Hope can feel not only futile but almost disrespectful as fascism rises around the world. But it remains essential to our sanity, writes @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social.

In the week I visited the Loon Plage camp in Dunkirk for a special report for @theleaduk.bsky.social a man was found dead by the side of the road and another in critical condition after being hit by a truck. Six people died or went missing in the sea.

Life at Loon Plage is tough: there is no running water, no toilets, no permanent medical or welfare tents and people sleep in tents in the grass or bushes. @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social meets refugees waiting to cross the channel in northern France. national.thelead.uk/p/immigratio...

"They say its the hope that kills you, but without hope you are already dead." My latest column for @prospectmagazine.co.uk www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/views/lives/...

Made a silly little portfolio for my reporting, columns and editing. Should probably have done so five years ago but alas here we are: authory.com/SarahCollins.

BREAKING: Our client Mario Guevara, an Emmy-winning journalist detained by ICE in retaliation for livestreaming law enforcement activity, will be deported tomorrow to El Salvador. Mario and his family are being punished for his reporting. This cruelty is meant to stifle our free press.

@arusbridger.bsky.social will step down as Prospect's editor at the end of 2025. Our print & digital circulation grew 30% last year & he’s transformed Prospect into a flourishing multi-media company. Excited that acclaimed journalist Philip Collins will be our new editor.

I met a woman today in Dunkirk who said her tent had been slashed by the police and all her belongings had been taken during an eviction in the Loon Plage camp. She couldn't understand why the police would do this to her. "I have come all the way from Libya," she told me. "I'm not giving up."

As the UK suspends its refugee family reunion scheme, growing numbers of women and children in northern France face inhumane conditions. @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social reports from Dunkirk.

Two very important graphs. Net migration reached record levels in 2023 - and has since halved. The vast majority of arrivals comprises students and workers. Arrivals in small boats and asylum seekers - less than 5%. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Myths and misinformation - my piece on the political battle over the ECHR for @theobserveruk.bsky.social observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

🚨 MARCHING UNITED 🚨 In Central London, thousands are marching united against racism, the far right, and division. ✊ Last summer, a national tragedy was twisted to stoke Islamophobic and racist fear. A year on, racist intimidation continues.

British fascists are on the move again Yet Starmer does and says nothing except echo anti-migrant rhetoric and talk of a land of strangers It is dereliction of duty, and despicable politics www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

With awful news about Conor Gearty’s death, it’s apt to listen to & reflect on this searching & v recent discussion about the threats to human rights in Britain & what on Earth to do about it … In his gentle tones he forcefully convey the answer is NOT just to lie down & accept that decency is over

MPs express shock after alleged racially motivated rape of Sikh woman

One of the major reasons that asylum seekers wish to cross the channel to the UK, is that the UK is no longer bound by the EU's Dublin III regulation, which means the UK provides a new opportunity to claim asylum for those who failed in Europe Europe. Brexit has incentivisised channel crossings

We see endless stories about “Channel migrants”. But volunteering with a charity that supports displaced women and children living in Calais and Dunkirk, @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social sees a different side to the story.

Two children believed to have died this week

"I hate the thought that some of these women and girls will return to sleep in a scrub of trees tonight, where they are outnumbered by men, and where they do not have access to toilets or showers." My reporting on the people waiting to cross the channel www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/pol...

3 people dead and 3 people missing after a boat got into distress in the channel last night. Devastating news.

Many of the people seeking asylum I've met in recent days in Northern France have spent several years in Germany, and report feeling unable to continue with the life they've built there - presumably after change in government? Wonder this is part of wider trend - my evidence is of course anecdotal

As the UK suspends its refugee family reunion scheme, growing numbers of women and children in northern France face inhumane conditions. @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social reports from Dunkirk.

A dispatch from Dunkirk: where I met women and children waiting to seek asylum in the UK www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/pol...

In today’s Lightbulb, Prospect’s free daily newsletter, @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social reports from Dunkirk on migrants waiting at the UK-France border.

I'm in Calais and Dunkirk this month researching and reporting on life for people waiting to cross the channel in small boats. Here's my first dispatch: www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/pol...

Day 3 in Calais. NGOs say they are seeing a rapidly growing number of women and children at the border. I meet some of them- we chat and play an agressive game of Uno, but then they must return to sleep in the wild with no shelter. Hard to see how suspension of family reunification won't worsen this

Our latest issue is out! featuring @benansell.bsky.social on left populism, @jenstout.bsky.social on landmines, @jamesball.bsky.social on big data, @ethanz.bsky.social on how tech used to be progressive, @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social on goodbyes and yours truly on the new-not-so-new misogyny

Day 2 in Calais. The people on the move I spoke to today had never heard of the "one-in-one-out" scheme and seem confused when I explained it. Difficult to see how so-called "deterrence policies" are deterring people from crossing who literally have no idea they exist

More women and children will die in the Channel as a result of this policy. More kids fleeing war, persecution and torture will be separated from their parents in makeshift camps. More smugglers will gladly take their money. More votes for Reform. The moral bankruptcy is staggering.

Day 1 in Calais. Large rocks are placed across the city to stop people pitching tents. This attempt to make asylum seekers invisible backfires - I am reminded of the border on every street. As I board the bus, I watch a group of young men whoop and laugh as they play cards next to their tents

Spending a year in Athens taught me something fundamental about love, writes @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social.

If any NGOs based in Dunkirk or Calais have any information regarding the death of a young woman seeking asylum on Malo beach last night, please contact me by DM, email [email protected] or signal @sarahcollinswrites.94

The Fence is FOR LOVERS, so for next issue's Fencepost, we want your most memorable, mundane, mortifying and miserable dating experiences. So please reply, or issue a discrete DM, with your maddest, baddest, and raddest adventures in the dating game.

A headline that should never have to be written

@utopia56.bsky.social Hello! I'm really interested in reporting on your work—could you send me DM?

New YouGov polling. A monumental failure of our political class to educate, a monumental failure of our media to report fairly, for a generation

My GP practice now has a system where they only take 50 online form submissions a day that have to be submitted at 8am and seemingly no appointments. I fear this level of appalling care has become normalised in Britain. As soon as you spend time in another country you realise THIS IS NOT NORMAL

Refugees have been crossing the English channel since the Huguenots in the 17th century. Small boat crossings are not a new phenomenon

Three stunning and shaming paragraphs, by Rachel Wolf of Public First, in @theobserveruk.bsky.social

Obsessions around being watched are common in people with OCD, writes @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social. “So I am becoming increasingly worried about the growing use of surveillance-based technology in mental health.” www.prospectmagazine...

Really happy to have signed with @annapallai.bsky.social. Hopefully exciting projects ahead www.ampliterary.co.uk/about-1-1

will add that for a lot of people it just makes considerably more financial sense to do Takes than reporting - if I could actually make a good living out of doing features etc you'd never see me write a column again, genuinely, but the industry just favours opinions now so ¯\(ツ)/¯

Obsessions around being watched are common in people with OCD, writes @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social. “So I am becoming increasingly worried about the growing use of surveillance-based technology in mental health.” www.prospectmagazine...

My latest column is about fears of surveillance in mental illness—and why this means new technology in mental health wards should be treated with the utmost caution. @stopoxevision.bsky.social @rethinkcharity.bsky.social www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/views/lives/...

A great, insightful piece by @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social @prospectmagazine.co.uk

“Before I was diagnosed with PMDD, I used to battle the urge to throw myself out of the window for five days every month.” @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social challenges the “overdiagnosis” narrative that’s now shaping government policy: www.prospectmagazine...

The increasing rate of mental health diagnosis could be explained by the popular argument that normal distress is now over-medicalised. But is it not just as likely that it is simply a corrective to the underdiagnosis that occurred in every generation prior to this one?

“My mad ancestors did not have the privilege of living at a time when mental health diagnosis is normal.” @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social on why warnings of “overdiagnosis” are missing the point: www.prospectmagazine...

An essay in which I take on the now popular notion that mental health problems are "overdiagnosed" and argue that the underfunding of the mental healthcare system is the real scandal www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/7009...

I’m glad that the Winter Fuel payment threshold has moved up to £35,000 for pensioners, but hang on… what about working people who are earning under £35,000? and who probably don’t own houses and spend the majority of their income on rent? 🥴