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Justice & Peace Conference to examine migrant rights and BNP


Fewer than two per cent of all social housing residents are people who have moved to Britain in the last five years. Nine out of ten people who live in social housing were born in the UK. (Equality and Human Rights Commission report).
 
There are more than 750,000 undocumented (illegal) workers in the UK. Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor and a number of bishops have backed the call of the Strangers into Citizens campaign for some of these individuals to be offered a path to full citizenship by way of a regularisation (amnesty).
 
What is to be done about the British National Party, which polled 943,000 votes in the recent European Elections, securing two seats in the European Parliament? Has the Church been too timid in its pronouncements regarding the growth of the far right? How many Catholics sitting in the pews are among those who vote BNP?
 
These are some of the questions that will be up for debate when more than 300 justice and peace activists gather together between 17 and 19 July for their annual conference at Swanwick, Derbyshire. The conference will be addressed by Bishop Patrick Lynch, chair of the office for refugee policy at the Catholic Bishops Conference for England and Wales.

"At time of recession, we as a Church must do all we can not to allow migrant workers to become scapegoats," said Bishop Lynch. "The Catholic Church has a tradition of standing with workers and particularly migrant workers."
 
Other speakers include Neil Jameson executive director of the Citizens Organising Foundation and a lead organiser of the Strangers into Citizens Campaign, Don Flynn, head of the Migrant Rights Network and theologian Mary Grey.

A few places are still available. Contact conference secretary Ann Kelly on admin@justice-and-peace.org.uk_ (mailto:admin@justice-and-peace.org.uk) or ring 020 7901 4864.

 The conference is organised by the National Justice and Peace Network (NJPN) and London NJPN (Housing Justice, the Roman Catholic dioceses of Westminster and Southwark, the diocese of Brentwood and the Jesuit Refugee Service). More information about NJPN is available on: www.justice-and-peace.org.uk/

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