UK MP warns asylum offshoring plan threatens to create ‘British Guantanamo Bay'
December 6, 2021, 2:58 pm

UK MP warns asylum offshoring plan threatens to create ‘British Guantanamo Bay'

England-London-Westminster-Westminster bridge/Pixabay

The Arab News reported a UK former cabinet member has warned, government plans to process migrants and asylum seekers in offshore facilities risk creating a “British Guantanamo Bay."

Conservative MP David Davis, who served as Brexit secretary from 2016 to 2018, said the Home Office’s plan to send people offshore for processing would create a British facility that could rival Guantanamo Bay in notoriety.

The plans, introduced as part of the Nationality and Borders Bill, would see asylum claims processed from overseas facilities and would also introduce a host of other new restrictions on who can claim asylum.

Davis described UK Home Secretary Priti Patel’s plans as deeply flawed, noting that the Home Office is unable to explain where its widely criticized offshore asylum processing facilities would even be located.

The issue has proved controversial in recent weeks. When reports emerged that Britain was in talks with Albania to establish a facility there, various Albanian politicians and diplomats angrily and publicly rebuked the idea.

Davis, who is no longer serving in the Cabinet, said that the proposed changes ignore the fact that most asylum seekers were eventually granted refugee status.

“Pushing the problem to another part of the world is just a costly way of delaying the inevitable,” he wrote in The Observer newspaper.

Davis continued: “From mountains of paperwork and chartering RAF flights, to building the required infrastructure and dealing with foreign bureaucracies, the labyrinthine logistics would involve colossal costs the British taxpayer could well do without. At worst, we could inadvertently create a British Guantanamo Bay.”

Over the course of 2021, tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers have arrived in Britain via the English Channel, and the controversial issue has put pressure on the Conservative government to do something to slow the arrivals.

Some 37,562 asylum applications were made in the year to September — more than double the entire amount for 2020 — with a significant proportion of claimants arriving from Iran, Iraq, and Syria.

MPs will debate the Nationality and Borders Bill in parliament on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

Source: arabnews

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Upon arriving to participate in the summit of the European Political Community, which includes around forty heads of state in Budapest, he said, "I look forward to sitting with the elected U.S. president and seeing how we will collectively ensure we meet challenges, including the threats from Russia and North Korea." He also noted that the strengthening of ties between Russia and North Korea poses a threat to the United States as well, according to reports from Agence France-Presse.

Before Trump's victory, Rutte expressed confidence that a united Washington would remain part of the defensive alliance, even if Trump became the 47th president of the United States. In an interview with German public broadcaster ZDF last Monday night, he stated that both Republicans and Democrats understand that NATO serves not only the security of Europe but also that of America. He added that both candidates are aware that the security of the United States is closely tied to NATO.

On Wednesday, NATO congratulated Trump on his victory but did not address the Ukrainian issue.

It is noteworthy that the relationship between the elected U.S. president and the defense alliance was not the best during his first term in the White House. Trump criticized NATO member states multiple times and even hinted at withdrawing from the alliance unless they increased their financial contributions.

Additionally, the issue of the Russian-Ukrainian war is one of the matters that complicate relations between the two sides, especially since Trump has repeatedly stated that he can end this ongoing conflict, which began in 2022, quickly. He implied that he had a peace plan between Kyiv and Moscow, while his vice president, JD Vance, revealed aspects of that plan, which stipulated Ukraine's commitment not to join NATO, thereby sending reassuring signals to the Russians.

Furthermore, many NATO member states in Europe fear that Trump might halt military aid to Ukraine after he previously criticized the U.S. for pouring funds into supporting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.