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About No Borders
No Borders is a network of groups and individuals who fight against borders and immigration controls. We believe in freedom of movement for all.
The No Borders network in Europe began in 1999, with a first trans-national meeting in Amsterdam in December 1999. Since then there have been many Europe-wide gatherings and camps, and people have started local groups from Spain to Serbia, Sweden to Turkey.
In the UK, people first used the name No Borders in London in 2005. In March 2006, the London group hosted the first UK No Borders Network gathering at The Square, a squatted social centre in Holborn. Since then, different groups and individuals have come and gone, but there has always been a UK network in one form or another.
No Borders is a network, not an organisation. There is no "general assembly", "central committee" or other centralised structure. No one can claim to speak for "No Borders" as a whole. Really, No Borders is an idea, a political position, and a name which anyone can use if you share our basic principles. That is, if you want to help create a world without borders, where no one is prevented from moving because of where you were born, or because of race, class or economic resources, or because of any other barrier imposed on us by capitalist elites and their governments and police.
People and groups in the No Border network work in different ways, with different focuses. Some of us concentrate on practical solidarity with migrants, including people without legal papers, for example by helping with legal information, safe accommodation, language skills, etc. Some of us are involved in supporting migration prisoners in "detention centres" (in other words, prisons), in resisting deportation flights, or organising resistance to UKBA (Home Office) raids and street patrols. Some of us are involved with migrant worker struggles. Some of us believe in taking direct action to attack the border system and its infrastructure. Some of us work on campaigns to draw attention to companies profiting from the border system. There are many ways to fight, and we encourage everyone to get involved in the ways they can.
No Borders is an anti-capitalist movement. Borders are created by, and serve, capitalist elites. Borders are used to divide and rule us, for example to set "citizens" competing against "illegal" workers, and to impose the law of the market. Capitalist markets, nation-states, and their borders, have grown up together in history, and still rely on each other today.
Many, though not all, people in the No Borders network also think of ourselves as anarchists. We believe that a world without borders must also mean a world without states. And we see the struggle against border controls as one part of a fight against all forms of exploitation and domination, whether that means domination by governments, companies, or in our everyday relationships. We believe in putting our politics into practice right now, by striving to organise ourselves without hierarchies or "leaders".
No Borders must be an open and diverse movement, in which everyone who shares our principles can play a part. In particular, any effective No Borders movement needs to involve the people most effected by the border system: migrants and people without papers, and people from migrant and non-European backgrounds. To make this a reality we have to tackle the borders within our movement too. We need to challenge all forms of privilege and unseen hierarchies, amongst ourselves as well as in wider society, whether based on people’s legal status, language, education, gender, race, class, or simply people’s other commitments and abilities to face different levels of risk.