Ben Bradshaw and other non-allies

By Paul Canning

At a fringe meeting at the Labour Party Conference the sole reported reference to LGBT asylum in that conference occurred.

According to pinknews.co.uk, out gay Health minister Ben Bradshaw:

made reference to the successful campaign to stop the deportation of a gay Iranian man, Medhi Kazemi, and said the UK government must internationalise the fight for gay rights.

The article doesn't report further but this appears to be a pathetic defense of LGBT people. Specifically a cop-out on LGBT asylum seekers. As if the showing of flags at embassies in Poland and Lithuania excuses deporting LGBT back to countries like Iran and Uganda.

On his blog, Cosmodaddy made the following point:

[Labour has a] pathological determination to deport as many asylum seekers as possible, having either trampled on their human rights first or made it impossible to access them.

Last weekend Babi Badalov was deported back to Azerbaijan, and I want to contrast the party’s claims at its annual conference about equality and their public pledges to equality campaigners, with the disgusting reality.

Peter Tatchell has further detailed the claim vs reality paradigm that surrounds Labour with equality issues and asylum.

Throughout the past few years of shocking case after shocking case with LGBT asylum seekers, of exposes of the homophobia of the Home Office and Border Agency, of UK government effectively siding with the cover-up of violent homophobia in other countries, the silence of LGBT Labour and Lesbian and Gay Labour MPs has been deafening.