MORE labour movement spaces must give platforms for “radical truths” on attacks facing migrants, delegates at the TUC black workers conference heard on Saturday.

Seema Syeda, of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said that “it’s not just the thugs on the streets” who are inciting violence, “it’s politicians in power, right now, in government, who are supposed to be representing the labour movement, who are attacking us and our rights.”

She praised delegates for “standing up and boldly calling that out,” adding: “I really wish that more of our labour movement spaces and our national spaces would give platforms to those radical truths.

“Those voices need to be heard.”

Jonathan Kazembe, of Refugee Action, told the conference that “asylum justice is racial justice,” and that the “minimum that the UK can offer” for those like him from Commonwealth countries, that have suffered under colonialism, is “simply welcome these people.”

“The UK has hundreds of years of history that [it] cannot put away,” he said.