This month, I’ve been thinking a lot about safety – particularly who gets access to it and why. The idea of safety is increasingly used by the likes of Reform, who suggest that our safety is threatened by the most marginalised. But in reality, safety is shaped by political decisions.
For example, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has just made major, cruel overhauls to the asylum system, which will impact tens of thousands of people seeking sanctuary in the UK each year. Now, many people fleeing war and persecution will be denied access to the tools that would grant them basic safety.
Those who were previously granted five years’ leave to remain will face reviews every 30 months. Study visas from Cameroon, Sudan, Myanmar and Afghanistan have been halted, shutting down those safe and legal routes. Some will be offered £40,000 to leave – a rehash of an old BNP policy. The government has also removed its legal duty to financially support asylum seekers.
In my constituency office, I and my team already do what we can to support asylum seekers who face many years of uncertainty, living on less than £10 a day. With Labour’s changes, more people will be pushed into poverty. I and other Green MPs will continue to stand up for migrants in our communities, whether they came here for work, for love, or for safety.
Political decisions also influence our children’s safety. Tech giants knowingly expose them to addictive, algorithm-driven extremism, negative body image content, exploitation and abuse – all in their pursuit of profit. It’s clear that something needs to change. I and my fellow Green MPs are calling on the government to stand up to these forces – advocating for tougher regulation to protect children (and adults!) from online harms.
=To get the solutions right, policymakers and representatives need to listen to the experiences of children, parents, carers, teachers and children’s organisations. If you are invested in the issue of children’s online safety, please respond to the government’s consultation on the topic, which opened this month, and is on the gov.uk website. I’ve often been struck by how insightfully children speak about this issue, complementing the voices of parents, carers, loved ones and teachers. It’s government listening to these voices, not the profiteering tech companies, that will keep children safe.
Finally, a sense of safety and wellbeing was in full force the other day when I went along to help out at Redcliffe’s first community Iftar, organised by community development practitioner Samina Iqbal, where people of all ages, faiths and backgrounds came together to break fast, celebrate and socialise. This family-friendly event was packed with kids, including an adorable boy who sidled up to me to say: “You look like that lady that’s Green.”
• If you live in Bristol Central and need help with a local issue, email me at bristolcentraloffice@parliament.uk or write to Carla Denyer MP, House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA For national issues email me using carla.denyer.mp@parliament.uk