London Progressive Journal

On a beautiful sunny day at the end of February, my colleagues from Plane Stupid and I scaled the roof of the Houses of Parliament, from where we dropped banners and paper aeroplanes made from confidential Whitehall documents. Our protest was timed to coincide with the end of the 'consultation' period over the plans for a third runway at Heathrow airport.

There are two reasons we chose to make our point in this way. The first is that Britain simply cannot afford the massive leap in greenhouse gas emissions that will arise from this planned increase in air traffic. It is not just common sense that tells us this, but very credible science that maps out the emissions trajectory that the UK will need to take in order to meet our commitments to prevent catastrophic climate change. The current plans to more than double the number of flights using Britain's airports will, on their own, scupper any chance we have of meeting the steep emissions reductions about to become law in the Climate Bill.

And this is where the second reason for Plane Stupid's campaign begins to become clear; the extraordinary level of collusion between the present Labour government and the UK's aviation industry. Because Brown's gang are well aware of the work that shows their aviation and climate policies are mutually incompatible and cannot possibly both succeed. But their response, rather than to revisit the aviation policy, has been to exclude emissions from international air transport from the targets in the Climate Bill. This choice, as well as contradicting and fatally undermining the stated purpose of the Climate Bill, also reveals a great deal about the close relationship between the Brown administration and their aviator mates.

This relationship was thrown into even starker relief by the so-called 'public consultation' process over Heathrow's expansion. As well as being barely comprehensible to an ordinary person (The Plain English campaign called for it to be withdrawn and rewritten) and, bizarrely, not containing any questions at all about climate change, it was actually impossible to say 'no' to the expansion plans by answering the questions posed in the questionnaire. None of this was an accident. Because this 'consultation' was a collaboration between the DfT and Heathrow's owners, BAA – a product of a joint enterprise called 'Project Heathrow' which was put together to push through the expansion plans no matter what. This body has worked tremendously hard to find ingenious ways to override public opinion, as well as doctoring key data on Nitrous Oxide levels in order to appear to comply with EU restrictions on local air pollution.

There are lots of good reasons not to build a third runway at Heathrow – the destruction of communities, the spreading blight of aircraft noise, the soaring and probably illegal levels of local air pollution, and the cost to the British taxpayer of subsidising yet more air travel – before we even consider the unacceptable climate change impact. But there is only one argument in favour of the plan – the economic case, and even this is looking increasingly shakey. Once again, the case rests on a set of figures drawn from a couple of economic studies that were commissioned by the DfT, but paid for by, guess who? BAA. Other economic studies examining the financial benefits of expansion at Heathrow have produced wildly different results, yet somehow this work has not been allowed to inform the decision-making process.

Gordon Brown's hilarious comment in response to our protest – that decisions in this country should be made 'in this House, and not on the roof of this House', could not have been more apt. The whole point of our action was to highlight the fact that important decisions with great significance for the public interest are not being made in the House of Commons at all, but in corporate boardrooms, by the people who stand to gain the most from these decisions, and at the expense of the rest of us, whose views seem not to matter one jot.

The wider lesson this business over Heathrow teaches us is that in order to actually win the fight against climate change, we are not only going to have to make big changes to the way we as individuals live our own lives. It is now clear that we are also going to have to actively confront powerful vested interests who have an undue influence over government policy, and will stop at nothing to prevent the kind of changes our society needs to make to become sustainable. The outcome of the Heathrow struggle will clearly signal whether or not this government is actually institutionally capable of doing what needs to be done to reduce emissions in line with the climate science.

If, as we at Plane Stupid strongly expect, Brown's government gives a green light to the third runway plans, it will be the beginning of a massive and probably unprecedented campaign of peaceful direct action and civil disobedience to prevent its construction. If our elected representatives are unable to make decisions based on the best interests of the British people over the interests of their corporate friends, then we the people will have to protect our interests from them. Plane Stupid are by no means the only ones who will be there to protect the village of Sipson from the bailiffs and bulldozers if and when they try to turn up to begin work. You should be there too, if you want to be able to look your grandchildren in the eye.

Leo Murray is a spokesman for [Plane Stupid]

Controversy over MP’s spending of Parliamentary funds has blighted the political arena so far this year. Derek Conway, Conservative MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup (pictured) was first to dominate the headlines through his employment of his son as a ‘researcher’. Conway’s son Freddie was paid over £1000 a month from Parliamentary allowances to work 17 hours a week. Although there are no rules against employing family members, the Standards and Privileges Committee found that there was ‘no record’ of what Freddie actually done, and ‘no record of what he was supposed to do’ to earn his full-time comparable £25,970.

Let’s put that into perspective. The ‘development wage’ is the term given to the pay bracket of the age group 18-21 and stands at £4.60 an hour. Considering Freddie Conway was a full-time undergraduate at Newcastle University – that would in most circumstances, given the age of the average university student put him within this particular bracket. To earn £25,970 a year on £4.60 per hour, Freddie would need to work a total of 5,645 hours a year. That works out at approximately 108 hours per week. Obviously the hourly pay that Freddie received for ‘stuffing envelopes’, as his father described the job, was much higher than the average rate.

The investigation into Freddie’s employment has ruled that his father must return £13,000 of the money paid to the student. Derek Conway has also announced that he will step down at the next election as a result of his ‘misjudgements’ in relation to this matter.

Following this unwanted attention on allowances, Commons Speaker Michael Martin has announced that there will be a review of MP’s expenses this year, much earlier than expected. To be completed by July, the review will look at ‘radical options’ and the creation of a system that will gain back public respect. Current rules give MPs the right to put forward their expense claims that are under £250 without a receipt, to prove that they made the purchase. The Commons Members Estimate Committee says that this will be reduced to £50.

Martin is no stranger to controversy himself. Mike Granett, spokesman for Martin, resigned recently over the use of taxis by Martin's wife that were paid for by Martin’s allowance. Granett claimed that he had been led to believe that Mary Martin was accompanied on the taxi journeys ‘in connection with household expenditure that supports the Speaker's duties’ by a parliamentary official. In fact she was accompanied by her housekeeper on the trips that were found to serve nothing more than ‘informal’ functions.

As well as being the Speaker of the Commons, Martin is the leader of the Commons Members Estimate Committee who will be investigating the use of MPs' allowances. He has stated that he will not step down from the position.

What was it they said about lack of public respect?

The apparent misuse of parliamentary cash illustrates the disturbing lack of respect some Members of Parliament have towards public funds. Although there are no rules governing the employment of family members – ex-Conservative Party leader Ian Duncan Smith employed his wife, the former Foreign secretary Margaret Beckett’s husband is also employed as her Office Manager - it is obvious that there needs to be greater regulation in the area if MPs want to win back public trust.

The Balkan nations share more things than they would like to admit. The fates of the nations in the supposed “powder-keg” of Europe are closely intertwined, not least through myths and cultures – Krali Marko is a hero for Serbians, Bulgarians, Macedonians; slivovica has its counterpart in rakia or raki…and of course minorities get left on the “wrong” side of the border. What the Second World War managed to achieve in Central Europe with more or less ethnically homogenous states (there are a few exceptions of course) being created thanks to a genocidal policy and mass movements both East and West in the last months of the war, it didn’t do in the region between the Black and Adriatic seas.

What runs through the mentality of the region is also, thus, nationalism. When cultures are closer than they want to admit, they accentuate the traits that are unique to them and adopt a neurotic defensive reaction – a term once used by a historian to describe Irish political culture – against their neighbours. However, as the recent example in Serbia and Kosovo shows, the problem always stems from an uneasy domestic situation. The history of the Balkans is actually littered with some surprising tolerance of minorities – Tito’s Yugoslavia was a good example; Mazower paints a picture of a heterogeneous but prosperous Salonica in his City Of Ghosts; Bulgaria saved its Jews from the Holocaust.

Yet the nineties and the first years of the 21st Century have seen the same conflicts arise again. After the horrors of the civil wars in the former Yugoslavia, many things remained unsolved – Kosovo’s independence and the consequences for the diminishing, shrinking Serbian republic; the status of the Former Yugoslav Republic Of Macedonia, poised precariously between a true independence, claims to its name by Greeks and conflicts over history with Bulgaria; and the root cause of all this – nationalism of the peculiar Balkan variety.

Names and images pop up when we think of nationalism in the Balkans – Milosevic, Srebrenica, paramilitaries, the song by Goran Bregovic – “Kalashnikov”. Most are, of course, linked with the former Yugoslavia. But there are the others, “quiet” nationalisms that are potentially as dangerous if not more. The accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union in 2007 not only brought Cyrillic, more corruption and a new Daily Mail campaign, but also enabled the creation of the Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty Party in the European parliament – a group that now doesn’t exist due to the fallout after Italian measures against Romanian immigrants prompted the Greater Romanian Party to withdraw from this coalition. And yet, the capacity for such a movement to emerge thanks to two frankly insignificant players in European politics does point to the strength of nationalism in two countries which are relatively stable by Balkan standards.

The example of Bulgaria is illustrative of the continuing problems in the peninsula. Bulgaria is a nation of nearly eight million people, with a history of toleration of minorities and with a substantial Roma and ethnic Turk population. For years, even under the Ottoman rule that the nation endured for nearly five centuries, ethnic Bulgarians and ethnic Turks could live side by side. The Bulgarian Central Revolutionary Committee, the 1870s organization for the liberation of the country, forbade Bulgarians from attacking ordinary Turkish citizens in the struggle for independence in its program.

This stability continued into the 1980s, when Todor Zhivkov, the infamous Communist ruler for the majority of the life of the People’s Republic, started a campaign for “Bulgarisation” of the Turks in Bulgaria, forcing them to change their names and resulting in almost 300,000 leaving the country. The mid-to-late '80s climate of terrorism by ethnic Turks, police actions against whole villages in their drive to “Bulgarise” them, and then the sudden collapse of the monolithic state, threw things wide open. The rampant privatisation and ineffectual government of the nineties left a legacy of division that simply did not exist before. Roma families, left without the jobs provided for them under Communism, and fell into poverty and crime; the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) monopolised the Turk vote and was an element of every coalition government since its inception; unemployment rose generally as the country experience a profound loss of identity.

It was, in short, a good climate for a latent nationalism to come to the fore – one that was present since the '80s. The National Union Ataka is the natural outgrowth of this. A party that was created only two months before the 2005 legislative elections, a coalition of insignificant right-wing and ex-Communist splinters, managed to win 9% of the popular vote in June of that year, bagging 21 seats out of 240 in Parliament. Little, you might say, but considering it was running against parties with decades-long history such as the Socialist Party (BSP) or ones that had already had a stint in office such as the National Movement Simeon II (NMSII), it was no mean feat. What is more, its leader – Volen Siderov – managed to poll 25% at the presidential elections of 2006: the only candidate apart from the winner, Georgi Parvanov, who made it to the second round (brought about by low voter turnout). For a party that is based around a strong Fuhrerprinzip, that is significant.

This use of evocative language by the author is of course, deliberate. The party has been called fascist by many, and its members do appropriate the jackbooted style of many ultranationalist groupings. A close examination of its stances, set out in the “20 Points Of ATAKA”, reveals a nationalist, populist, but not fascist party. What are its main currents? At the heart of the political program lies a statement that Bulgaria is a monolithic, one-nation state, indivisible along ethnic or religious lines. Ethnic or religious differences cannot be put above the national identification – this automatically excludes the person from the nation.

The party also attacks the MRF and the national channel’s news in Turkish indirectly by stating that the national language is Bulgarian only, and that any ethnic parties are prohibited. The party also supports an ill-defined criminalisation of verbal attacks on national “holies”. On economic issues, it supports a protectionist policy and state provision of health, social security and “spiritual and material prosperity” for all citizens. The party aims for an isolationist foreign policy, including a withdrawal from NATO, operations in the Middle East and the expulsion of US bases from national soil. Quite apart from that, unofficially but widely supported, is the inclusion of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in political decisions – a de facto merging of state and church.

What emerges is a party that cleverly combines populist policies designed to appeal to both business people and the common person on economic grounds, and a tapping of cultural chauvinism that is an expression of dissatisfactions on the part of many Bulgarians with the current state of affairs. It is easy to blame Romas for crimes and the West for poor conditions – whipping up the historical Turkish threat is also popular. Calling to spirituality, which is on the upswing amongst the traditionally conservative country, is also a good source of support. The official program of Ataka is worrying enough – it would create a state based on ethnic supremacy where other ethnic groups would not be allowed to be heard in the political process.

Privately, things are worse. The author himself has seen the graffiti – “All gypsies into soap” – and a visit to the forums of Ataka’s newspaper would reveal what its members really want. Complete social regression is the norm of the day, the ideals of Christianity imposed on all society thus actually eliminating freedom of religion; scapegoating of the traditional suspects – Romas and ethnic Turks which goes hand-in-hand with anti-Semitism (which Siderov himself is guilty of in his various books). Ataka is not a fascist party. If it was it would be easy to dismiss by people too.

It is an ultranationalist entity that has addressed real existing problems such as poverty, income disparity, crime and corruption at the highest levels of politics in radical ways – nationalisation, exclusion of foreign business in preference for domestic firms, unofficial but likely harsh actions against ethnic minorities and the branding of the current government as one of Turks and not Bulgarians. Centred around a strong leader figure with undeniable charisma and intelligence as well as a sharp tongue, rallying social conservativism, economic promises that hark back to an almost quasi-Communist state of the nostalgic yesteryear, Christianity, populist history that is directed against “those other Bulgarians – the Macedonians” the party has a strong base from which to build on.

The consequences would be disastrous, of course. Bulgaria is not faced with quite the same sectarian problems that confront Serbia, but it has a very sizable and growing Roma population while the nominally Bulgarian population is facing a demographic collapse. A Roma population that, it has to be noted, did not revert to crime when they had housing and educational and job prospects in the years of Communism. But rational debate is thin on the ground in Bulgaria – the popular media is distinctly “patriotic” as in the popular history show of Bozhidar Dimitrov that champions any Bulgarian achievement with often scant academic support, when Ataka itself has a channel and when people find it easier to blame others rather than take action themselves.

You might say that the election results show little, yet the voter turnout has always been extremely low – under 50% - and Ataka can only grow, with many of the voters who didn’t support the party in 2005, now turning towards it: the last polls done in Bulgaria shows the party second in popularity only to the ruling Socialists. When the generation of the “red grandmas” – the elderly who vote Socialist out of nostalgia and promises of social security – leaves the political scene (and with some flocking to a party that is also promising pensions), who knows what might happen? What we are facing is quite frankly a quiet nationalism rising up in a country that is, by Balkan standards, stable and on the upsurge in economic terms. A nationalism that could threaten a virtual civil war between ethnic groups. The Kosovo scenario is unlikely – there are no distinct regions in the country that could secede or are likely to do so even if ethnic Bulgarians are the minority.

There is still, of course, time. The next legislative elections will show whether the party has retained its appeal. But as long as it manages to play at its populist game while the establishment does nothing to address organised crime and corruption among its own ranks, the mentality of the population is unlikely to change. With the centre and centre-right of the political spectrum fractured in a way that we only think Communists can follow, there are few alternatives to the status quo in a political sense. Whilst everyone looks to Serbia or the Caucuses for the obvious signs of nationalism and ethnic trouble, a quiet, unfashionable force is rising in one of the nations that the EU would like to portray as a model for the Western Balkans.

And at the end of the day, as we know, the Balkan nations share many, many characteristics and traits.

The race for the Democratic nomination moved into a new phase last week with Hillary Clinton taking the Ohio primary and winning more votes in Texas - though possibly not more delegates.

This means that it's virtually assured Clinton and Barack Obama will spend the next few months developing their own new political game theory.

Will one or the other pull out in order to enhance their party's chances of reclaiming the White House or will both stay in the contest, plotting and scheming all way to the Denver convention - or even the courtrooms beyond it - on the basis that other is bound to throw in the towel for the good of the team?

It's clear to anyone with any sense that Clinton should drop out. I say that as someone who started the primaries as the sole member of the lobby group Kucinistas for Clinton - I was supporting Dennis Kucinich to the extent that it meant anything but believed that Clinton was the best-placed "mainstream" candidate to beat the Republicans.

I'm happy to admit that this initial hunch was completely wrong. Of the two centrist candidates, Clinton's run a surprisingly shambolic campaign and Obama's run a surprisingly good one.

Now, there's no doubt that Obama is the most likely candidate to defeat John McCain in November.

But you don't generally end up being a serious candidate for high office if you're the kind of person who can accept that the best course of action is to step aside and let someone else get the gig. Even if the someone else in question has a policy platform that's, ultimately, very similar to your own.

Having put up with 30 years of spousal philandering in pursuit of political power, it'll take a lot more than the possibility of handing the Republicans the presidency to convince Clinton give up on what, realistically, is her only big chance to take the top job.

The Democrats failed to kick out Boy George in 2004 partly because they didn't manage to find one plausible candidate. It's possible that they'll lose to McCain this year because they're cursed with having two.

The government changed tack on ID cards this week.

It has changed the policy but there has been a definite shift from "if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear" to "wouldn't it be so much easier if you didn't have to fill in all those forms."

It's a change of tack that suggests that the Irn Broon may not be quite the numbskull that he's spent the last six months convincing us that he is.

In theory, I certainly would find it a lot easier if all the wide range of identity checks that I need to get done in my personal and professional life could be replaced by the presentation of one ID card.

Whatever my ideological position on who should and shouldn't hold data on whom, the reality is that loads of private and public-sector organisations hold loads of information on me already.

What I want, as a citizen, is for the method by which the state holds data on me to be as positively useful to me and as unlikely to be misused by the state as possible.

The problem is that, on a practical operational level, the words "massive central database" fill me with dread.

Even if you believe that they have broadly positive intentions, there's a big question mark over whether this government, or any government, is capable of maintaining an information system of the scale proposed without cocking it up.

I'd like it to be easier for me to stroll into a bank and open a new bank account in my name, but I don't really want it to be easier for someone else to walk into a bank and open a bank account in my name.

And, beyond the question of the state's ability to prevent our data falling into the wrong hands - obviously a fairly big issue in itself - there are the questions about the underlying politics.

To what extent are Irn Broon and his cronies aiming to use ID cards to stifle legitimate political dissent, invade our privacy and restrict the provision of benefits and services to people who need them most?

There could be acceptable answers to these questions, but they're better that the current "don't worry, trust us, everything's going to be all right."

This article first appeared in the Morning Star newspaper.

A standard response of politicians of all stripes to criticism is to say that the criticism is based on data which is out of date, and that the issues referred to have been addressed. The Academies issue is no exception. Any politician these days will admit that the Academies program was a shambles and many of the sponsors were shysters, but now, they will insist, the whole act has been cleaned up. In West Sussex, for example, instead of some second-hand car salesman they have the services of an educational body with a “proven track record” and the Local Authority is itself involved in the bid.

The reality is that the educational body in question is the Woodard Corporation, which has a “proven track record” of running elitist religious schools. When a meeting of 150 parents and teachers was held to discuss the academy bid they contemptuously refused to send anybody to speak to them. They would sooner take advice from their servants than from parents or teachers.

The Local Authority may have one representative on the governing body but the unelected Woodard Corporation will have as many as it wants.

If you have concerns about your local school you can hold the local authority to account. The religious foundations are answerable only to the Almighty and the private companies are only answerable to their shareholders.

Far from being benevolent institutions aiming to help the community, the sponsors get the control of a £20million school for £2 million. They can (and do) then use this patronage to hire consultants of their choice at a fee of their choosing and to opt for educational suppliers of their choice – money no object.

Unusually, all of the educational unions are united on this issue. There is an anti-academies alliance which you can contact if an academy is proposed in your area (and it will be). Give them a ring on 07528 201 697 or email office@antiacademies.org.uk. Their website is http://www.antiacademies.org.uk/index.php.

Lord Goldsmith unveiled his report on British Citizenship on Tuesday this week. He has raised calls for a ‘National Day’ as a public holiday, an updated national anthem and the compulsory swearing of allegiance to the Queen by students and legal immigrants.

The former Attorney General claimed that these measures would help to alleviate the “crisis of national identity” and encourage a “sense of belonging”, particularly in newcomers to Britain and to children. But why do we need this sense of national identity in the first place? How does this claimed lack of a national identity actually affect the everyday lives of the British people?

The answer is not very much at all. In fact it is a blessing for Britain not to have inherited the superficial and empty patriotism that is found in many of the ‘newer’ countries such as the United States. Their blind indoctrination, directed at symbols such as the flag and constitution, whilst holding their federal country together, are also a root cause of their jingoistic approach to foreign policy and arrogance in dealing with foreigners, something that Britain has mostly managed to shake off since the fall of the Empire. It is not uncommon for US citizens to exclaim wildly that their country is the greatest in the world, but I very much doubt that the majority of them could name sound reasons as to why, without citing their supreme position on the international stage.

The benefits of such empty and unthinking patriotism include the way that the USA can think of itself as a nation, very much unlike other countries with federal structures, most notably Germany, Italy and even Spain, which still harbour ancient inter-regional tensions.

Britain however, is not a federal state. Some fear the possible break-up of the Union, with an increasingly nationalistic Scotland, and the acceleration of devolution in the past decade. Yet a top-down government-imposed initiative to increase Britishness will only aggravate Scottish and Welsh anti-unionist sentiment, even if it serves to satisfy monarchist conservatives in the short-run.

British politicians should come to recognise that Britain cannot be so easily summarised. It is no wonder that Conservative proposals for a written constitution were met with such widespread resistance. Any attempt to summarise a nation that has been transformed within the last fifty years into a multicultural, pluralist society, either within a written set of rules, or within an empty oath, is doomed to failure or insignificance.

We should stick to the diverse national identity that we already have, revelling in its nostalgic and meaningless imperial connotations, instead of attempting to modify it towards a certain aim: presumably the myth that we need greater “social integration”. Britain should stop trying to act like an immature newly-founded country, and quietly celebrate its complex and diverse culture simply by not celebrating it.

On Wednesday, Londoners gathered at Parliament Square to protest against the deportation of London graduate Guy Njike back to Cameroon, where he faces torture.

A protestor dressed up as Lady Justice in a white robe and held unbalanced weighing scales. Other protestors dressed up as security officials escorting a blind-folded protestor in hand-cuffs. This was only one of numerous protests and actions the campaign to stop the deportation of Guy Njike has organized since he was first arrested on 11 February.

Last week, students at University College London at their student union AGM voted overwhelmingly in support of a motion to Stop the Deportation of Guy. Television comedian Mark Thomas has also expressed his support and signed a petition to the Home Secretary to stop the deportation. The petition has so far gathered over 1,800 signatures.

The effort to deport Guy back to Cameroon is not the only attempt by the Home Office to send victims of torture, who are seeking refuge in the UK, back to an increasingly deteriorating human rights situation in Cameroon.

Bruno Mejiako Tcheuleu, who was also tortured and imprisoned in Cameroon, is facing deportation this Monday, 17th March. He is currently detained in Dover Immigration Removal Centre. Bruno has not yet had a chance to see his daughter Tcheuleu, born on the 2nd January 2008 in London, as he was arrested when his partner was five months pregnant. If Bruno is deported on Monday he might never see his family again.

In recent weeks Cameroon has seen an escalation of violence. Riots broke out in the economic centre Douala in the west of Cameroon on 25th February, and reached the capital Yaoundé and other cities. People protested against rising fuel and food prices as well as the attempt by President Paul Biya to change the constitution in order to participate in the 2011 elections. Officials in Cameroon say that 24 people were killed in the riots, however human rights groups say the death toll is much higher.

Liam Byrne, Minister of State for Borders and Immigration, seems to have no plans to stop deportations to Cameroon. When asked about reviewing the deportation policies to Cameroon by Labour MP Kerry McCarthy in Parliament on 4th March, Byrne said that his agency “enforces the removal of Cameroonian nationals who we are satisfied are not in need of protection.”

Just how much can we trust the Home Office to get such a crucial matter as the protection of victims of torture right? On 10th March the Guardian revealed that another torture-survivor from Cameroon is now receiving £15,000 in compensation for unlawful detention by the immigration authorities. The woman, who can only be identified as PB, had suffered torture in Cameroon, including being kicked, slapped and beaten with electric cables. Yet on arriving in the UK she was detained, denied adequate treatment and had her claim for asylum rejected. It took a Judicial Review to bring this outrageous treatment of PB by the immigration authorities to light and get the decision to deport her overturned.

One day after PB’s case was revealed on 11th March the US State Department published a report on Cameroon stating that the government's human rights record remained poor, and it continued to commit numerous human rights abuses. According to the report, security forces in Cameroon engaged in torture, beatings, and other abuses, particularly of detainees and prisoners. Prison conditions in the country are harsh and life-threatening.

Emily Pearce studied with Guy Njike for a Masters in Human Rights. At the protest to stop Guy's deportation Ms Pearce said: “The human rights situation in Cameroon has deteriorated in recent weeks. It is not safe to deport Guy and others, where they will be under threat of imprisonment and torture. The Home Office tells us it wants to build a fair, just and tolerant society. It’s time the Home Secretary takes these words seriously and lets Guy stay here with us.”

If you want to help with the campaign to stop the deportation of Guy Nijike sign the online petition: 'Stop the Deportation of Guy' Petition