2025: Yvette Cooper suspends the rights of child refugees to come to the UK, effectively rejecting Article 8 of the ECHR 2016: Yvette Cooper making a passionate plea for child refugees to come to the UK Cooper spent over a decade speaking up for child refugees, now she rejects Article 8 of ECHR

‘these are real people's lives, their families, their children’ I’ve been trying to think of something intelligible to say about yesterday’s announcement. In reading Kelly’s piece I’ve realised that I’m struggling for words because the policy is so unfathomably cruel. People will die because of it.

Excited to see this out! Zalfa and Gillian recorded an episode of their wonderful podcast at the ‘Hostile Environments and Hospitable Praxes’ conference this summer. It includes discussions on podcasting practice and hospitality, as well as border stories shared by conference delegates.

Just for perspective, a few weeks ago roughly 100,000 turned up for the London Trans+ Pride march. By contrast fewer than 3,000 ACROSS THE WHOLE COUNTRY, have turned up to anti-asylum "protests". Yet we are meant to take the latter as "the voice of the people" and the former as "the minority".

“We must wean the UK off its “immigration dependency”, Starmer said in 2022. But the problem is his – and the entire political establishment’s – dependency on immigration as an issue to be exploited.” Bang on, @nesrinemalik.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Almost 5,000 (!!) UK university workers sign letter in support of Gaza students with UK university places. This letter shows the huge level of support for these students and the urgent need for the government to enable them to get here: www.brismes.ac.uk/news/open-le...

WHY ON EARTH SHOULD THEY APOLOGISE IN THE FIRST PLACE???

This letter is already at over 1000 signatures, showing the level of support in UK academia for these students - and hopefully increasing pressure on the Home Office and FCDO. Still open to sign.

There is a special place in hell for the inventors of those automated cars in shopping centres that cost £1.50 to use, and which toddlers love. Traumatic tantrums all round. Ended up abandoning the shopping.

All famines are man-made, all famines are political. Historians of empire and humanitarianism have known this forever. Gaza is not starving, Gaza is being starved, by Israel, and this starvation is enabled by our government and by every other government that does not step in to force food and aid.

maybe labour should just offer safe and legal routes like every single expert has advised them.

Shaimaa has a scholarship to do a PhD on Palestinian literature with me at @uoe-llc.bsky.social, but she's stuck in Gaza because the foreign office won't help. Please share. www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2...

I have a much bigger bugbear with the state of HE and what that’s going to mean for me when my contract ends in a few months while there’s no university jobs to apply for, but I don’t have the energy to fully work through the rage and sadness and frustration of that particular can of worms just now.

Current bugbear: Insurance companies that won’t let you cancel obscenely high renewal quotes online, but instead make you call up and waste 10 minutes on the phone with someone.

99% of people crossing the channel in small boats apply for asylum. About 70%+ receive it. The manner of entry to seek asylum does not determine if someone is a "genuine refugee". Nobody is risking their life crossing one of the world's busiest shipping routes to work for Deliveroo. #r4today

Just as importantly, it found no increase for surrounding roads, where there has been a negligible increase in traffic levels, despite concerns about displacement Increase road capacity and you increase traffic, decrease capacity and you decrease traffic overall

Reading this excellent and thought-provoking conversation between Judith Butler and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak on the politics of the nation-state, statelessness, and borders.

I love—em-dashes.

Chuffed to see my "illuminating" Substack newsletter get a shout-out in the Guardian today. Tap in your email here - it's free. open.substack.com/pub/notanoth...

Home Office announces ‘nationwide blitz’ on asylum seekers taking jobs … Or they could allow asylum seekers to work and contribute their skills to society, pay tax and have the chance to support themselves, but I guess that would just be too crazy www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

As we prepare for #RefugeeTales 10th Anniversary of Walking, please read about the important work of @refugeetales.bsky.social observer.co.uk/news/opinion... Please share #EndIndefiniteDetention #RefugeesWelcome Now, more than ever we must help create ‘an environment of welcome’

To help understand why the vital work of @refugeetales.bsky.social is more important than ever please read the words of Pious Keku observer.co.uk/culture/inte... #RefugeesWelcome #EndIndefiniteDetention Please will you read Pious’s words and share them.

Genuine question: does a county council have the power to do this? Act on "concerns from a resident" without, apparently, consulting anyone? www.kentonline.co.uk/sittingbourn...

Here’s a novel idea. If you don’t like a book, then just don’t borrow it. You don’t have to enforce your prejudice on everyone else. Except this is exactly how Terfs operate, and they’re only being further legitimised in the political field. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The use of the Terrorism Act to proscribe Palestine Action is disproportionate and sets a dangerous precedent.

Just so everyone is on the same page: PIP is a top up benefit. You can’t live on PIP, it’s there because being disabled is more expensive than not being disabled. PIP recipients *in work* may only be able to work because of PIP. This government is just unnecessarily cruel.

Last week I hosted the conference ‘Hostile Environments and Hospitable Praxes: Literary and Cultural Responses to Racial and Migratory Politics’ at the University of Kent. The organisation of this conference was part of my research project on migration and storytelling with @leverhulme.ac.uk.

Amyl and the Sniffers have entered the chat

Beyond horrific. I can’t even compute the devastation that is still unfolding in Gaza, that politicians and the mainstream press seem to have completely waylaid in favour of stories about Iran’s nuclear capabilities and chants at Glastonbury.

Reminder that more than 50% of people who receive PIP work, please help us correct the narrative the gov is spinning that they are encouraging us back to work with a bit of tough love.

Admitting that people with disabilities do need the support provided by PIP and other schemes, but denying people from receiving that same level of support in the future isn’t a concession, it’s a cruelty.

Note the numbers for 'stance on transgender rights'. If we assume those opting for Reform left Labour for being too pro-trans (side note: HOW?!) and those opting for Green/LD left because Labour's too anti-trans, that means Labour's losing *10x more votes* to pro-trans parties than anti-trans ones.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed at the end of ‘Hostile Environments and Hospitable Praxes’. After months of organising it’s been such a reward to hear so many amazing papers and conversations amongst academics and practitioners. There is a route to hospitality, and the start of that journey is to listen.

First day of the conference ‘Hostile Environments and Hospitable Praxes’ today.

A good exercise I started doing was asking my students to paraphrase a speech from an early modern play, and to think at the same time about what they were losing in the translation. It immediately focusses attention on more than plot

This "That doesn't mean I want my people bombed, maimed, killed, their homes in ruins. If your vision of liberation comes only through the destruction of innocent lives, then it's not freedom you're after." Sahar Delijani, Iranian author

It shouldn't be a matter of party politics to acknowledge the Home Office is fundamentally broken and needs significant restructuring, at least. This excellent report by @zoejardiniere.bsky.social for @carladenyer.bsky.social sets out clear options to achieve this. carladenyer.co.uk/no-way-home/

MPs have voted to decriminalise abortion In a historic step, the House of Commons backed an amendment by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi which proposed that women no longer face prosecution if they end a pregnancy after 24 weeks or without approval from two doctors

In May I ran a series of workshops with Kent Refugee Action Network for their students at the Uni of Kent, with funding from @leverhulme.ac.uk. The workshops responded to the #RefugeeWeek theme 'Community as a Superpower'. Here's a report I wrote about the workshops: www.kent.ac.uk/news/communi...

Paper cuts galore while putting the conference programmes together for next week.

In the midst of one of busiest few weeks of the year so far, both personally and professionally, taking an hour this morning to drink tea and read.

Turn it off. Stop using it. Turn it off. Stop. Stop. Stop. If every time I was wrong about something, a gallon of precious water was boiled into the sky, my neighbourhood got polluted and someone lost their job, people would stop asking me things.

Registration **deadline extended to Friday**, for anyone who may be interested in attending ‘Hostile Environments and Hospitable Praxes: Literary and Cultural Responses to Racial and Migratory Politics’.

More than 100 of the UK’s most high-profile disabled people, including Liz Carr, Ruth Madeley and Rosie Jones, urge the Prime Minister to abandon the “catastrophic plans to cut disability benefits”. My exclusive in today’s Guardian: www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Letter to UK PM by 800 lawyers: “urgent and decisive action is required to avert the destruction of the Palestinian people of Gaza”. “The UK’s actions to date have failed to meet [those] standards” of international legal obligations. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

If your business model doesn’t work without breaking the law, then you’re not in business. You’re in organized crime.

If I wanted to open a shop and all it stocked was stuff I had taken from others without asking, I'm pretty sure that would be considered theft

Defend the em-dash

It took me some time to find a quiet moment to sit and read this properly, but I’m very glad I did. Beautifully written, honest, and, throughout, loving. I will think back to it often in the coming weeks.