Cambridge students protest ‘utterly shameful’ Nationality and Borders Bill

Protesters claimed the government was creating categories of “good refugees” and “bad refugees”

Students calling for the Nationality and Borders bill to be scrappedRosie Poser

by Somsubhro Bagchi

This article is 4 years old

Sunday January 23 2022, 8:59pm

Students gathered on King’s Parade today (23/01) to protest the Nationality and Borders Bill, currently being debated in the House of Lords.

The bill would remove the obligation of the government to inform a citizen when their citizenship is stripped. Home Secretary Priti Patel said the law would only be used in “exceptional circumstances” on people who pose the most risk to the UK. Protesters fear however that ethnic minorities will be treated differently than white Britons.

Before marching through King’s Parade and Market Square, the protest invited members of the audience to speak. SU BME Officer Tara Choudhury, who helped organise the event, spoke of her father: “India isn’t really my father’s home - Blackpool is.”

The protest was organised by the Student Union and Re:action and attended by students from the Cambridge University Marxist Society, Demilitarise Cambridge and Cambridge Refugee Action Society (CRAS).

Cat, speaking for (CRAS), said that the government was attempting to create categories of “good refugee and bad refugee”. Those in the latter category would have limited access to housing, education and public funds.

Protesters marched through King's Parade and Market Square.Rosie Poser

A member of Cambridge University Marxist Society claimed that the bill was “part of the government’s divide and rule strategy” and that it was “important as a Marxist, as am international socialist to raise awareness that all workers and young people were in the same fight against the capitalist state for their rights and their liberties”.

Choudhury told Varsity that “today, we gathered to protest a sinister and dangerous development in this government’s agenda to divide our society along racial lines.

“Clause 9 of the Bill will allow the Home Secretary to strip British people of their citizenship without even notifying them, measures that could leave a person unaware they have been made stateless.”

Dating app dons: Academics caught ‘matching’ with students

“This is especially significant for students, a point Nuvpreet (from Cambridge Re:action) highlighted today. Alongside a barrage of other restrictions, refugee students would be unable to access higher education through the creation of a so-called ‘Temporary Protection Status’.”

Not everyone was as supportive of the protest with one passerby calling the whole event “cringe”.

The House of Lords will examine the bill on 27th January.

Support Varsity

Varsity is the independent newspaper for the University of Cambridge, established in its current form in 1947. In order to maintain our editorial independence, our print newspaper and news website receives no funding from the University of Cambridge or its constituent Colleges.

We are therefore almost entirely reliant on advertising for funding and we expect to have a tough few months and years ahead.

In spite of this situation, we are going to look at inventive ways to look at serving our readership with digital content and of course in print too!

Therefore we are asking our readers, if they wish, to make a donation from as little as £1, to help with our running costs. Many thanks, we hope you can help!