Debating Security Plus in London: expand regular migration corridors

In alignment with Debating Security Plus’s recommendation to expand regular migration corridors, CFFP and Friends of Europe are coming together to discuss how migration is a phenomenon of human mobility that is inevitable and unstoppable, and we need thoughtful, people-centred policies which are not rooted in repression of migration. Greater attention should be focused on the causes of migration and displacement, looking at conflict prevention and resolution as well as the impact of climate change. Indefinite detention in the UK must end, and new ways of working with the EU to support asylum seekers and refugees prioritized.

Please join the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy and the Friends of Europe for the local launch of the 2018 Debating Security Plus (DS+) report in London. The event will explore the report’s recommendation on migration pathways, and why a feminist approach to migration and foreign policy is critical to ensure that both the UK and EU work together toward developing post-Brexit immigration policies which prioritize human rights.

The UK Government published its White Paper on immigration in December 2018 to outline post-Brexit immigration policy in “the biggest shake-up of immigration policy for 40 years.” As much of the Leave Campaign’s platform drew on racist, anti-immigration rhetoric, Brexit policies are so too anchored in a desire to control and exclude the ‘Other’, rooted in a fear that open borders are harmful to the UK’s national security. In a Brexit world lead by a Prime Minister who has notoriously championed harsh migration and asylum policies, the UK’s relationship with the EU, both of which are still managing the ongoing refugee crisis, will shift in many ways. And critically, UK migration policy risks backsliding in a manner that will perpetuate the violent structures which cause displacement and mass migration in the first place.