Think the Republicans devious scheme to fly people seeking asylum at the souther US border to “sanctuary cities” distasteful? Perpare to barf whan you hear about the UK government plans for people who have survived crossing the English Channel in tiny boats — send them to Rwanda in Africa to apply for asylum in that country. Not apply for UK asylum while in Rwanda, asylum from the Rwandan government.
The plan is to give the Rwanda government a fee to take on this responsibility using the excuse that it is a “safe country”. Today the Court of Appeal reversed a High Court ruling allowing the plan to go ahead. This can be appealed with a week or refered to the UK Supreme Court.
The policy is purely to appease the right-wing who are complaining about the costs of providing accommodation while cases are being considered. Regular moans on right wing media about hotels being “taken over by dangerours drug dealing illegal immigrants” [I paraphrase what a tory activist has just said on BBC TV] All the while not addressing the real problem of a lack of social housing and affordable private rents or reducing the backlog caused by government staff “savings”. This “protect the borders” sop to racist even costs more than it would to finance building suitable accommodation!
It could cost an estimated £63,000 more to send a migrant to a "safe country" such as Rwanda than to keep them in the UK, the government has said.
An economic impact assessment of the Illegal Migration Bill, which is going through Parliament, found a gross cost of £169,000 to relocate an individual.
But the estimated £106,000 spent on housing support if they remained in the UK would be avoided.
Ah but the government will point to possible further savings based on the range of estimates.
It also said the potential savings were "highly uncertain" but gave an estimated figure of between £106,000 and £165,000 per individual. The higher figure takes into the account the possibility of housing costs continuing to increase.
Part of the reason for the high cost is that asylum seekers are not allowed to work while their application is considered. At the same time the UK is suffering high food inflation because there are not enough people looking for employment in crop gathering etc because of Brexit.
In addition to appealing this decision, the Government is trying to address deficiencies in their original legislation with a new Illegal Immigration Bill. This has suffered a series of ammendments in the House of Lords.
The government has suffered a series of defeats in the House of Lords over its flagship bill to stop small boats crossing the English Channel.
Peers voted to amend the Illegal Migration Bill to prevent new deportation powers being backdated to March of this year.
They also added safeguards aimed at protecting modern slavery victims, and unaccompanied child migrants.
The changes could be reversed by MPs at a later stage.
A General Election must be held by the start of 2025 however it is likely that it will be held sooner. Judicial challenges to the present law and the new Bill up to the European Court of Human Rights may well mean that any implimentation of this disgusting policy will fall. It could also be a cause celebre for the Tories to reinvigorate the base they stirred up to get the Brexit vote and with the same dofwhistle of “protecting our borders”.
[Note: while wigs are now optional, King’s Counsels (barristers, senior lawyers) appearing before the High Court and Court of Appeal do so out of respect for the courts and tradition.]