Hunger strikes of detained asylum seekers are also crucial

During the Prisoners for Palestine hunger strike, many Western media outlets maintained that this was the first significant prison hunger strike since the IRA hunger strike in 1980-1981.

Parallels between the two hunger strikes certainly exist. Two liberation struggles against British colonialism, in Ireland and Israel, confronted settler colonial violence and genocide. And, these hunger strikes were also a protest against the carceral prison system itself.

Hunger strike history: here’s what’s being missed

Whilst mainstream media may not pay attention, there are significant hunger strikes and protests inside UK immigration removal centres (IRCs) against the same violence that the Prisoners for Palestine actionists are protesting against. We are fast approaching the 8th anniversary of the 2018 Yarl’s Wood Hunger strike, where from 21 February to 20 March, 120 women detained inside, launched a hunger strike to protest “unfair imprisonment and racist abuse.” Their list of demands included calls for:

• an end to indefinite detention,
• the Home Office to respect Article 8 of the European European Convention of Human Rights regarding refugees and asylum seekers,
• an end to chartered flights,
• a stop to detaining vulnerable people,
• and a stop to detainees working for as little as £1 an hour.

As punishment, several of the hunger strikers in Yarl’s Wood were kept in solitary confinement. Other hunger strikers were removed from the UK for participating. The hunger strike came at a pivotal time of emboldened border violence as a result of the hostile environment policy.

In the aftermath of the Yarl’s Wood hunger strike, the Home Office reported in 2019 that there had been over 3000 hunger strikers in IRC facilities since 2015. In fact, campaigners suggested that the actual number of hunger strikers was likely much higher.

Given the fact that the UK is the only country in Europe where there is no statutory time limit to immigration detention, it is no wonder that detained migrants have turned to hunger striking to protest their inhumane treatment.

Courting the far-right

Now, in 2026 Keir Starmer routinely competes with the far-right Reform party as to who can be more vicious to migrants and asylum seekers. Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, drew applause from Tommy Robinson in November for restoring “control and order to our borders”. This was after she outlined plans to prevent refugees from having the right to live permanently in the UK by removing refugees once the Home Office deems their country safe to reside in.

We can see the far-right turn on immigration with the return of military barracks in Scotland and East Sussex to house asylum seekers as a tactic the Home Office believes will dissuade further asylum in the UK.

Then we come to the “one in, one out” plan to remove those asylum seekers who arrived in the UK on small boats back to France. In November, asylum seekers launched a hunger strike to protest being removed to France, calling attention to the criminalisation of this policy on asylum seekers.

On Wednesday, 14 January 2026, over 100 asylum seekers detained at Harmondsworth near Heathrow airport and Brook House near Gatwick airport launched a coordinated peaceful protest against being removed to France on flights scheduled for the next day.

Some detainees feared that once in France, smugglers would threaten them, while other detainees feared European Union law would make it easier for them to be moved to another EU country and ultimately to their country of origin, where they may face death.

Their peaceful protest was met with the strong arm of state violence. In the early morning of Thursday, 15 January, as reported in the Guardian, an asylum seeker who participated in the protest said:

They brought special forces for us, they used [teargas], they took us by force inside rooms, they took the ones who have tickets by force. We are in pain; our eyes and bodies are burning.

Rise in racism

Given the onslaught of rabid xenophobia and racism, it can not be seen as a mistake when the UK media ignores years of migrant hunger strikes in resistance to growing carceral immigration policy.

The harmful effects of this immigration policy are extending to British citizens, where a joint study by Reprieve and the Runnymede Trust found that 9 million people could lose their British citizenship because they may qualify for citizenship through their parents.

This has contributed to growing concerns around the normalisation of citizenship stripping, particularly for minoritised British citizens. We must not forget that politicians routinely weaponise immigration status when it comes to migrants advocating for Palestine, whether here in the UK, US, or Germany.

Umer Khalid, one of the Prisoners for Palestine strikers, has now ended his hunger strike after doctors warned he was on the cusp of death. Mainstream media has done its level best, along with the government, to ignore the protests of the hunger strikers. However, as the above demonstrates, there is a long and storied history of institutions ignoring hunger strikes.

The past and present hunger strikes are an important part of tactics towards liberation that must not be ignored.

Featured image from video screengrab via the Guardian