We are a small group of campaigners made up of people who have experience of living in the asylum system and allies who stand in solidarity. We come together on a regular basis to plan and carry out actions in the West Midlands to Lift the Ban on the right to work for people seeking asylum. Currently, almost everyone applying for asylum in the UK is banned from getting a job, with applications for the right to work only open to people who’ve been waiting for a decision for over 12 months. Even then, the only jobs people can take up are those on the immigration salary list – a highly limited list of just 23 specialist professions, including classical ballet dancer. The Lift the Ban campaign calls for the wit time to be reduced to 6 months and there to be no restrictions.
We first came together in December 2024 to make handcrafted Christmas cards to send to local MPs in the West Midlands. In the cards we urged them to persuade the Government to lift the ban on working for people seeking asylum. This was covered in local media.
February – Three members of the group joined the national campaign action in London where a large banner was unfurled in Parliament Square, while dressed up in clothing relating to various professions.
March – We came together in Coventry to repeat the London action if not on smaller scale, we were very passionate and vocal! One of our members made banners especially for the action.
June – We headed off to the Malvern Hills to go out on a High Street challenge. This involves speaking to independent business owners about the campaign, the benefits of lifting the ban and asking them to support the campaign by putting up a sticker or poster in their window or sign up as a business ally. We had a very supportive business in Bar Limon, the owner, Lucy Dunlop let us use the restaurant as a base, fed us well and spoke to the media about the campaign. Thank you to Malvern Welcomes Refugees for being our guides around the town centre. Afterwards we went up into the hills…
September – we attended the New organising Conference where we ran a workshop.
October – we headed out to Kings Heath in Birmingham to finish off our campaign work doing a High Street Challenge. Thank you to the All Saints Centre for providing a base and feeding us in their café!…
It has been a great year, now, onwards to 2026…
