‘I’m a 16-year-old orphan from an African country escaping a war and religious persecution and I have a sibling living legally in the UK. What is a safe and legal route for me to come to the UK?”
The home secretary, Suella Braverman, could not answer this question from Conservative MP Tim Loughton last November. One of the many problems with the illegal migration bill currently ricocheting its way through parliament is that it offers no answers to this question.
It was a very long week for those of us in the Lords scrutinising the bill. The government’s anxiety to push through this piece of legislation – not the first to be acclaimed as providing the answers to small boat crossings (the nationality and borders bill promised the same and failed to deliver) – has meant the Lords has been sitting into the small hours, such is the resolve in the upper house to curb the bill’s more extreme and unworkable elements, of which there are many.
“Ping pong”, as it is known, describes the process whereby the Lords amends legislation that is sent back to the Commons, which may then decide to send it back again to the Lords. This goes on until the Commons agrees with the Lords, or the Lords concedes that the democratically elected chamber should get its way.
In the case of this bill last week, 20 amendments were passed in the Lords and sent back to the Commons, where they were all effectively rejected. So back the bill came. The Lords sat well into the night and returned nine amendments to the Commons.
They had overwhelming support from across the political spectrum. They were proposed by Conservative peers, by religious leaders, including the archbishop of Canterbury, by cross-benchers and by opposition members. Peers hoped that, by offering such a solid cross-party response, these amendments would have a better chance of being accepted by MPs.
The most egregious element of this bill relates to what it calls “inadmissibility” and, most worryingly, to how inadmissibility should be applied to children, vulnerable people, including members of the LGBT community, and victims of slavery.
Inadmissibility goes to the heart of Loughton’s question to the home secretary. The bill proposes that, unless an asylum seeker arrives in the UK on what the government is calling a “legal route”, their claim for asylum should be rejected automatically and they could be sent to Rwanda. But beyond the routes agreed for Ukrainians and those from Hong Kong, there are virtually none that the government deems “legal”. That 16-year-old orphan fleeing war in Africa, whose only family is in the UK, will never be able to join their sibling. That orphan is, and will always remain, “inadmissible”.
People traffickers profit from “inadmissibility” – it keeps their awful business going. It is precisely the lack of legal routes that fuels their appalling trade in small boats. If you doubt it, then ask yourself why there are no Ukrainians or people from Hong Kong crossing the Channel in cramped and unsafe dinghies. Meanwhile, hundreds of others are drowning.
“Inadmissibility” is not only counter-productive, it has been condemned in the strongest terms by the UN high commissioner for refugees as a breach of the UK’s commitments under the 1951 refugee convention, commitments we made having witnessed the terrible suffering of refugees during and after the Second World War.
These elements of the bill, which do nothing to stop desperate people, as the number of small-boat arrivals testifies, reveal what I regrettably have concluded lies at the heart of the government’s motivation and that is, quite simply, to display indifference to the plight of the most vulnerable. The instructions from the Home Office to paint over welcome signs and pictures at a refugee reception centre in Kent where children are held – on the grounds that they were too welcoming – illustrates the government’s hostility, even towards children.
All across Europe, rightwing parties are seeking to exploit refugees for political gain, and have had some successes in France, Greece, Austria, Hungary and even Germany. In Italy, prime minister Giorgia Meloni, a former member of Italy’s neofascist party, has openly praised Rishi Sunak for his approach to immigration. This scapegoating of refugees by the extreme right is dangerous.
But I detect the British people are tiring of the rhetoric. Anecdotally, judging by my recent interactions on social media, even those usually inclined towards the government find they can no longer support deliberate cruelty. One tweet reflected the many I received when it said: “I want them all sent back but even I disagree with Jenrick – performative cruelty is not effective border management.”
That’s exactly the point. Threatening asylum seekers with unlimited detention, with removal to Rwanda, removing any chance they have of a fair hearing and even making children feel unwelcome does nothing to tackle the horrors of those drowning in the Channel. It’s a nasty bill and it won’t work.
The only answer is a Europe-wide agreement that sees all countries taking their fair share of responsibility. At home, the 180,000 asylum seekers still waiting for a decision from a dysfunctional Home Office, at enormous cost to the UK taxpayer, must have their cases heard quickly so they are allowed to work and can start contributing to the UK economy. We must maintain control of our borders and failed asylum seekers must be returned. Brexit makes such cooperation with our European neighbours harder, though not impossible.
Meanwhile, ping pong will resume on Mondaytomorrow. But even once the bill passes, the Rwanda proposal will certainly face further legal challenges that could drag on to the autumn and beyond.
Political instability, wars, religious persecution, increasing water shortages and drought are not going away and nor are the refugees they create. The sooner our politicians recognise that, rather than trying to paint over the reality, the better.
Alf Dubs is a member of the House of Lords and patron of the Refugee Council
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