It’s Anti-Slavery Day in the UK and I am the Grinch.
Around this time each year the UK anti-trafficking community gathers to congratulate each other, celebrating a job well done while noting in prepared remarks that there is still so much to do. So sad. Shake hands, exchange business cards. Drink a last glass of free wine. See you next time.
This year I’m crashing the party to steal away the festive cheer. Why? Desperation. We so desperately need greater political imagination from the UK’s anti-trafficking establishment than what’s currently on display.
One of the main events this week, as it is every year, was the Human Trafficking Foundation’s (HTF) Anti-Slavery Day Awards in Parliament. These awards intend to showcase important contributions, but they have always been a mixed bag. Some recipients are worthy, while others merit a raised eyebrow.
This year, however, the HTF has jumped the shark entirely.
Did they seriously just do that?
‘Jumping the shark’ is a term which overly online people use to describe a scenario where a decision is made “to include something that is very hard to believe” in order to make a splash. It usually shows up when TV shows doing weird things to try to salvage their ratings. But on this occasion the HTF jumped so far past the shark that it landed in a dumpster fire.
HTF has given Jess Phillips, a Labour MP and political up and comer, their “best opinion piece” award for a blogpost on LabourList. There’s only one word to describe this now award-winning piece of writing: vacuous. It only exists because Phillips wants to claim the issue of modern slavery away from the Tories, which she says is “an issue which strikes at the core of our values”. But she has nothing – zip, bupkus, nada – to contribute.
She briefly mentions the need for an “holistic response”, yet gives no detail regarding what this would actually look like. She tries to distance modern slavery from immigration without saying how this could actually be done. She includes some boilerplate about listening to survivors, and then closes by emphasising that Labour “must commit to seeing traffickers prosecuted”. There are no references to finances or funding. No statistics. No specific policy proposals. No named departures from business as usual beyond ending the Rwanda plan. It has no substance, only buzzwords.
Changing bedfellows
There is no meritocratic universe where this deserves a prize of any sort. It’s obvious the award was given because of who wrote the piece: a Labour MP who has entered power at a time when the conservative establishment (including the HTF) is uncertain about the future of modern slavery policies. And not just any MP. Phillips now occupies a central decision-making position as parliamentary under-secretary of state for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, which is where the modern slavery portfolio now sits.
Her piece tries to imply that Labour might be doing something new and different. But judging by its contents the most likely scenario is that Labour will stay the course on most fronts. There is nothing to suggest a root and branch course correction is being contemplated, let alone developed.
Beyond ending the catastrophically stupid and immoral Rwanda plan, it’s unlikely Labour will deviate much from the Tory template they inherited. And if behind scenes rumblings are to be believed, Phillips could actually be poised to do real damage by trying to introduce the disastrous “Nordic Model”. This would make things worse for sex workers without making things better for anyone else.
We need to talk about the problems with Labour’s position, not endorse them simply because the party is now in power
This decision by the HTF is almost certainly a classic yet clumsy exercise in political signalling. Unless the HTF has truly lost all standards, it did this to cozy up to an incoming administration with whom they will have to work for many years. That’s worrying given the many problems with Phillips’ and Labour’s stance. We need to urgently and publicly talk about those problems, rather than endorse Labour’s position simply because it is now in power.
HTF’s calculation appears especially blatant on this occasion, since two of the four authors shortlisted for ‘best written opinion’ are high profile Labour politicians: Phillips, and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The piece by Brown is an anachronistic throwback to the political rhetoric popular around the 2007 Slave Trade Bicentenary. But it at least contains some statistics, trend-lines, and concrete examples, and even mentions a specific policy – human rights due diligence – which many people have been trying to push as an alternative to the toothless transparency provisions introduced in 2015. Brown does nothing groundbreaking. But it is at least a competent snapshot of conventional wisdom.
The other two people on the short-list for the prize undertook original research. They actually had something important to say regarding prisons and modern slavery policies, and Home Office failures to protect human trafficking survivors. But they did not get the award, despite being by far the more valuable pieces (among those shortlisted).
It was the Labour Party which was ultimately the real winner.
With the bar so low, it’s not hard to aim higher
Behind this Grinchy screed are a number of both serious and sincere points about the contemporary state of modern slavery policies in the United Kingdom.
Roughly ten years ago, Theresa May, another former prime minister, claimed her new Modern Slavery Act was a “world leading” model that other states should emulate. This bravado has since become a sad punchline. May’s UK model has been hollowed out and compromised on countless fronts, and racist garbage around “Asian grooming gangs” has further poisoned the well.
The UK government isn’t leading on anything when it comes to anti-trafficking work.
The Labour Party could, if it wanted, change that. It has finally taken power, and it should be using that to systematically overhaul the country’s modern slavery policies rather than promising to do more of the same, but better. That’s the whole point of taking office – to chart a new course wherever the Tories have driven off the road.
To paraphrase former President Barack Obama: Elections should actually have consequences. Phillips and her Labour colleagues should be doing more here.
I know this might sound optimistic. Keir Starmer’s government has indicated that they aren’t going to fix higher education. It has no extra funding for the NHS. Its most notable contribution to date has been to take fuel allowances away from the elderly. It is trying its best to ignore the ongoing genocide by Israel in Gaza.
Nothing Labour has done to date looks anything like a profile in courage. But I still am optimistic. Reforming modern slavery policy doesn’t require tremendous courage. Tory policies were so bad that there’s plenty of low-hanging fruit for the taking.
So here are some proposals for Phillips and her colleagues if they are short on ideas:
Reform migrant domestic worker visas so workers have the right to change employers. This used to be Labour policy. The Tories changed it. It well past time to change it back.
Allow people who have been found to be victims of modern slavery to legally work in the United Kingdom. Preventing them from working is counterproductive. It raises costs, makes it harder for them to survive, and undercuts their capacity to rebuild their lives by engaging in productive activity. They shouldn’t have to work. But there is no rational reason why work shouldn’t be a legal option.
Establish a firewall between exploited workers and immigration enforcement. Workers need to be able to report the horrible stuff that happens to them without fear of immigration detention or deportation. They don’t because those fears are entirely justified. So stop joint raids which include immigration enforcement, and place labour regulators and exploitation hotlines fully out of reach of the people doing deportations. Focus on Labour Exploitation produced a helpful explainer on firewalls, and the Migrants Rights’ Network laid out many of the problems in its report Immigration raids: an anatomy of racist intimidation. Both are worth a look.
Decriminalise sex work along the lines of the model in New Zealand. Phillips definitely isn’t going to be keen on this, but the evidence for why she should do it anyway is by this point overwhelming.
Overhaul seasonal migrant labour visa schemes. The Tories introduced these to counter the effects of their own Brexit. Change them so that migrant workers are not systematically exploited and abused.
Immediately end the ways that modern slavery laws are being used against the growing number of mostly British boys being criminally exploited in ‘county lines’. Then formulate a national strategy for addressing the issue that ensures criminally exploited children (and adults) get rights and protections as per international law. This will require grappling with the messy overlaps between victimisation and offending found in this area.
Impose penalties on companies who fail to submit annual modern slavery statements. These statements don’t work well, but companies who do submit them are entitled to be annoyed that those who don’t face no penalties at all. Binding human rights due diligence with real penalties for non-compliance would be even better. But let’s at least see a small step in the right direction.
There have recently been some moves around the Fair Work Agency which appear moderately promising if sufficient funding can be found. But after 14 years out of power, you would really hope for greater evidence of political imagination from Labour. They could show it if they had reason to try.
But politicians like Phillips aren’t going to feel such meaningful reforms are necessary if they are winning prizes for pieces that feel like they could have been written by ChatGPT.
Why try harder when you are apparently already winning?
For the purposes of transparency: Beyond Trafficking and Slavery was shortlisted for a HTF award last year, although we’re still not sure how or why (we don’t even know which article was nominated). We did not win, but our managing editor did enjoy the wine.
This piece is not retribution for the fact that we didn’t receive a trophy. The critique is sincere.
