Israel’s fortress state is the model for the UK’s new asylum policy
JVL Introduction
Jonathan Cook looks at Britain’s asylum policy and finds it woeful.
It may be that Johnson is using his Rwanda wheeze to deflect attention from other problems but, as Cook point out, there is “a growing confidence on the British right towards treating asylum seekers inhumanely”.
The government clearly wants to wash its hands of its legal obligations towards refugees by outsourcing them.
It knows that Rwanda has neither the resources nor the competence to resettle refugees and to treat them with dignity.
That, Cooks suggests, is almost the point: Johnson wants to demonstrate that post-Brexit Britain really can make its own rules, reinventing itself as the most hostile corner of Europe.
This article was originally published by Jonathan Cook's blog on Thu 21 Apr 2022. Read the original here.
Israel’s fortress state is the model for the UK’s new asylum policy
In copying an Israeli scheme to ship refugees to Rwanda, Boris Johnson’s government has turned to the world leader in keeping out ‘undesirables’
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Playing devil’s advocate here.
The Great Lakes region of Africa is one of the most dangerous places in the world, where many people have a well founded fear of death or persecution. It could, therefore, reasonably be expected to generate a lot of refugees.
Currently, anyone in that part of Africa wanting to claim asylum in Britain has to get out of that area, cross the Sahara, dodge the slave trade in Libya, cross the Mediterranean in a leaky boat, cross mainland Europe, and then cross the English Channel in a leaky boat, before finally claiming asylum in Britain.
What if they go straight to the facility in Rwanda? Its a lot safer journey, and avoids giving large amounts of money to people smugglers (which is the government’s stated aim). I know that this is precisely the opposite of what Boris Johnson and Pritti Patel are intending. But who says that governments always get what they intend?
An enlightening piece which shows that the UK has a far-right regime governed on extreme ideological principles. However, those who smugly praise themselves for voting Remain in 2015 should bear in mind that the EU’s anti-migrant policies are no better than the UK’s in any significant way. Its Frontex border enforcement thugs have ensured the deaths of many thousands of women, children and men and pushed vast numbers of others to endure lives of misery in Libyan camps.
Those who want to know more should read the Border Criminologies blog at https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog
I’m almost too angry to comment. This Tory Government is seriously Racist, they’ve proven if often enough but this truly is shoving it in our faces, they feel so secure in their position that they are stopping at nothing. We have to ask ourselves, “What is making them feel, that they are untouchable”!! Is it that they really have found a way of manipulating the Voting system for General Elections, there was talk about a Tory in control of Postal Voting and that the numbers of postal votes had nearly doubled?
Does anyone else have an idea, only in the next 12 months, millions are going to start struggling because of fuel poverty and price rises, yet the Tories have done nothing to ease the problem?