International Roma Day reminds us why we need to Kill the Bill

The Roma flag


Support us and go ad-free

The 8 April is International Roma Day. Started in 1990, the day is an opportunity to explore and appreciate Roma culture and history. It also raises awareness of the issues facing Roma people.

And this year’s International Roma Day has serious implications for the UK. Because Roma and other nomadic people in Britain face a fresh assault via the government’s authoritarian Police Bill. So it’s a moral duty to extend solidarity and oppose the bill with renewed energy.

Policing bill

Priti Patel’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill contains many attacks on people’s rights. This includes an attack on the right to protest. On top of this, many fear the legislation would further entrench anti-GRT (Gypsy, Roma and Traveller) discrimination. The bill would allow police to imprison people and confiscate their caravans – which for GRT people literally means their homes.

As one commentator pointed out recently:

Romany Gypsies have been in Britain since at least 1515. The Bill is the most serious threat to their way of life here for 500 years.

Long history of oppression

Roma people have faced centuries of oppression which continue to this day. It’s reported by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust that over 200,000 Roma and Sinti people under the Nazi regime “were murdered or died as a result of starvation or disease”.

Anti-Roma racism continues today. A 2019 report by the UK Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee said:

Read on...

Gypsy, Roma and Traveller [GRT] people have the worst outcomes of any ethnic group across a huge range of areas, including education, health, employment, criminal justice and hate crime

The European Commission reported in 2018 that:

discrimination and racism towards Gypsies, Irish Travellers (and more recently against the Roma community) continues across the UK.

Labour too…

Things might not seem so hopeless with a functioning opposition. But Labour MPs have also been accused of anti-GRT prejudice.

Only this month, Labour MP Charlotte Nichols was pictured canvassing with anti-Traveller flyers pledging to stop ‘incursions’. She later apologized, claiming she hadn’t known what the word meant.

The Tories want to make Roma people, and broadly speaking all GRT people, a political punchbag. As usual, Labour doesn’t look like it’s coming to the rescue. This International Roma Day, we should all commit ourselves to facing down this form of hate and stopping this authoritarian legislation.

Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/AdiJapan

We know everyone is suffering under the Tories - but the Canary is a vital weapon in our fight back, and we need your support

The Canary Workers’ Co-op knows life is hard. The Tories are waging a class war against us we’re all having to fight. But like trade unions and community organising, truly independent working-class media is a vital weapon in our armoury.

The Canary doesn’t have the budget of the corporate media. In fact, our income is over 1,000 times less than the Guardian’s. What we do have is a radical agenda that disrupts power and amplifies marginalised communities. But we can only do this with our readers’ support.

So please, help us continue to spread messages of resistance and hope. Even the smallest donation would mean the world to us.

Support us