powers to crack down on protests, will actions like these be able to continue? What is happening to civil liberties in the UK? And who is fighting back?

Ayeisha is joined by Zehrah Hasan advocacy director at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) and Charlie Whelton, policy and campaigns officer at Liberty (@zedhas3 and @cwhelton on Twitter).

Want to join the movement? You can get involved with groups like:

- JCWI jcwi.org.uk

- Liberty libertyhumanrights.org.uk

- Migrants Organise migrantsorganise.org

- SOAS Detainee Support soasdetaineesupport.co.uk

- Stop Deportations @StpDeportations on Twitter

- Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants lgsmigrants.com

Further reading:

- Who’s Paying The Price? The Human Cost Of The Rwanda Scheme by Medical justice medicaljustice.org.uk/whos-paying-the-price-report-released/

- The gal-dem guide to stopping a deportation flight by Zehrah Hasan gal-dem.com/guide-stopping-deportation-flight-immigration/

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Music by Chad Crouch and Podington Bear, used under Creative Commons licence.

Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone.

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The Weekly Economics Podcast is brought to you by the New Economics Foundation. Find out more at www.neweconomics.org