Freedom from Torture’s billboard stunt outside the Reform Party Conference last week was more than a stand for the torture ban, it was also a riposte to escalating far-right scare tactics against charities providing care and support to refugees.
The politics of division is central to the authoritarian playbook, and the scapegoating of refugees and other marginalised migrant communities is often where it starts.
Here in Britain, extremist anti-refugee views have become normalised. Now Reform is openly peddling a policy of mass removals, including sending survivors back to their torturers. They admit this means torching the absolute torture ban that Britain did so much to forge over centuries. But they miscalculated how offensive this is to British values. An obvious chink appeared in Farage’s armour when journalists pressed him on delivering women and children back into the arms of the Taliban. He has been flip-flopping on it ever since. This was the point of our billboard: to force a reckoning with just how extreme this plan is.
Farage on the backfoot shows that torture is still a red line for the British public. Indeed, our regular polling shows high and growing public support for the outright torture ban. But the political danger remains. Both Labour and the Conservatives have joined a race to the bottom in cruelty towards refugees.
Every day in Freedom from Torture’s therapy rooms, we see the human consequences. Survivors who fled to the UK for sanctuary are once again living in fear. Many are too frightened to come to our clinical appointments for vital therapy, too scared to take their children to the playground or even go shopping. Fear is especially intense for those housed in hotels. One survivor told us how they were stopped by a group of youths on the street, asked where they came from and then threatened with a knife.
Charities targeted
Now charities helping refugees are also being targeted. For example, a far-right influencer has started circulating online the names and photographs of refugee charity leaders – including mine – with a particular dog whistle attached to Freedom from Torture for our role in helping to defeat the previous government’s immoral “cash for humans” Rwanda deal. Our #StopTheFlights campaign forced multiple airlines to rule themselves out of the scheme, earning us two Charity Awards, including the top prize for overall excellence in 2023.
Like other charities supporting refugees, we have responded by tightening our security protocols. But we will not be intimidated into rolling back services, nor silenced in our campaigning. Survivors need us to stand firm, and so do the millions of caring people across Britain who are repulsed by this climate of hate.
Political support
But charities cannot face this alone. While the Charity Commission has taken welcome measures to protect trustees of targeted refugee charities, signals it may investigate City of Sanctuary for supporting schools to participate in a Valentine’s Day campaign to “show your heart” for refugees are a test of the commission’s vow not to be “weaponised” by groups fighting “culture wars”.
Political leadership is even more important. The Together with Refugees coalition has called on political leaders to bring unity not division. The Labour government’s new “covenant” with civil society heralds a welcome reset of relations after hostility from the last. But only concrete action will lift our status as a country with “obstructed” civic freedoms. Ministers have a golden opportunity to roll back anti-campaigning laws they inherited, but show no sign of seizing it.
Legislative reform has been ruled out, and, in fact, the government is making matters worse. We have all seen the appalling spectacle of pensioners, disabled people and priests being arrested pursuant to the draconian proscription of Palestine Action. No wonder the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has voiced concern.
The recent cabinet reshuffle offers the government a chance to think again, and put democratic freedoms back where they belong – at the heart of Britain’s political life.
Time to unite
Civil society as a whole must also recognise and call out the danger. To paraphrase the German pastor Martin Niemöller: “First they came for the refugees.” But so long as authoritarian forces are on the march, they will not stop there. Black and Muslim communities, LGBTQI+ and homeless people – all will be targeted in time. Just look at Trump’s America.
The demonisation of minorities is a means to an end: to win power in order to serve the interests of those standing behind the politicians who foment hate. This always leads to removals of checks on executive power, including the destruction of rights that keep us all safe from abuse. Just ask any survivor of torture.
Democracy is precious. It is a truism that every generation or so needs to fight for it afresh. Retreating in fear is how we do the authoritarians’ work for them. As historian Timothy Snyder warned when President Trump first came to power, we must not obey in advance: “A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.”
Civil society leaders should start uniting now. If we do not, we leave ourselves and the millions of people we serve exposed.
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