ABSTRACT
Social movements campaigning for migrant and asylum rights and against racism that emerged in South Yorkshire drew on these political cultures, and also had an embedded popular adult education agenda. Asylum rights social movements first developed around anti-deportation campaigns and date from the late 1990s. A flood of immigration and asylum laws in the United Kingdom (UK) were created from the late 1990s to resist the increase in asylum seekers, resulting from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and from ongoing conflicts across Africa. The South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Rights Action Group sits within a network of asylum support and asylum rights organisations in South Yorkshire and, over time, has become the “political wing” and political voice of the network. Many years of sustained campaigning by British asylum rights groups and social movements, including South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Rights Action Group, has, on the surface, had little impact on the asylum regime in the UK.
