Small boats crackdown is “performative cruelty”
JVL Introduction
“Here we go again” says Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council. Another attempt to further demonise those who seek asylum in Britain.
As Solomon points out, Refugee Council analysis shows that two-thirds of those who crossed last year will in fact be granted asylum “because they are refugees who need safety in the UK”.
All would be turned back forever were the illegal migration bill to be passed and implemented.
And, as Adam Bychawsk reports in openDemocracy (below), MEPs fear that this could trigger a “race to the bottom” on refugee rights among other countries.
All power to Gary Lineker for pointing out the links between language used by the government when setting out the policy and “that used by Germany in the 1930s”.
There is, of course, another way, as Solomon makes clear.
“A sensible and humane plan that focuses on compassion and competence, creating safe and orderly routes to reach the UK such as refugee visas, a fair asylum system with timely decision making, and a workable agreement with our European partners to share responsibility for all those seeking sanctuary in the region.”
Suella Braverman’s small boats crackdown is performative cruelty at its worst
UK government plans to remove ‘illegals’ will be chaotic, costly and cause untold human misery
Enver Solomon, Guardian, 7 March 2023
Announcing yet another piece of legislation – the illegal migration bill – the home secretary, Suella Braverman, said today in parliament: “If you enter Britain illegally, you will be detained and swiftly removed.”
Who are these “illegals” the government keeps referring to? They are the woman from Syria who saw her brother killed by a bomb in front of her. The Eritreans fleeing a cruel one-party state. Iranians facing persecution. Sudanese people escaping violence. And Afghans, who make up the biggest group by nationality coming across the Channel in recent months, who were unable to leave the country through the complex and failing British government schemes set up when Kabul fell to the Taliban. Half of those who came across the Channel last year were from these five countries. Applications from all those countries are granted in at least 80% of cases; and for three – Afghanistan Eritrea and Syria – it is 98%.
It’s true that in 2022, nearly 30% of boat crossings were by Albanians, for whom asylum claims are much less likely to be approved. But with issues around trafficking, blood feuds and sexual exploitation, and more than 90% of asylum claims by Albanian women and girls being approved, the situation is complex.
The reality is that of all those who came across the Channel last year, we know from our analysis that two-thirds will be granted asylum because they are refugees who need safety in the UK. They are not illegal.
But the government isn’t interested in providing protection to people who have escaped war, violence and torture by taking dangerous journeys. Desperate to be seen to be tough, it wants to treat all people seeking asylum as suspected terrorists and criminals, lock them up, and then deport them with no meaningful right of appeal.
Will it work? We know it won’t, because desperate people will take desperate measures. There are many practical difficulties, too. It’s not going to be possible to deport people back to their own country The UK government isn’t about to start returning Afghans to Afghanistan under Taliban rule, for example, or Syrians to their wartorn country or Iranians to their tyrannical rulers – so where will they go?
The Rwanda scheme is currently being challenged in the courts. But even if it does start, it’s only expected that around 200 people will be able to be transferred. And since we left the European Union there are no return deals with France or the EU.
Tens of thousands of people will be stuck in limbo – unable to be removed, their asylum claims not being processed in the UK, unable to work or access support. What’s going to happen to all them? If they aren’t in detention will they have no choice but to go underground?
The end result will be a system that is chaotic and costly – we estimate that detaining everybody for a minimum 28 days as the legislation allows will cost more than £200m, and for up to six months would cost well over £1bn, causing immense human misery. The chief inspector of prisons has pointed out that the UK has only 2,500 immigration detention places. It’s not possible to conjure up a 10- or 20-fold increase within a year or two.
The Home Office is trying its best, though, and is expected to purchase two former military bases as new detention centres. So, in effect, the British state will be warehousing many thousands of refugees in vast detention camps, trampling on their rights as fellow human beings deserving of a fair hearing and the right to asylum.
Senior Conservatives privately know it won’t work and are uncomfortable. Former leader Michael Howard was reported in the Sun at the weekend to have told a Tory party awayday that the boats crisis won’t be solved without a deal with France. Priti Patel, rather ironically, was reported in the Times to have called it “window dressing”. Don’t forget that just four years ago, when he was home secretary, Sajid Javid announced plans to end indefinite immigration detention following a damning independent report.
There is, of course, another way. A sensible and humane plan that focuses on compassion and competence, creating safe and orderly routes to reach the UK such as refugee visas, a fair asylum system with timely decision making, and a workable agreement with our European partners to share responsibility for all those seeking sanctuary in the region.
It’s not feasible to use harsh laws to tackle what is a complex problem. Like addressing climate change, the global refugee challenge requires considered, intelligent, multilateral responses, not aggressive unilateralism that seeks to pull up the drawbridge on those less fortunate than us.
The public want action to reduce dangerous Channel crossings. It also wants Britain to demonstrate competence, compassion and fairness in its response. Instead, the government has chosen a draconian form of performative cruelty that will lead only to yet more chaos, cost and human misery.
- Enver Solomon is chief executive of the Refugee Council
UK’s migrant ban will trigger ‘race to the bottom’ on human rights, MEPs warn
Adam Bychawsk, openDemocracy, 10 March 2023
Exclusive: Populists seeking to undermine Refugee Convention may be emboldened by UK plans, say EU politicians
Rishi Sunak’s plans to bar migrants who enter the UK by small boats from claiming asylum could trigger a “race to the bottom” on refugee rights among other countries, MEPs have told openDemocracy.
The Illegal Migration Bill, announced by the prime minister on Tuesday, would give the home secretary, Suella Braverman, powers to deport migrants who cross the Channel before their claims are heard. The United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees has said the proposal would be a “clear breach” of the Refugee Convention.
The bill has alarmed politicians and human rights groups in Europe, who fear that it could embolden populist political parties seeking to dismantle the right to asylum.
“This proposed law is despicable and I do fear a snowball effect. As soon as one state tramples on the right to asylum, other states are quick to follow suit,” Damien Carême, a French Green MEP, told openDemocracy.
Carême, who sits on the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, said that former footballer and sports broadcaster Gary Lineker was right to draw comparisons between language used by the government when setting out the policy and “that used by Germany in the 1930s”.
“It is political cowardice that today’s leaders dare to use this kind of rhetoric, pretending not to see the similarities between their stigmatising, dehumanising speeches, human and asylum rights violations – which were enshrined precisely at the end of the two world wars – and those that have dragged our European continent into horror. Human rights must count above all else,” he said.
Carême’s fears were echoed by Dutch Green MEP Tineke Strik, who told openDemocracy that the UK’s government’s plans “may lead to calls for undermining the Refugee Convention”.
Strik, who also sits on the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, said: “I am afraid about this because with the rise of right-wing populist parties, migration has become a popular topic with which politicians think they can easily win votes with, without caring for the fact that it may undermine the necessary societal support for refugees.
“And also this discussion distracts from what is really needed, namely the creation of a global solution and solidarity for the refugees worldwide. The Second World War has taught us that we can only address the needs of refugees if we all contribute.”
The 1951 Refugee Convention is an international agreement that sets out the rights of refugees around the world. Its main principle is that refugees have the right to protection and cannot be returned to a country where their life or freedom is threatened.
Sunak’s proposals have already been welcomed by the far right in Italy and France. Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, whose government recently banned charities from rescuing migrants at sea, said the measures were “harsh but fair” in a message on Instagram. French former presidential candidate Eric Zemmour also congratulated Sunak for his stance on Twitter.
Matjaž Nemec, an MEP for the Solvenian Social Democrats and also a member of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, said it is “extremely concerning” that the UK is diverging from international law.
“The right to asylum is one the biggest civilizational achievements and was born in Europe in the aftermath of the most brutal and bloody conflict the world has ever seen. Such a draconian step would present one of the most serious threats to civil liberties in the UK, which could indeed trigger a race to the bottom.
“It is sad to see how far the UK has fallen after Brexit moving further and further away from, until recently, never-questioned and universally shared common values,” he told openDemocracy.
Braverman was unable to give the standard formal guarantee that the plan is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights when it was presented to Parliament on Tuesday.
In a letter to MPs, the home secretary later admitted that it had “more than a 50 % chance” of being found to be unlawful.
Earlier this week, Braverman also rebutted comparisons between her new asylum policy and Nazi Germany, telling the BBC that such comments were “disappointing and unhelpful”.
The UNHCR has said that the “legislation, if passed, would amount to an asylum ban – extinguishing the right to seek refugee protection in the United Kingdom for those who arrive irregularly, no matter how genuine and compelling their claim may be.”
“The effect of the bill (in this form) would be to deny protection to many asylum-seekers in need of safety and protection, and even deny them the opportunity to put forward their case. This would be a clear breach of the Refugee Convention and would undermine a longstanding, humanitarian tradition of which the British people are rightly proud,” it added in a statement.
I think we have the makings of a true Socialist Party in Gary Lineker, Ian Wright, Alan Shearer and John Barnes. What solidarity ????
Jack T.
Yes, it’s a nice thought, but wishful thinking I suspect.
Lineker, Shearer and Wright all played and play down the centre, even if they were generally better served from the left wing than from the right wing.
Lineker also tweeted “bin Corbyn” of course.
Sadly very few of us like a country we care about being accused of anything. We all have to be the innocent victoms and not the perpetrators. It must be particularly hard for Jewish people to get past this, and its amazing that so many do. Our demagogues play on this base inclination day and night. I think that Gary Lineker’s comments would have been more useful if he had drawn attention to this sort of thing:
……..https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-government-turned-away-thousands-jewish-refugees-fearing-they-were-nazi-spies-180957324/
If Gary Lineker’s comments are disappointing and unhelpful to the wicked Suella Braverman, that’s a serious penalty goal from him! right on, Gary!
PS Twitter is surely a matter of GL’s personal life and his employer (or whatever) has no business censoring or disciplining him… or any other subordinates of this crony of a recent PM – we know how and why he got his grossly well-paid job – for which we pay! you couldn’t make it up even in a banana republic….
Many Tories and those on the far Right, used the Race Card, to get the people to vote for Brexit. I believe the Tories used the EU ‘Free Movement’ rule as a way of getting people to want to leave the EU, instead of using the rules to keep the number sustainable, they allowed around 3 million to enter over a 5 year period, knowing it would put downward pressure on wages, a massive shortage of housing, which nearly doubled rents and house prices rising to levels that made it difficult for the Working Class to buy their own home. Then, along comes Brexit and the likes of Farage and the majority of the Tory Party, using the excuse that it was the EU and its Free Movement that was the reason for the Working Class to be struggling with depressed wages and high rents, which clearly bordered on Racism, we are hearing the same language for ‘asylum seekers’ a description they never use, it’s an invasion of economic migrants, I’ve even heard the expression “gangs of crooks”, all to get a majority to support their new Laws.