immoral, predominately hits the poor, costs the tax payer money through ill health and where our proposal is backed by huge sections of society.
If Labour or the SNP defeat the bill this will be a major plank of the platform on which the SSP stand at the next election.
This also is an issue socialists throughout the UK should take up through the Socialist Alliances. Terry Conway Plans are being laid to make sure support for the week of action in defence of asvlum seekers from June 15- June 22 is raised far and wide.
Activists at the planning meeting on May 7 ensured that every trade union conference between now and then would be leafletted and every General Secretary written to. A letter supporting the week of action. signed by Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn MP is being circulated The meeting hoped that there would be emergency resolutions at some of them to support the action. Such a resolution has already been submitted to the Amicus-MSF section conference and hopefully others will not be far behind.
Certainly there had already been a warm response to the planned activities at the London May Day March, where thousands of leaflets were distributed to the crowds in Trafalgar Square as they heard speakers such as Dianne Abbot MP attack the Labour government's treatment of asylum SeeKess.
The subsequent election of three BNP councillors in Burnley has further strengthened determination to step up the fight to make sure that asylum seekers are welcome here.
Meanwhile the coalition between the Campaign to defend Asylum Seekers, the National Coalition of anti Deportation campaigns Barbed Wire Britain and the National Civil Right Movement also agreed that we should not let the third reading of Blunkett's Asylum Bill pass without protest.
While new Labour may trumpet the fact that they plan to abolish une natea voucner system, which stigmatised asylum seekers, they don't point out that people will still have to live on only 70 per cent of poverty line income support. At the same time teir plans will massively increase the numbers of people confined to immigration prisons - when many of those affected are fleeing torture and imprisonment in their countries of origin.
If you want to get involved in these actions contact CDAS:www.defend-asylum.org, Barbed Wire Britain: www. barbedwirebritain.org.uk, National Civil Rights Movement www.ncrm.org.uk or National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns: www.ncadc.org.uk