Why the Rwanda policy must be defeated – The Voice Online

TODAY MARKS a crucial moment in Britains refugee policy.

If the courts strike down Priti Patels plan to deport black and brown refugees seekers to an offshore camp in Rwanda that will be a victory against inhumanity.

Even Tory MPs are calling the governments policy ugly yet this has come after Home Office sources have suggested the Home Secretary wants wave machines to push back dinghies carrying terrified men, women and children in the channel.

Patel even flirted with the idea of prosecuting the RNLI if they rescue drowning refugees in the channel.

If the court challenge to the Rwanda plan succeeds it will not only torpedo the governments shocking scheme, but also deliver a heavy blow to the heartless idea factory that is the Home Office.

But more than that, it will put back on the agenda the one humane solution that people are calling for to establish safe routes for asylum seekers to come to Britain and make their case.

The review into the Windrush scandal, led by Wendy Williams, called for humanity to be at the heart of Britains immigration policy.

Clearly Patels plan to deport asylum seekers before hearing their claims, and refusing to let them back into the UK even if they win their claims, fails on that score.

The Home Secretary claimed that refugees who win their asylum claims to settle in Britain will instead only have the right to start a new life in Rwanda a country with a heavily-criticised record of human rights abuses and political oppression.

The Rwanda plan has also been compared to people trafficking, with Karen Attiah, writing in the Washington Times that the trafficking of vulnerable people to and from Africa and its former territories overseas has been something of a historical pastime for Britain.

The fact that ministers have clarified no Ukrainians will be sent to Rwanda feeds suspicions that this is a detention centre for people from the Global South.

The policy has the stench of racism about it, as it suggests the real aim is simply to keep black and brown people out.

It is disappointing that some mainstream media outlets, such as the BBC, carried the government line that the Rwanda plan is about tackling illegal asylum seekers which is diametrically opposed to the internationally-accepted idea that the act of seeking asylum is not illegal.

The British governments attempt to redefine economic immigrants as applying to all single males should be roundly rejected. There is no evidence to support the governments view.

Immigration minister Tom Pursglove told BBC Radio 4s Today programme that the government wont discuss details to avoid giving succour to traffickers yet MPs need details in order to scrutinise and hold ministers to account.

Government figures show 61% of people who arrive in boats have their asylum claims accepted even in a Home Office accused of harbouring a culture of disbelief towards refugees stories.

The United Nations estimate that 70-80% of all asylum seekers in Britain have a good claim as they fled nations where violent political oppression is real.

Even the Council of Europe, whose governments preside over various levels of hostile environments, oppose the British plan. The CoE Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovi, said it runs the risk of seriously undermining the global system of international protection.

Human rights lawyers say the concept of deporting people before they have made a claim and refusing to let them back if successful falls foul of the principle of fairness that the government says they want the system to uphold.

Rwanda has a lower life expectancy 12 years below that of Britain (69 to 81), and has a population density of almost double (525 people per square KM, compared to 281 in Britain). If any nation has reason to say its full it is Rwanda.

Britain has previously accepted the claims of at least 4 asylum seekers from Rwanda, which is accused by Human Rights Watch of enforced disappearances and suspicious deaths of government opponents.

The arguments for scrapping this pernicious and inhumane policy are clear. It is now up to the court.

Lester Holloway is Editor of The Voice

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Why the Rwanda policy must be defeated - The Voice Online