“Imperialism’s military interventions and proxy wars are destabilising countries in Asia, Latin America, East and West Africa in an aggressive drive to protect Western economic interests and impose political dominance”, Carol Stavris told the Communist Party’s political committee on Monday evening (August 14).

She said Niger, whose valuable uranium resources are being exploited by the country’s former colonial master to feed France’s nuclear power industry, had more than ten million people - almost half Niger’s population - living in extreme poverty.

“No wonder scores of thousands people fleeing zones of conflict, persecution and extreme poverty are attempting to get to Britain by any means necessary”, she declared, pointing out that half of those who crossed the English Channel last year came originally from Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea, Syria and Sudan.

“But instead of enabling asylum claims to be registered safely and legally for processing, the Tory government operates a deadly ‘Fortress Britain’ policy alongside the EU’s brutal ‘Fortress Europe’ policy”, the CP women’s organiser added.

She cited the UK Resettlement Scheme for people escaping war zones - including those created or made worse by British and US military intervention - which awarded just 1,056 grants last year.

“The deaths caused by capsizing boats are wholly preventable”, Ms Stavris insisted, “and no amount of blaming civil servants for backlogs, or attacking law-abiding human rights lawyers like Jacqueline McKenzie, should shift the spotlight from a Tory Prime Minister and Home Secretary who want to fight the next General Election in the gutter, against a callous and cowardly Labour party leadership”.

With estimates that climate change and natural disasters could displace more than a billion people across the world by the middle of this century, Britain’s Communists condemned the refusal of the Tories and Labour to pledge £11.6bn to the global fund to protect the world’s poorest people by helping them to develop renewable energy.

The CP political committee also deplored a recent judgment of the Venezuelan Supreme Court to recognise an ‘alternative’ leadership of the Communist Party of Venezuela in place of those democratically elected by the party’s congress last November, attended by CPB general secretary Robert Griffiths.

Editor: Zhong Yao、Huang He

From:http://www.solidnet.org/article/CP-of-Britain-NO-TO-FORTRESS-BRITAIN-AND-FORTRESS-EUROPE/（2023-8-16）