Racism on the bigger canvas

From 4 years ago, 6 months after 10 mainly Central and Eastern European countries were admitted to the European Union:

In an attempt to reduce the number of asylum applications from the Czech Republic, the British and Czech governments entered into an agreement in 2001 under which the UK would station immigration officers at Prague airport to screen all passengers traveling to the UK. The purpose was to prevent asylum seekers from leaving the Czech Republic. However those stopped were overwhelmingly Roma, regardless of whether they intended to claim asylum or not.

From July 2001, British immigration officers would “pre-clear” travellers either granting or refusing them leave to enter the UK. In the first three weeks of the operation, 110 people were refused leave to enter at Prague Airport. Among them were six Czech Roma who, together with the European Roma Rights Centre, brought a case against the UK government alleging racial discrimination.

In a huge blow to the UK’s human rights record, the law lords ruled that the UK government acted unlawfully in preventing Czech Roma entering the UK from the Czech Republic.

There are at least two indirect connections here with the recent attacks on the Romanian Roma in the University/Lisburn Road area of Belfast.

First, in particular amongst 6 of the batch of 12 countries which have joined the European Union since 2004, (Bulgaria the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) the conditions which led to Roma claiming asylum in western EU countries, Canada and the USA prior to that date remain. Educational segregation on ethnic grounds, systematic physical attacks (and in Hungary alone this year, 3 murders), allegations (and increasing evidence) of forced sterilisation, the rise of the fascist right both in national government (Slota's SNP in Slovakia) and in the recent EU elections (e.g. Ataka in Bulgaria, Jobbik in Hungary) and increasing disparities in the area of employment are just five examples of abuses of the kind of human rights rules that the Eurocrats proudly claim are the foundations of the modern European Union.
Yet all these countries were given unquestioningly entry into the club. Why?
It’s obviously not an excuse for the events of the last 2 weeks, but if the EU is prepared to turn a blind eye to anti-Roma discrimination, thuggery and racism at a macro state-level then what chance is there of the local authorities in Belfast and elsewhere sorting it out at the micro? This problem doesn’t start and finish at The Village.

Secondly, as alluded to by Anna here on the Amnesty Blog<, the UK’s immigration and employment laws are completely illogical and to a large extent have led to the apparently greater antagonism felt towards Bulgarian and Romanians than the earlier batch of immigrants in 2004:

The second shock is the revelation of the living conditions in which the Romanians found themselves in Belfast. It has been reported that many Romanian families were living crammed in just a few houses, with a family of 18 living on a single floor in one house.

The blame for this situation needs to be put squarely at the feet of the Home Office civil servants who are the architects of the immigration rules and regulations for so-called ‘A2 nationals’. ‘A2 national’ is EU-speak for someone from Bulgaria and Romania, whose countries joined the EU on 1 January 2007. The accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the EU allowed people from Bulgaria and Romania the right to move freely to the UK, but domestic immigration laws continue to drastically limit their right to work here.

Membership of the European Union allows Bulgarians and Romanians free right of movement anywhere within the European Union. Generally Romanians (both Roma and non-Roma) have graduated towards Spain and Italy for cultural and linguistic reasons and up until quite recently the vast majority (like those who came to the UK) found gainful employment and were an asset to the economy of the host nation. With the onset of the recession, there’s been a drift back home... which is all besides the point really; whilst the UK remains a member of the EU and whilst there is complete freedom of movement to and from the rest of the European Union, what’s the point in making it so difficult for European Union citizens to find legal employment?

Once here, you find that you cannot just go looking for a job. You have to apply for work authorization to the Home Office: there are no less than seven forms to fill out for different categories of work and residence, ranging in length from eight to seventeen pages each. Specific penalties for not doing this correctly include a £1,000 fine or 3 months in prison.

Faced with that rigmarole or drifting into the "informal" economy what would you do in those circumstances? Tighten up the conditions for social security benefits by all means (a solution which the BNP, for example, is reluctant to push, wonder why?), but if people want to work here, then why on earth not make it easier for them to do it legally?

Of course, it's a lot easier putting all the blame on the shoulders of *anti-social* or *disaffected* teenagers and sorting out both of these points will not "solve racism" or even prevent further attacks in the short-term, but they would be laying a much firmer foundation for attempting to deal with the underlying problem on a longer and more lasting basis.