News from the New Party

Modern slavery

Many people will be familiar with stories of the nightmare conditions under which people trying to get into the UK illegally travel here and are then forced to live and work in appalling circumstances. With their illegal status, it is hard to break out of these conditions.  Typically they owe spurious debts to those employing them and frequently their families at home are threatened if they do not comply.

This is the story of those who are here illegally.  But what BBC News has done is to show that many who can come here fully legally are exploited in much the same way.

It starts with bogus employment agencies in the home country offering to fix people up with employment.  The fee for the agents may become the initial "debt" - debt being a tool of the criminal gangs who trade in human misery.

People who want simply to work and make a better life for themselves end up seemingly beholden to people who exploit them mercilessly:

[The company] took Audrius to North Yorkshire and gave him a bed in a converted farm building near Richmond.

There were more than 20 migrant workers already living there. There were 12 people in his room alone - men as well as women, including one couple.

They shared one shower and two toilets. There was no privacy. [The company] deducted up to £50 a week from the wages of each employee for rent.

Of course, these companies claim to meet the rules.  However, the bogus debts which are placed on such workers makes them completely beholden to those who would exploit them.

Many we spoke to said it was common for them to go a week, or a week-and-a-half, without work. Often, they would work only one or two days a week.

They still have to eat, and pay rent. The more that happens, the harder it is for a migrant worker to reduce his debt; and the deeper the debt, the greater the dependence on the good will of the gang master.

This is nothing to do with the free movement of labour or the open borders that was promised.  This is bonded labour in a new guise.

We congratulate the BBC for exposing this practice which many would have suspected but which has yet to be tackled seriously as an issue.  At the very least, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority needs to have the resources and remit to tackle the problem.  In addition, information and advice needs to be provided to potential victims, and those who deal in this trade should be fully exposed and prosecuted.

There is not a debate, by the way, about levels of immigration, but one about human dignity.  We must ensure that those who do come to this country - in this case, entirely legally - are treated with proper respect and are accorded the rights available to everyone else.