In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, people in the UK were suddenly facing unemployment, stagnating wages, poverty and falling standard of living.

In an attempt to salvage financial institutions, in 2010 Conservative PM David Cameron started rolling out austerity measures that would severely limit public spending - and with it public services and vital support for those going through hard times.

At the same time, the government used a tried and tested technique to distract people from the perverse impact of austerity measures: blaming migrants for everyone’s problems.

Building on a decade of mounting hostility towards migrants, the then Home Secretary Theresa May saw it as her own mission to bring down the number of people moving to the UK.

To do this, starting from 2012 she orchestrated a plan that would, in her own words, “create, here in Britain, a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants.” The idea was that this plan would act as a deterrent, making the UK a hostile place for new residents.

The then Home Secretary, and all those that have taken her place after her, have since produced a myriad of laws aimed at making life very difficult for migrants. From making it impossible to access the welfare system, to charging astronomically high visa fees; from banning people seeking safety from working while their case is pending with the Home Office, to applications becoming incredibly, and unnecessarily, convoluted and complicated.

What’s more, millions of people became border guards overnight. Landlords had to start checking their tenants’ right to be in the UK before they could rent their home; employers had to do the same with their workforce, before hiring or renewing someone’s contract; the NHS had to charge for healthcare if their patients couldn’t prove their right to live in the UK; councils across the UK would not offer support to people facing homelessness unless they could prove they had a right to be here.

These policies’ overt aim was to make life difficult for those living in the UK without papers, but in reality the hostile environment hit most migrants - and even people who were born and raised in the UK, but didn’t look or sound white British.  

All the people who have come to Praxis over the past decade have been impacted by it, in one way or another, and many of the stories you’ll read in the next ten years will have their origin in the hostile environment.