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THE UK’S IMMIGRATION policy is not about “saving refugees’ skins, it’s about saving this Government’s skin”, a charity has said, after it was revealed Priti Patel overruled the concerns of civil servants to push ahead with the controversial plans.
As part of the plan designed to curb migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats, those who are deemed to have entered Britain by unlawful means since January 1 may be sent to Rwanda where they will be permitted to apply for asylum in the African country, the Home Secretary and Prime Minister announced earlier this week.
But the policy has drawn criticism from opposition parties and charities, and the PA news agency has confirmed the Home Secretary took the rare step of issuing a ministerial direction to overrule concerns of civil servants about whether the concept will deliver value for money.
Some Conservative MPs have loudly backed the plans, claiming the small boats issue is of importance to constituents.
But Robina Qureshi, director of the refugee homelessness charity Positive Action in Housing, said: “The refugee policy of this country should be clear by now.
“It’s not about saving refugees’ skins, it’s about saving this Government’s skin.
“If the refugee is white European, give (some of) them a route to safety. If the refugee is brown or black, send them to Rwanda regardless.
“There is no legal route to the UK. This is the road to fascism.”
However, the Home Office and Patel have defended the move.
Patel said she expected other countries to follow the UK’s example, while the Home Office insisted its approach was not in breach of refugee agreements.
Earlier, former child refugee and Labour peer Alf Dubs said ministers would face opposition in the Lords over the plan.
In an interview with The Guardian, Lord Dubs said the Government was attempting to “ride roughshod” over international agreements.
He said: “I think it’s a way of getting rid of people the Government doesn’t want, dumping them in a distant African country, and they’ll have no chance of getting out of there again.
“I think it’s a breach of the 1951 Geneva conventions on refugees. You can’t just shunt them around like unwanted people.”
Speaking to Times Radio on Saturday, shadow prisons minister Ellie Reeves said: “The UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) has come out really, really strongly condemning the Government’s proposals, as have many organisations, and it seems the Government’s own civil servants have expressed huge misgivings about the plans, which seem to be completely misguided.”
The Labour politician said: “The Government is going to be paying £120 million up-front before any asylum seekers will be sent to Rwanda.
“Asylum seekers are saying it won’t deter them from crossing the Channel.
“We are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis so it doesn’t seem the right way to be spending money on an unethical and unworkable scheme that won’t deter people from coming over.”
She later added: “The whole system needs looking at again, so rather than making sweeping statements – these announcements that are completely unworkable and incredibly expensive – what the Government actually needs to do is get to grips with the system and put in place a system that actually works, increase prosecutions and clamp down on criminal gangs.”
But Patel said Denmark could be among those to reproduce the UK Government’s “blueprint”.
“There is no question now that the model we have put forward, I’m convinced is world class and a world first, and it will be used as a blueprint going forward, there’s no doubt about that,” Patel said.
“I would not be surprised if other countries start coming to us direct on the back of this as well.”
The Home Secretary said Copenhagen was in talks with Rwanda as well, adding the Council of Europe “have also basically said they are interested in working with us”.
But Lord Dubs, who came to the UK from then Czechoslovakia on one of the Kindertransport trains in 1939, told The Guardian there would be legal challenges and opposition by peers.
“If (Patel) says she’ll get rid of the ‘lefty lawyers” claims, well, I think she may have another thing coming. My understanding is that they’re going to have real difficulties in getting this through anyway,” he said.
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A tough but necessary decision, if you can’t control your borders you haven’t got a country!
@Niall Power: tis draconian, lie filled, heinous bigoted dog whistling BS
@Graham Manning: if you don’t fancy a trip to Rwanda don’t travel! Simple!
@Graham Manning: On the face it, it seems harsh but critics are offering no alternative solution to the hundreds of mainly single male asylum seekers arriving daily on their shores. I’m all for managed immigration of people genuinely in need, and those who will contribute positively to their new country, but situations such as these require some meaningful preventative measure, as no country can realistically assimilate or accommodate such an amount of new comers. My only concern here is the British governments capabilities of doing this competently, given their recent record of mess ups.
@Longlin: not “on the face of it”. To its core it’s precisely what I said. Hardly surprising that langer Patel is behind it.
@Niall Power: and if you consider yourselves a civilised democracy, act like it!
@Graham Manning: Your alternative solution?
@Niall Power: well that’s the point of course – then again Priti’s folks fled Uganda to get to Britain so good job there wasn’t one of her around when that happened – she is an awful person
@Graham Manning: how do you propose to solve this?
Or are you just virtue signalling?
@Niall Power: The Brits certainly were not worried about borders when they drew lines in the sand dividing countries when the empire collapsed. Everywhere they got kicked out of or withdrew from they left a mess behind.
@Longlin: @Niall Power: then process them under the law of the country and either accept them or return them.
You really think Rwanda has a good history treating people fairly?
@Longlin: process the applications in s timely manner in the UK. If deemed illegal then you have the legal right to deport them. This method is classing everyone as illegal first.
@Longlin: a functional immigration/asylum system? And no DP isn’t it. Arrive, details taken, case fairly processed and allowed to stay or returned to country of origin. All within say 12-18 months.
Randomly, illegally deporting people to a country most have never been to and that has a crap human rights you were criticising a few minus ago doesn’t feature.
@Niall Power: see other reply and no, no I’m not.
@Niall Power: if the civil service actually did their jobs and didn’t have so much paperwork to Wade through in the first place then perhaps people would get processed faster. Perhaps a two or three pass service is what’s needed rather than sending genuine asylum seekers along with economic migrants off to the wilds of Rwanda?
@Niall Power: tell the French to stop them leaving france
@Graham Manning: what??
Britain has got to stop these illegal economic migrants who are just taking the p1ss. Personally, I’d use one of the remote Scottish islands. Put them there, with a tent
@Jane Alford: excellent understanding of human rights there Jane thanks for your contribution
@Jane Alford: Pritti Patel,s parents were refugees from Uganda…Suppose a tent in the Scottish Islands would be better than a tent in Rwanda. Just another ethnic mix to add to volatile Rwanda.
These economic migrants claim to be asylum seekers but they are in a safe country, France . France refuses to deal with their presence in France.
We need to be ready for an influx of these economic migrants after this tough new policy from the UK.
The First Person on the plane should be Borris
@pat seery: it should be Pritti Patel. This has her fingerprints all over it!!!
Disgusting Tory nonsense. Trying to intimidate would be migrants into not coming at all, by sending them to a Country a million miles from anywhere, with its own horrible history of human rights. Johnson cites “Brexit freedoms” enabling him to do this and if that’s true, ordinary Brits should be very alarmed at the direction their Country is taking. Johnson and his cronies should grow up and deal with migration properly and efficiently, in Britain. Those that are allowed stay, should stay, those that don’t meet the criteria should be escorted back to their Country of origin. This Rwanda solution is just cheap and lazy cowardice.
@Eoin Roche: They are illegal migrants fleeing the EU to enter the UK illegally. This is a problem created by the EU & it’s unwillingness to control it’s borders. If you don’t like what the UK is doing you can obviously apply for them to be transferred to Ireland or back to the EU. The UK will not allow anyone who enters illegally to settle in the UK. If having entered illegally & found to be a genuine refugees that the EU didn’t provide a safe haven to they will be allowed to resettle in Rwanda.
@Eoin Roche: It’s indicative of both Johnson’s and Patel’s psychopathy within their dictatorial democracy. Have a read of the clinical psychologist, Richard Bentall’s, threaded tweet about them about this matter; it was posted in the last couple of days. It’s an astonishing revelation.
@Joe Thorpe: the issue you are completely avoiding is the nature of legislation in the first place. It’s not ok to condemn something on the basis of whether it is legal or not if you are not going to look at the laws and the thinking behind them.
@Joe Thorpe: So don’t allow them, put them in a process within Britain and then return them if their claim for asylum is found to have no grounds. Exporting the problem will just add cost, time and abuse. Can’t see it passing muster in the British Courts anyway, so it’ll likely never happen. Some people already preparing challenges on the basis of it violating the Geneva Convention and if that’s upheld it will be just another big black mark in the history of the inept and abject premiership of Boris Johnson and his really awful cabinet, like Patel.
@Joe Thorpe: Britain has invaded 90% of the word’s countries. You’re in no position to grumble about illegal migration.
@David F. Dwyer: — The British are getting payback in a big way now. The descendants of immigrants from former colonies are now running the country and making the descendants of the empire builders pay for the sins of their ancestors. They’ll still have a problem with illegal immigration, people will still sneak in, only they won’t ask for asylum, and will just blend in as a source of cheap labour for the unscrupulous.
@Joe Thorpe: but they aren’t illegal if they seek asylum, they might be denied but are entitled to due process first.
Rwanda doesn’t have a great history of humanitarian treatment, interesting that the UK picked that country..
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When I 1st heard of this mad scheme I thought it was an April fool’s joke .But of course it’s a desperate measure to satisfy the brexiteers . Nothing much else about Brexit is working I think
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