What We Can Learn From Belfast About Winning Change For Migrants and Refugees. By Kojo Kyerewaa

Kojo Kyerewaa is the National Organiser at Black Lives Matter UK.

I have the great privilege of leading the group I co-founded Black Lives Matter UK as a paid job for just over two years now. 10 years ago when we started, the goal was to conduct high profile protests to change the British conversation on race and migration.

That national conversation has changed since then but not in the way we intended. 

In May 2025, Keir Starmer (remember him?) as the then Prime Minister unveiled Labour's Immigration White Paper with language that his own backbenchers compared to Enoch Powell. By November, when the Home Secretary announced further asylum reforms, Tommy Robinson posted his verdict: 'The Overton window has been obliterated, well done patriots.'

He is not wrong. In six months, the far-right went from agitating for policy shifts to publicly claiming credit for it. A key reason being that they have taken community organising more seriously than many of those who claim to defend migrants and their rights.

The migration and refugee charity sector has been lobbying Westminster for decades. Yet each Immigration Act has become more restrictive. Spending enormous resources to gain access with backbenchers and parliamentary committees has not translated into influence in government. The Rwanda scheme was stopped by the courts - and those legal challenges were funded by charities. But that was a defensive victory, not a proactive one. Charity-led advocacy and legislative change have greatly reduced child immigration detention since the 2010 pledge to end it. However detention has never been abolished, and in 2023 the government briefly legislated to expand it to indefinite detention before campaigners forced a repeal in 2025.

Charities need relationships with the government but they should not confuse access with power. Meaningful relationships are based on shared commitment; without that someone is just being used. People seeking safety cannot depend on Labour to defend their rights. I’m not asking all in the sector to abandon constructive dialogue but rather for some who are well placed to pivot more towards effective community organising. Some of you already fund or do both actions. This is about why the ratio needs to shift.

The Labour Government: Not the Ally You Think

I know the shared analysis in the sector is that Labour is an ally for migrant rights. I want to challenge that.

Labour's 2026 Immigration Bill has been condemned by frontline women's organisations, coordinated by LAWRS and Southall Black Sisters, for the harm it does to migrant women.

Though the Windrush scandal was started by the Conservatives, Labour in government has not resolved it. We know that at least 66 people died waiting for compensation. Black Lives Matter UK has been leading a coalition of racial justice groups with survivors to demand change. We've had several meetings with Reverend Clive Foster, the Independent Windrush Commissioner. Since engagement, we’ve seen that the government has since sped up payments and added redress for lost pensions but they have not acted on our core demand for guaranteed free legal assistance. We know from the evidence that people who get legal advice receive far higher awards than those who don't. Listening does not guarantee action. Ameliorating harm is not the same as ending it.

Perhaps some of you think Andy Burnham presents a significant shift. But we know he has publicly called for the law to change to strip and deport British citizens based on criminality. A legal change that could never be imposed on white British citizens. It is a gift to the far-right.

Labour is not the far-right of course. But they are shaping the terrain the far-right operates on. By adopting anti-migrant frames, they legitimise the very narratives we are trying to combat.

We need to build power that does not depend on who is in government. That is what community organising builds.
What Community Organising Actually Looks Like

Let me be clear about what I mean by community organising. I do not mean community events, open days, or awareness-raising. I mean strategic and well-designed work that builds relationships, develops leaders, and creates collective power.

This is not abstract theory, this work is based on tried and tested models:

• Gordon Allport's contact theory shows that prejudice can be reduced when different groups have sustained, structured contact under specific conditions: equal status, common goals, inter-group cooperation, and institutional support.

• Jane McAlevey's Organising for Power model is a globally recognised training programme that has reached over 10,000 activists in 70 countries. I’ve been working with GMB organisers and we use it with our Anti-Racist Movement (ARM) organisers across the country. It trains people to build power as leverage to get what we need. It is about being useful and dangerous to the political class.

This is inherently more democratic than lobbying. It builds power from the ground up, not from Westminster down.

Let me give you concrete examples of what this work achieves and what happens when it is absent.

England, August 2024. 

Far-right riots targeted asylum hotels across the country. At the Holiday Inn Express in Rotherham, hundreds of rioters stormed the hotel, started fires, and trashed the building. Asylum seekers including age-disputed children and vulnerable people with trauma diagnoses were left to put out fires themselves. Hotel staff had been evacuated within hours, but asylum seekers were not.

The sector response was reactive and institutional. 242 charities signed a statement condemning violence. Over 100 frontline-sector organisations wrote to the Home Secretary. Some charities closed their doors entirely over safety fears. Staff and volunteers faced racial abuse on public transport.

The dominant mode was protection and retreat; letters to ministers, statements, and closing doors. The organising infrastructure to mobilise communities simply did not exist.

Belfast, June 2026. 

Masked youth and men set cars and buildings alight. The violence has been described as a "race-based pogrom".

The response was community-led. Anaka Women's Collective, a grassroots group incubated by the Irish NGO, Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR), organised a fundraiser that raised over £150,000 in a few days for emergency accommodation, transport and supplies. They housed tens of people displaced by the attacks. Community organisations across Belfast found temporary accommodation for an estimated 300 to 600 people. A local migrant support group reported a significant rise in volunteers wanting to help. For every person seeking help, dozens came forward offering practical support; school runs, grocery deliveries, other aid.

The difference was community based infrastructure. In Belfast, ARM member, Migrants Organise, had been training some of Anaka Women's Collective migrant organisers for years as part of their Solidarity Knows No Borders network. Anaka and PPR had built relationships, trust, and capacity before the crisis hit. When the firebombing came, they were ready.

In July 2026, during the Anti-Racist Movement national event we heard from Anaka Women’s Collective organiser called Kenny. She told our activists that it is "boring work" of administering English classes, art and beauty classes that actually save lives.

That impact was much more significant than any charity lobbying the Northern Ireland Executive.

This is smart and effective use of resources. This is building the infrastructure that makes communities resilient, and that makes far-right violence less powerful and less possible.

The Anti-Racist Movement: Our Response

We are so invested in this work that we formed the Anti-Racist Movement, bringing together the leadership and resources of Black Lives Matter UK, Migrants Organise, Right to Remain and Maslaha. The aim of ARM is to use community organising strategies to build power in multi-ethnic working class communities towards a dignified society. The test we approach any policy is: does it uplift people's dignity or diminish it? We are universalist because we believe in the worth of everyone.

BLM UK learned in 2020 that mobilising alone is not enough. Without organising and retaining activists, we saw the far right emboldened. Migrants Organise has spent decades building migrant organisers. Right to Remain uses legal knowledge as the foundation of grassroots power. Maslaha brings deep experience with marginalised communities across the North of England and in prisons. ARM provides strategic and infrastructural support to local groups building relational power in their communities. We are building a network of mutual protection to defend Black and migrant communities and create anti-racist and life-affirming futures. Ones where all our humanity is cherished and protected.

I understand the objection: 'Community organising is slow, expensive, and unproven at scale.'

It feels slow because we must take people seriously to establish trust. That is why this should have started yesterday. Lobbying has delivered diminishing returns. Community organising is not only generative, it transforms new people into capacity builders and becomes a force multiplier. Reaching more people with relatively similar investment by building lasting relationships and infrastructure rather than producing one-off reports and policy briefs. Belfast proves organising is effective and efficient.

Consider that according a 2025 Migration Exchange report, the 92 charities - just 10% of the sector - with incomes over £500,000 control 74% of the resources. Meanwhile, 62% of core charities survive on under £100,000, and 40% on just £2,000 to £25,000.

If the sector wants different results, it must resource different strategies. As I said at the start, this is not either/or. It's a rebalancing, some resources moving from Westminster lobbying to community organising, from professional media campaigns to local community organising initiatives. The times are urgent.

The far-right has taken community organising more seriously than we have. They have built relationships. They have mobilised communities. They have shifted the Overton window.

The sector needs to do the same. Not to compete with them on their terms but to win democratic pluralities for migrant rights. Without that work, we cannot win the public opinion that makes policy change possible.

The far-right will not be beaten by a better policy brief. It will be beaten by communities that know each other, trust each other, and are organised to defend each other.

That is what community organising builds. That is what the Anti-Racist Movement is building. That is what foundations and trusts should be funding. Let's build a future towards dignity not despair.