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Is the UK right to send migrants to Rwanda?
Boris Johnson has had another turbulent week. On Tuesday he paid a fine issued by London’s Metropolitan police for breaking the rules set by his own government on Covid lockdown restrictions because of a party held at 10 Downing Street in June 2020 at the height of the pandemic.
Parliament is currently in recess because of the Easter holiday but calls for Johnson to resign came thick and fast from Labour’s Keir Starmer and other opposition leaders. But only one Conservative MP demanded that he face a vote of confidence in his leadership – compared to many more back in January incensed by what is known as “Partygate.” Boris, as he is widely known, seems safe for now.
In his own party demands for him to step down have lessened due to the grave international crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The cover of the satirical magazine Private Eye showed Boris meeting President Volodymyr Zelensky and both of them saying to each other: “Thank you for coming to my rescue.” Under the photograph from Kyiv was the caption: “Easter miracle as Boris career resurrected.”
But last Thursday, the day before the start of the Easter weekend, Johnson faced outrage over another highly sensitive issue. During a speech in Kent he announced a deal with Rwanda to send some asylum-seekers thousands of miles to the Central African country — which he claimed would stop people-smugglers sending desperate migrants on treacherous journeys across the English Channel.
That plan would see some people who arrive in Britain as stowaways on trucks or in small boats flown 4,000 miles to Rwanda, apparently for good. Migrants have long used northern France as a launching point to reach Britain, either by hiding on trucks or ferries, or — increasingly since the pandemic shut down other routes in 2020 — in small boats organized by people-traffickers.
More than 28,000 people entered the UK in boats last year, up from 8,500 in 2020. Dozens have died, including 27 people last November when a single boat capsized. Only last Wednesday, the day before the announcement of the Rwanda agreement, 650 migrants arrived from France.
It’s not as if there isn’t a problem. The rate of arrivals in the UK is simply unsustainable. The fury around this issue is linked to Brexit – the decision to leave the European Union in which Johnson played a central role, using the slogans: “Seizing back Control,“ “Get Brexit Done” and “Global Britain.”
One key aspect of Brexit was the UK’s departure from the Dublin Regulation, under which people arriving from another EU country could be returned there - so from Britain to France for example. But since Brexit London and Paris have significantly reduced their cooperation. Another central aspect of this plan is that it is clearly designed to appeal to right-wing Conservative voters ahead of the local elections in May.
"Anyone entering the UK illegally ... may now be relocated to Rwanda," Johnson said in a speech at an airport near Dover. Action, he said, was needed to stop "vile people-smugglers abusing the vulnerable and turning the Channel into a watery graveyard."
The Rwandan government said the agreement would initially last for five years, and Britain had paid £120m in advance to pay for supporting the migrants. Rwanda is the most densely-populated nation in Africa, and competition for land and resources there fuelled decades of ethnic and political tensions which culminated in the 1994 genocide in which more than 800,000 ethnic Tutsis, as well as Hutus who tried to protect them, died.
Johnson insisted that Rwanda had "totally transformed" in the last two decades. But human rights groups have repeatedly criticized President Paul Kagame's current government as repressive. The UN refugee agency, the UNHCR also condemned the UK plan, as did Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury in his Easter Sunday sermon. Welby said scathingly that Johnson’s decision would “not stand the judgement of God.”
Britain says relocation decisions will not be based on migrants' country of origin but on whether they used "illegal or dangerous routes" to reach the UK from a safe country such as France. Not all such arrivals will be considered suitable to be sent to Rwanda; it was unclear what the criteria for making the decisions would be.
Many politicians and analysts think the plan will never be implemented. Extensive condemnation is one factor:
“Vicious and grotesque - utterly shameful. Britain is better than this,” tweeted the veteran Green Party MP. Caroline Lucas. But legal challenges are another. Labour MP Lucy Powell said the Rwanda plan might please some Conservative supporters and grab headlines, but was "unworkable, expensive and unethical."
Previous policies of sending refugee applicants abroad have been controversial. In 2013, Australia began despatching asylum-seekers attempting to reach the country by boat to Papua New Guinea, vowing that none would be allowed to settle in Australia. The policy all but ended the people-smuggling ocean route from Southeast Asia, but was widely criticized as a cruel abrogation of Australia's international obligation.
"I think this is less about dealing with small boats and more about dealing with the prime minister's own sinking boat," as Powell wittily told the BBC.
BY: IAN BLACK
