Blog

Blogs by Don Flynn

Centre Left debates – the numbing familiarity of apparently new approaches to immigration
Don Flynn May 13, 2012 4 Comment(s)
Parties of the centre left should get a firmer grip on immigration and withhold rights from all those who fail to integrate argue contributors to an important new book on the future of social democracy. Isn’t that exactly what social democratic parties have been doing when in government in recent past decades?

The publication last month of After the Third Way – The Future of Social Democracy in Europe by the Policy Network has been the occasion for deep thought on whether the centre left is capable of pulling itself out of the ditch  it has been stuck for since the onset of the still developing economic crisis. 
Here's a question to keep you awake at night: Is Boris Johnson on the right track on immigration?
Don Flynn May 7, 2012 1 Comment(s)
MRN Director Don Flynn responds on the Guardian's 'Comment is Free' to the London Mayor's Telegraph article on what immigration means for the capital city.

Click here to go to the Guadian CiF webpage http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/07/boris-johnson-right-track-immigration
Airport check chaos - a predictable own goal from a government obsessed with control at the borders
Don Flynn May 6, 2012 1 Comment(s)
It is time we stopped kidding ourselves – the mess at our borders is a fantastic own goal scored by a government which has made too big a promise to ‘regain control over borders.’ If we want order to come back into the way we admit visitors to our country we should be aiming for lighter, rather than tougher, checks.

The much-hyped battle to ‘secure the borders of the UK’ against all the threats which foreigners are capable of posing is producing ample evidence of collateral damage to innocent bystanders. 
When immigration policy delivers yet more blows to the disabled community
Don Flynn May 3, 2012 6 Comment(s)
Poverty and disability are bad enough, but add ethnicity and immigration status into the mix and it all gets worse. A new report signposts some of the issues we should be concerned about, but we need even more evidence if we are to produce better policies.

A new report by the disabilities charity, Scope, draws attention to the greater difficulties which people from BME communities experience in living with disability as a consequence of inadequate public policies and services.
May Day 2012 – a day for internationalism and solidarity across the world
Don Flynn May 1, 2012
MRN greets all visitors to its website on the occasion of May Day 2012

There are over 200 million people across the world living as migrants – one in every 33 people globally. Just over 15 million are refugees who have been forced to flee their home countries.  The vast majority of the rest are either wage workers or members of their families.