Labour MP John McDonnell has given his backing to the cleaners.

He said said: “As living wage campaigns build in strength, we are increasingly seeing the use of immigration statuses to attack workers fighting against poverty wages.

“The message is that they are happy to employ migrant labour on poverty wages, but if you complain they will send you back home.

“It is absolutely shameful.”

Yes.

One of the occupying students said: “Universities should be sanctuaries, places free of violence and aggression.

“SOAS’s reputation as a university has been tainted due to the complicity with state brutality in the arrest of the cleaners.”

Yes.