Asylum seekers and the policy that shames Britain

From The Editor, THE TABLET 3 November 2022

Suella Braverman has described the crossing of the English Channel by 40,000 refugees in small boats this year as an “invasion”. Even some in her own party deplore such language as inflammatory.

Since returning to the job of home secretary last month, Braverman has been accused of deliberately treating refugees so badly that others would be deterred from making the Channel crossing. This is what can happen when groups of people are stripped of their humanity, and demonised. Refugees from the boats, almost all of whom seek political asylum once they have arrived, have been taken to a processing centre at the disused RAF airport at Manston in Kent. Conditions there became so appalling that a senior official who inspected the site was rendered “speechless” by what he saw.

What was meant to be, at most, a 24-hour wait has turned in some cases into two or three weeks. People had to sleep on the floor, with not enough blankets, with poor sanitation and toilet facilities, amid a constant undercurrent of stress, anger and violence. The previous policy of moving them on quickly had been suspended – illegally, it is said – since Braverman became home secretary, only to be resumed this week once the story became headline news.

This crisis calls for an urgent reality check. Once they have reached Britain and provided they can demonstrate they are fleeing persecution, refugees have a right to stay in Britain under the 1951 Refugee Convention. They are not, as Braverman and her supporters seem to think, uninvited and unwelcome. The convention is their invitation. They cross the Channel in small boats because they have no alternative way to claim asylum.

Successive Conservative governments, taking their cue from the right-wing press in the demonisation of asylum seekers, have refused to open an immigration office across the Channel, where humanitarian visas could be issued, allowing refugees to enter Britain by more normal routes. France has agreed; Britain has rejected this obvious solution. The belief appears to be that there are votes in being hostile to asylum seekers. Creating a system that makes them wait years for their asylum applications to be granted is part of that approach. They cannot work or receive normal benefits while waiting; yet Britain is suffering a severe labour shortage.

It is the government and a section of the media that is obsessed with Channel boat crossings, not the general public. A recent poll found that immigration in all its aspects rated only eighth in a list of public concerns, well below inflation, the cost of living and the NHS. A decent and sensible government – and Rishi Sunak was chosen by Conservative MPs because he was thought to be sensible – would start from scratch, identify the correct legal and moral imperatives, and put in place a system for dealing with asylum seekers of which the whole country would no longer be ashamed, but proud.