Illustrative Image
Written by Dr. Binoy Kampmark
June 10 bore witness to a valiant effort on the part of refugee groups and a trade union to stop what promises to be the first journey of many as part of the UK-Rwanda plan. Their attempt to seek an injunction failed to convince the High Court. Next Tuesday, the first flight from the UK to Rwanda filled with asylum seekers will, unless the Court of Appeal rules otherwise, take off. Some 31 people of Iraqi and Syrian background have been told they will be on board with one-way tickets.
The UK-Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership, hammered out by the Home Secretary Priti Patel and her counterparts in Kigali, has one central purpose: to deter the arrival of asylum seekers by boat across the English Channel. Its genesis lies in a range of sources, none more insidious than the Australian model of offshore processing. At its core is a rejection of international refugee law and its obligations. In its place is the sentiment of convenience, callousness and cruel stinginess.
This conduct is only appealing to the insecure and the smug. In a piece by Sam Ashworth-Hayes, a former director of studies at the conservative Henry Jackson Society, we see the old nostalgic refrain that Britain is glorious, people want to travel there, but that, unfortunately, transport has become easier and cheaper in a world where refugee laws simply have not kept up. Borders needed to be firmed; regulations tightened. And praise be showered upon Rwanda, who can profit from the refugee industry and market model so maligned by Patel. The plan had to “surely rank as among the most generous development aid schemes ever devised.” Apart, of course, for those unfortunates seeking asylum.
The policy has irked a goodly number, and not just the steadfastly committed campaigners. The Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, has made mutterings about it, expressing the view that the “whole approach is appalling.” Admittedly, this revelation was spilled by an anonymous source to the Daily Mail and Times. When asked for comment from Clarence House, a spokesperson said that: “We would not comment on supposed anonymous private conversations with the Prince of Wales, except to restate that he remains politically neutral. Matters of policy are decisions for the government.”
Multinationals, on even more slippery ground, have also taken issue with the policy. Ben and Jerry’s took to Twitter to stormily urge “folks” to “talk about Priti Patel’s ‘ugly’ Rwanda plan and what this means.” The dispenser of ice cream products took issue with the UK’s “plan to forcibly send people to a country thousands of miles away, simply for seeking refuge in the UK” as “cruel and morally bankrupt.”
In the High Court, various arguments by the legal team representing the charities Detention Action, Care4Calais and the PCS Union were made hoping to block the first flight scheduled to leave on June 14, calling the plan unsafe and irrational. According to the court submission from Raza Hussain, the barrister representing the three groups, Patel’s “assessment … that the UNHCR [Office of the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees] is giving this plan a green light is a false claim.”
Government lawyer Mathew Gullick countered the criticisms of the UK-Rwandan arrangement. They were “backward-looking” and did not genuinely take into account the way migrants were to be treated. Deterring illegal immigration was a matter of “important public interest”.
Husain’s point was confirmed by a last minute intervention from the UNHCR, which argued in its submission to the court that the UK-Rwanda scheme failed to meet the standards of “legality and appropriateness” in terms of transferring asylum seekers from one state to another. Laura Dubinsky, QC, representing the UNHCR, told the court that the agency believed there were “risks of serious irreparable harm to refugees” inherent in this “unlawful” plan. The UK Home Office has peddled “inaccuracies” in claiming that the agency endorsed the scheme.
The court document from the UNHCR revealed “serious concerns that asylum seekers transferred from the UK to Rwanda will not have access to fair and efficient procedures for the determination of refugee status, with consequent risks of refoulement.”
Refoulement, a term Patel breezily buries when considering asylum seeker claims, remains a canonical precept of refugee law outlined in Article 33 of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. Contracting states have an obligation not to “expel or return (‘refouler’) a refugee in a manner whatsoever to the frontiers or territories where his [or her] life or freedom would be threatened on account of his [or her] race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”
In the agency’s view, there was also a grave risk “that the burden of processing the asylum claims of new arrivals from the UK could further overstretch the capacity of the Rwanda national asylum system, thereby undermining its ability to provide protection for all those who seek asylum.”
The UNHCR was being fleet footed in avoiding any description of Kigali’s less than impressive record on refugees and human rights. In its 2022 report on Rwanda, Human Rights Watch noted the iron hand of the Rwandan Patriotic Front in stifling dissent and criticism, the detention and disappearing of opposition members and critics, the liberal use of torture, arbitrary detention and a scanty observance of the rule of law.
Disturbingly enough, Rwanda has produced its own refugees and asylum seekers, who continue being threatened, harassed and, in some instances, “forcibly disappeared and returned to Rwanda, or killed.”
None of the arguments were enough to convince Judge Jonathan Swift in his June 10 decision to reject the application to block the removal of the asylum seekers. There was a “material public interest in the Home Secretary (Priti Patel) being able to implement immigration decisions.”
Resorting to that ancient method of reasoning when faced with a tight conundrum, Judge Swift could only dismiss the concerns voiced by the applicants as insignificant or lying “in the realms of speculation”. In their submission to the Court of Appeal, and in the fuller judicial review of the plan to take place later in the month, the appellants have much to prove otherwise.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
England used to have morals–“its not cricket ” –now its the City.
I am sick of asylum seekers. Kicking them out is long overdue.
Nazi prick
Communist groomer scum.
Shouldn’t you be molesting kids at a pride parade your filthy faggot?
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Muslim asylum seekers must seek asylum in other Muslim countries.
They seek asylum in infidel countries because we organize our society better than them.
The religious illiterates are allowed to continue to worship the imagination of Allah and live as they are used to in Muslim countries.
“England used to have morals” ahahahahahaha the best joke of the week.
Funny how legions of nogs and street shitters are flooding over the border to be around these supposedly immoral people then right?
Why don’t you all fuck off back home then?
Iraqis and Syrians. But why not Ukrainians? This is very interesting and very disturbing. What’s Rwanda gaining from this mockery?
Money and geopolitical backing. Not really Rwanda as such but the terrible dictator Kagame, who is (arguably) the real culprit of the Rwandan civil war (presented as “genocide” by the Western propaganda machine but in many aspects actually much closer to a class war, as Tutsis are a colonial-privileged minority and very similar to an upper caste and not so much an ethnicity only). Not just Kagame wins, also his close ally Museveni of Uganda, US-backed mastermind of the “Tutsi Empire” which still troubles the Great Lakes region of Africa.
Because Ukrainians are white Christians who can function in a 1st world society.
These savage Islamic beasts who have been grooming and raping little British girls clearly can’t.
Buddy STFU about shit you have no clue about, I get you are racist/red neck and all, and good for you. But I can’t stand your BS about somehow these Ukrainians are any better.
First of all – Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 are banned from leaving the country – pretty sure you had no clue about that. Secondly, Ukraine is the most corrupt country in the West. Thirdly, fuk head NATO wants Wahhabis in the West as they can use them as protection against war crimes they have committed against Iraqi, Syrian, etc people.
I laugh at clowns like you – in UK Wahhabis are allowed to teach hard-core Sunnis to become terrorists. What has the UK done? Nothing because they are in it with the Wahhabis and Zion. Making rtded fuk heads like you sacred and put a fake image on Muslims/Middle East…it works so well and I can’t blame them for it. “people are stupid”.
Also, you wait for Ukrainian men to arrive first before making any comparison.
“Because Ukrainians are white Christians who can function in a 1st world society.”
This guy is part of NATO, Zion, Wahhabis, and yanquis gang – what is he doing is whitewashing Ukraine’s Corruption. Making a fake image of Ukrainians and Ukraine, fuking cunt.
The best part is, that he doesn’t even notice what he was doing at all. As I said, it works so well and I can’t blame them for it. “people are stupid”.
“Muh raycism”
Opinion discarded commie groomer fuckstain. Ukraine’s corruption is their Jew government not regular Ukrainian people.
The new “big bad country” in the West is Russia now and the heroic Westerns must welcome the Ukrainians by all means – like before but it was Middle Easterns.
Same story – NATO destroys their country and acts like they are on their side, which includes taking in some refugees ofc for PR reasons.
What’re Rwanda gains – money mainly – Rwanda is, by all measures, a poor country. “Almost 90 percent of the population lives on less than US$2 per day and half of its population lives on less than US$1 per day.”
Ofc, Rwanda is one of the most corrupt countries in the world as well.
This is all kinds of despicable and nazi-like but my greatest concern is what will that horrible dictator Kagame do with the exiles.
Who fucking cares, the women and children of the UK will be a lot safer from 3rd world animals.
Exactly, and that should be the number one, if not the only priority.
As Zemmour said, Europe isn’t merely a shelter for all the abused and tormented peoples in the world to congregate. We are Nations with our own ethnicities, religion, cultures, and customs, including our own problems which need to be addressed.
Not recognizing this is blatant white genocide clear and simple.
Oh… so you think national borders should just be porous… and those that perhaps reject the fiscal and social costs of unlimited ‘foreigners’ but have to endure all the maladies with no reward are nazis… ( a tired and weaponised epithet)….
perhaps you are a corporate clown… bloated with greed… eager to drive down wages such as the Ben and Jerry types… who socialise costs and pocket the profit…
or perhaps you are merely an imbecile.. a reactionary… one of the WeF’s ‘global citizens…
Also… at which point do these interlopers become ‘exiles’ and from where…. because it seems that term is redundant in this case…
of course to be an exile.. first and foremost one would have to have a Nation of your own… not somebody else’s you have opportunistically borrowed …
presumably this is as confusing to them as their age and birthplace which a good number can’t actually remember…
for obvious reasons..
I think that refugees should be given the right to properly state their case. I’m not pro-migration but neither a xenophobic racist dumbo troll, I think there should be rational and humanitarian approaches and that sending refugees to totalitarian Rwanda is a no-no in any case.
Britain has in any case a historical responsibility re. its former colonies, which it exploited mercilessly (and still does in many case by indirect neocolonial means, what is particularly true in the case of the Museveni-Kagame infamous “Tutsi Empire”, a true Anglosaxon agression against Africa ongoing for several decades and rarely discussed, buried under the lies of the “Rwandan genocide” narrative, which was actually 90% class war against the Tutsi colonial aristocracy).
I’d rather be a xenophobic racist dumbo troll than a communist anti-white shitstain like you.
The rapefugees have already stated their case when they started raping British children and setting French Churches on fire.
How many times do dumb fucks like you have to be told?
So no concern for the little girls in England who have been groomed and raped by these ravenous savage beasts?
Instead let’s empathise with Islamic fundamentalist able bodied military age men, who left their wives and kids behind in a warzone.
I have all concerns about rape and all other English-favored sharia law exceptionalism. I’m 200% for a radical secularist regime and banning of all patriarchal sects on the grounds of violating the International Declaration of Human Rights, I’m all for reeducation camps for agressive machitos, but you’re not addressing the problem of (over-simplifying) the Pakistani fundamentalist community by expelling possibly secularist Iraqis or Afghans, women too, to a place where they totally do not belong to.
Because secularism which brought drag queen story hour has been a blessing to the west right?
“patriarchal sects”
Are you an SJW fag?
It’s obvious that the planned replacement of natural born UK citizens has hit a wall. I’m sure the amount collected by annual tax is insuffucient to support new refugees. What’s the Crown to do? Print more pounds? I’m curious. The initial number of transfers is less than 40, while the economics of it all screams for 10s of thousands of illegals to be shipped out. How will Britain accomplish that?
Ukrainians I guess have a part in this as well… I don’t like these fuk heads – just say no openly. Don’t hide behind your BS and act like you care – fuk off and say NO.
The only reason they don’t do that is they want to be seen they follow their own BS rules they put in the first place and they use human rights to attack other countries.
Turk-isis-stan, got billions from the US/NATO/Wahhabis states to let Wahhabis invade and destroy Syria and Iraq – now that they lost the war they are using refugees as a weapon against… guess who? They now get billions that way. Fuking Turk-isis-stan.
What makes me so mad this that they have laws for refugees. Do they follow it? Nope. What’s the reason behind it BS acting for PR.
Also, who the fuk invaded and destroyed AF/ME/CA/Asia countries again?
Surely not NATO, US, Wahhabis, and Zion.
Ukrainians don’t have anything to do with the shit their Jewish scum government does, just like Americans didn’t vote for Brandon.
Need cheap labour to undercut the working class locals? Bring in overseas labour to work for peanuts , call them refugees (yeah right) , any precariat workers who dont like it, call them a racist. Make bank and move onto another host.
Let a few useless screamy middleclass do their greta/ brexit / rootless metro stuff, they’d say anything for a job. Seems to work. Until it doesn’t.
Workers of the world unite , in poverty.
All the international laws on war refugees say they should be temporarily housed in the nearest safe country to their homeland. That isn’t what happens in the former English Imperial holdings. The hereditary bankers who control the West simply use war and refugees to replace the native gentiles whom they despise.
don’t trust anglo saxons or germans, they are traitors by nature
what kind of crazed woke BS is this? Since when is SF Salon or Slate? This is sick. FU Sorry I sent you a donation last year (as small as it was). Hope Soros pays you more.