After the Second World War, the United Kingdom and its political leaders and legal experts were at the forefront of defining the international standards for human rights. In the 1950s, the country was one of the first to ratify the European Convention on Human Rights, followed by the United Nations’ Geneva Conventions which conferred a status and rights to refugees. The vote by the House of Commons on Tuesday, April 23, of a text cynically entitled the “Safety of Rwanda” bill not only represents a terrible step backward for Europe’s oldest democracy, but also a worrying sign for the Western world and its proclaimed values.
The new law, which passed despite opposition from the House of Lords, declares Rwanda to be a “safe third country” for asylum purposes. It aims to circumvent the November 2023 UK Supreme Court ruling that had denied Rwanda this classification and enables the implementation of the agreement on the outsourcing of asylum claims that Boris Johnson signed with Kigali in 2022.
Migrants who have arrived illegally – which, by definition, is the case for asylum seekers – to the UK will no longer be able to apply to London for protection, but will be detained before being deported to Rwanda, which is supposed to process their applications in exchange for substantial aid. The text, which has been designed to prevent any legal challenge to such deportations, is being touted as a deterrent for the thousands of migrants who attempt to reach the English coast by crossing the Channel in small boats, sometimes drowning in the process, as happened just as this law was being passed.
A dire precedent
The adoption of these provisions represents one of the most cynical political instrumentalizations of the immigration issue, one already central to the campaign that, in 2016, led to the vote in favor of Brexit, which had been presented as the solution to “take back control” of the borders. Since then, the country has become more closed off, but the number of immigrants has skyrocketed. However, this has not prevented Prime Minister Rishi Sunak from considering, against all evidence, the shock created by deportations to Rwanda as the only way to avoid a rout in the parliamentary elections scheduled for this year.
The most likely outcome is that the British prime minister will avoid neither the electoral failure that all the polls are forecasting, nor the shame of being associated with a law that is simultaneously ineffective; infringes fundamental human rights – such as the right to have one’s asylum application examined through a fair procedure, and not in a country as devoid of an independent judiciary as Rwanda – astronomically expensive; and so absurd that it could have been dreamt up by George Orwell.
The threat of deportation to Kigali is no more likely to deter migrants willing to risk their lives in search of a better life than walls or barbed wire. The challenges that migration poses for wealthy countries, just like the opportunities it opens up, are real. In all cases, they must be met through European and international cooperation to manage migratory flows, in particular by opening up legal channels for entry.
At a time when the European right, following in the footsteps of the far right, is now advocating the outsourcing of asylum applications, the precedent set by Sunak may appear dire. A pitiful political maneuver on a par with the Brexit referendum, the “Safety of Rwanda” bill could nonetheless meet the same fate: Become a fiasco.
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