Is the UK a “soft touch” for migrants and refugees? Does the government need to take a tougher stance? The answer, in my view, is a resounding “no”. The UK’s treatment of migrants and refugees is already unwelcoming, and the bill currently passing through Parliament will make it even harsher.
In recent months, the very visible spectacle of people
crossing the English Channel in small boats has exacerbated anxieties about migration.
Take a look at this newspaper article from November 2021, “Tory MPs tell PM to
get a grip on Channel crossings issue”:
Tory MPs have warned Boris
Johnson to get a grip on the number of migrants crossing the Channel amid fears
the issue is costing the party votes.
Hundreds of people, including
children, made the crossing over the weekend despite freezing temperatures,
prompting angry backbenchers to demand the Government take tougher action.
Several Conservatives have insisted that the issue of migrants arriving on the south coast is the single biggest topic coming up on the doorstep, sparking fears that the party could lose crucial votes if it is deemed to be “soft”. […]
Polling […] yesterday showed that
55 per cent of the public, and 77 per cent of Tory voters, believe the Government
is “too soft” when it comes to migrant crossings.[1]
There’s something both chilling and depressing about this article.
It’s the juxtaposition of extreme human misery – people sufficiently desperate
to risk their lives and those of their children by crossing a busy shipping
channel in freezing temperatures – with extreme indifference to this misery –
the “angry backbenchers” who see these people only as a political problem.
There’s nothing new here. For well over a century, pressure
of this kind has influenced government policies on asylum and migration. When Jews
escaping pogroms in Eastern Europe began to settle in London’s East End and
elsewhere from the late nineteenth century, hostile reactions from the public, press
and politicians led to the Aliens Act 1905, which aimed to limit the number of poor
and Jewish migrants entering the UK. Numerous other pieces of anti-immigrant and
often racist and/or anti-Semitic legislation followed. Winston Churchill – the
‘Greatest Briton’ of all time, according to a BBC poll in 2002 – voted against
the 1905 act,[2] but
later proposed “Keep England white” as a campaign slogan, and argued that
restricting immigration from the Caribbean was “the most important subject
facing this country”.[3]
Today’s Conservative government is responding to current
concerns about immigration with its own new law, the Nationality and Borders
Bill, currently at the committee stage in the House of Lords.[4]
The bill has come under severe criticism from various quarters. The Joint
Committee on Human Rights (a committee bringing together members of both Houses
of Parliament to scrutinize legislation) has criticized it as incompatible with
the UK’s human rights obligations.[5]
Several UN experts have signed a statement declaring that it undermines the
UK’s commitment to international law (particularly with regard to assisting the
victims of trafficking) and increases the risk of discrimination.[6]
And the charity Refugee Action has called it the “Anti-Refugee Bill”, and “the
biggest attack on the refugee protection system that we have ever seen”.[7]
So what exactly is wrong with this proposed law? Firstly, it
makes it an offence (punishable by up to four years’ imprisonment) for anyone
who requires a visa to knowingly enter the UK without one. Yet people fleeing
from persecution or war may not have the leisure to apply for a visa before
leaving. There may not even be a British embassy to apply to – there is none in
either Afghanistan or Syria, for example.
More importantly, though, the chances of obtaining leave to enter the UK
are slim. There’s no such thing as a visa for the purpose of claiming asylum,
so for most people who don’t hold a first-world passport and don’t have a job
or course of study to go to, a visitor visa is the only option. But the rules
for visitor visas are geared to exclude anyone who might conceivably not want
to return home when the visa expires. Applicants have to supply a substantial
body of documentation proving their ties to their home country, financial
resources and employment. In the period from 2016-2020, well over half of all
visitor visa applications from citizens of Afghanistan, Eritrea and Syria were
refused.[8]
Secondly, the bill states that anyone with a “connection to
a safe third state” is ineligible to apply for asylum; applications from such
people will be deemed “inadmissible”, with no right of appeal. Such a
connection is considered to exist if someone has travelled through a country where
they could have claimed asylum. This means that anyone who comes to the UK via
Europe will have their application for asylum rejected automatically. And since
no one is allowed to board a flight for the UK without the documents required
to enter the country – airlines face severe fines for any such passengers –
this effectively makes all routes to the UK either inadmissible or illegal. The
only exception is official resettlement programmes, but these are extremely
limited in scope.
In themselves, these new rules will probably not stop people
coming to the UK. But the bill has a provision for that. It explicitly
distinguishes between two classes of refugees. Group 1 are those who have “come
to the United Kingdom directly from a country or territory where their life or
freedom was threatened” (essentially impossible, as outlined above), and who,
if they have entered unlawfully, “can show good cause for their unlawful entry
or presence”. All other refugees are in Group 2. The bill authorizes the Home
Secretary or any immigration officer to treat these two groups differently in
terms of how long they are allowed to stay, whether they can have any recourse
to public funds, and whether their family members will be allowed to enter or
remain in the country.
The Refugee Council is particularly critical of this part of
the bill, since removing refugees’ rights to family reunion eliminates one of
the few safe routes to the UK for women and children who have been stranded in
war zones or refugee camps.[9]
It is worth noting that while the majority of refugees who arrive by boat are
men, most of the adults who arrive via family reunion are women.[10]
Another key element of the bill is tucked away at the end in
a section on “maritime enforcement”. This is the infamous “pushback” policy, giving
immigration officers the power to turn back boats containing migrants, using
force if necessary. The bill also stipulates that immigration officers will not
be liable in any criminal or civil proceedings for any actions they carry out
in this context, provided they acted “in good faith”. Parliament’s own Joint
Committee on Human Rights has severely criticized this section of the bill because
it risks endangering the lives of those in small and unseaworthy vessels, thus failing
to protect an essential human right – the right to life.[11]
It also violates the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which enshrines the
obligation to rescue anyone in danger at sea.
Another sinister aspect of the Nationality and Borders Bill
is that it eliminates the existing rule that asylum seekers may not be removed
from Britain while their case is being examined. Instead it states that an
asylum seeker may be removed to a safe third country. This may sound innocuous,
but it paves the way for the possible future establishment of offshore asylum
processing or detention centres like those used by Australia. A recent
newspaper article reported that ministers were “ready to provide hundreds of
millions of pounds to any country willing to host a processing centre”.[12]
Countries approached so far include Albania, Rwanda and Ghana. It is easy to
see why the Home Office likes the idea of offshoring asylum procedures. For one
thing, it would prevent refugees from gaining a foothold in British society and
building up the years of residence that might eventually earn them the right to
stay. For another, it would remove the treatment of asylum seekers from the
scrutiny and interference of well-meaning British citizens and charities.
All in all, then, this is a bill that is fundamentally
hostile towards migrants and refugees. It may not make much difference to the
numbers arriving on Britain’s shores, but it will make the lives of those that
do arrive, and of the wives and children they may have left behind, much more
difficult.
In their fear of being thought “soft”, British governments
have not only taken a harsh stance towards migrants on British soil, they have
also pressured France to take a harder line on people gathering in Calais while
waiting for a chance to cross the Channel. In Fortress Europe: Dispatches
from a Gated Continent, [13]
Matthew Carr describes his first-hand observations of the cruel and systematic harassment
of migrants by the French authorities: arresting them as they queue for food,
emptying their water supplies, confiscating their blankets and sleeping bags,
destroying their tents, evicting them from whatever shelter they have managed
to find. Carr speaks to the deputy mayor of Calais, who assures him this
approach is being carried out in consultation with the UK Border Agency.[14]
In an effort to win votes by taking a visibly tough stance
on migration and asylum, successive British governments have built up an
environment in which migrants in general, and especially those seeking asylum,
are treated with deep suspicion. The underlying assumption is that most of
those seeking to enter the UK are not genuine refugees, fleeing for their
lives, but “economic migrants”, looking to improve their living standards.
Is it actually possible to make a clear distinction between refugees
and migrants? Some argue that it is: “Migrants are lured by hope; refugees are
fleeing fear.”[15] I’m
not sure that the distinction is quite so clear. Natural disasters, weak or
corrupt governments, political and economic instability, crime, political or
religious repression, persistent discrimination, the fear of violence, the
actual experience of violence: all of these are things that might make people leave
their country and seek a safer, less precarious existence elsewhere. They may
not qualify for the narrow definition of “refugee” set out in the Geneva
Convention – someone who has fled their country due to a “well-founded
fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership
of a particular social group or political opinion”– but that does not make
their need less pressing.
How do we decide whose reasons for migrating are acceptable,
and whose are not? Who should be allowed the chance of a new life in the UK?
This is an exceptionally difficult question, and I don’t have an answer. But
simply keeping everyone out and allowing no one to seek refuge can’t be the
solution. On each one of those little boats bobbing across the Channel there
will be people who have endured unimaginable hardships, both in their own
country and on their journey to northern France. They’ve made the hard decision
to leave behind their home, their language and culture, families and friends;
they’ve suffered hunger and thirst, heat and cold, terror and hopelessness;
they’ve been at the mercy of people smugglers and other criminals, and they’ve probably
been mistreated by the police and border forces of various countries.
I can see that simply opening the UK’s borders and welcoming
everyone who wants to come here isn’t realistic, yet surely there must be a
middle way between this and the hostile, punitive attitude that is currently in
place and will be further entrenched by the new bill? It seems to me that what
is needed is not a tougher stance, but a kinder one. More compassion, more imagination,
and more empathy.
A bit of reading might help. Literature has to be one of the
best ways to see things from another point of view. Let’s get our kids reading
Benjamin Zephaniah’s Refugee Boy or Morris Gleitzman’s Boy Overboard;
let’s get our MPs reading – for example – The Beekeeper of Aleppo
(Christy Lefteri) or American Dirt (Jeanine Cummins). Maybe then those angry
backbenchers could return to their constituents’ doorsteps with a different
message. Maybe they could start to talk to voters about why they fear migrants,
and try to allay those fears rather than falling over themselves to confirm them.
I’m not holding my breath, but it’s something to work
towards.
 |
| Photo: Middle East Monitor |
[1]
The i newspaper, 21 November 2021.
[2] At
the time he praised “the old tolerant and generous practice of free entry and
asylum to which this country has so long adhered and from which it has so
greatly gained”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_Act_1905
[3]
Quoted from Maya Goodfellow, Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became
Scapegoats (London: Verso, 2019), p. 50.
[5] https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/93/human-rights-joint-committee/news/159292/new-powers-to-pushback-and-criminalise-channel-crossings-breach-uks-human-rights-obligations-jchr-finds/
[7] https://www.refugee-action.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/All-Punishment-No-Protection-Report.pdf
[8] https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/39579/pdf/
[9] https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/government-plans-will-all-but-destroy-main-safe-route-out-of-conflict-for-women-and-children-at-risk-warns-refugee-council/
[10] https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/39579/pdf/
[12]
The i newspaper, 18 January 2022.
[13]
London: Hurst & Co., 2012.
[14]
Carr, Fortress Europe, p. 129.
[15]
Alexander Betts and Paul Collier, Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee
System (London: Allen Lane, 2017), p. 30.
