Enver Solomon is Chief Exective of the Refugee Council.
In his interview with Conservative Home last week, Rishi Sunak acknowledged that delivering on his pledge to stop the boats is no easy task. “It is a complicated problem, where there’s no single, simple solution that will fix it,” he said, admitting “it won’t happen overnight”.
The Prime Minister may well be seeking to purposefully play down expectations about what his Government will be able to deliver. He will no doubt be mindful that it wasn’t long ago that one of his predecessors was dogged until his last days in office by a commitment to reduce migration. David Cameron lived to regret his pledge to cut net migration to the tens of thousands.
So will Sunak go the same way as Cameron and also be plagued by being unable to deliver on an immigration policy that he is also allowing to shape his premiership? My bet is that he will. And that’s because the stop the boats policy is fundamentally flawed in three critical aspects.
Firstly, as the Prime Minister admitted in his interview, channel crossings are certainly a complex issue that links to a major global challenge the whole of Europe faces. Although at least seven out of ten refugees will remain in their neighbouring country keen to return to their homeland as soon as possible – as did very many Ukrainians who fled to neighbouring Poland – a significant number do want to reach safety in western countries.
To reduce the numbers seeking to come to the UK and Europe requires not just focusing relentlessly on control and toughening up but also addressing the causes of global refugee movement. This requires the Government to join forces with other western nations and the UN to focus on increasing foreign aid and improving confliction resolution. Neither are happening. Without addressing the push factors the numbers seeking safety in Europe will not reduce but are likely to increase.
The Government seems to be completely blind to this. Instead, it appears to be convinced that pulling up the drawbridge, doubling down on being tough on not just the boats but any means of entry into the UK seeking asylum will do the job. The Illegal Migration Bill is presented as the ultimate solution.
As the UNHCR has noted: “The legislation, if passed, would amount to an asylum ban – extinguishing the right to seek refugee protection in the United Kingdom for those who arrive irregularly, no matter how compelling their claim may be.”
It is an indiscriminate approach that will see many thousands of refugees unfairly kicked out. Three quarters of asylum claims assessed last year were found to be valid. In future, all of those will be automatically rejected.
At the same time, instead of acting as a deterrence the new laws will create yet more cost and chaos stranding people in a state of illegal limbo facing destitution and detention.
An analysis by the Refugee Council has found that in the first three years of the legislation coming into effect up to 190,000 people will have had their asylum claims deemed inadmissible, but won’t have been removed. They will be left destitute unable to work and will be reliant on Home Office support and accommodation indefinitely. This will come at a huge cost – around £9 billion will be spent over three years on locking up refugees in detention centres and accommodating people who can’t be removed to other countries.
It’s difficult to see how the Illegal Migration Bill will do anything to actually stop the boats and will only have unintended consequences that will just make matters far worse.
This leads to the second critical flaw. By making stop the boats the Sunak version of the ‘get Brexit done’ Johnson mantra, it inflates public expectations to an unrealistic level storing up huge political problems. In the public mind, success is all about an end to crossings. Anything less will be seen as failure.
This means the Government is in effect digging its own political grave on the issue by setting such an impossible goal. It simply repeats the mistake made by David Cameron. Once again, wildly over promising and under delivering. And it is a big political risk because by raising the salience of a problem that won’t be fixed it is likely to lead to Conservative voters backing other parties.
An approach of intelligent grown up realism would seek to explain to the public the challenge the government faces and adopt an approach guided by carefully thought through policies designed to actually make a difference rather than to have so little chance of success.
The final flaw is that the Government’s approach is far too harsh. ConservativeHome readers won’t be surprised that is my view. However, they may be more surprised to understand that public opinion is in the same place. This was powerfully illustrated by polling published last week by More in Common. It shows the public want wide ranging exemptions from the asylum ban including those seen as genuine refugees, women fleeing persecution, children, victims of modern slavery, those fleeing civil war and conflict.
The message is clear. The British public isn’t just looking for control, punishment and deterrence. It wants an approach that is based on both compassion and control. And the public also believe in fairness. As a Conservative MP representing a staunchly Brexit seat explained to me this week her constituents want people to be given a fair hearing so their asylum claim is properly assessed.
The Prime Minister has more than just skin in the game when it comes to his pledge to stop the boats. His is allowing his entire premiership to be shaped by it. This is not only high risk but it is actually rather foolish.
It’s never too late, of course, to change course. As I wrote back in November 2021 in a ConservativeHome blog: Less harsh control, more human compassion, less meaningless rhetoric, more intelligent realism, less nationalist posturing, more global leadership – that’s what’s needed.
Enver Solomon is Chief Exective of the Refugee Council.
In his interview with Conservative Home last week, Rishi Sunak acknowledged that delivering on his pledge to stop the boats is no easy task. “It is a complicated problem, where there’s no single, simple solution that will fix it,” he said, admitting “it won’t happen overnight”.
The Prime Minister may well be seeking to purposefully play down expectations about what his Government will be able to deliver. He will no doubt be mindful that it wasn’t long ago that one of his predecessors was dogged until his last days in office by a commitment to reduce migration. David Cameron lived to regret his pledge to cut net migration to the tens of thousands.
So will Sunak go the same way as Cameron and also be plagued by being unable to deliver on an immigration policy that he is also allowing to shape his premiership? My bet is that he will. And that’s because the stop the boats policy is fundamentally flawed in three critical aspects.
Firstly, as the Prime Minister admitted in his interview, channel crossings are certainly a complex issue that links to a major global challenge the whole of Europe faces. Although at least seven out of ten refugees will remain in their neighbouring country keen to return to their homeland as soon as possible – as did very many Ukrainians who fled to neighbouring Poland – a significant number do want to reach safety in western countries.
To reduce the numbers seeking to come to the UK and Europe requires not just focusing relentlessly on control and toughening up but also addressing the causes of global refugee movement. This requires the Government to join forces with other western nations and the UN to focus on increasing foreign aid and improving confliction resolution. Neither are happening. Without addressing the push factors the numbers seeking safety in Europe will not reduce but are likely to increase.
The Government seems to be completely blind to this. Instead, it appears to be convinced that pulling up the drawbridge, doubling down on being tough on not just the boats but any means of entry into the UK seeking asylum will do the job. The Illegal Migration Bill is presented as the ultimate solution.
As the UNHCR has noted: “The legislation, if passed, would amount to an asylum ban – extinguishing the right to seek refugee protection in the United Kingdom for those who arrive irregularly, no matter how compelling their claim may be.”
It is an indiscriminate approach that will see many thousands of refugees unfairly kicked out. Three quarters of asylum claims assessed last year were found to be valid. In future, all of those will be automatically rejected.
At the same time, instead of acting as a deterrence the new laws will create yet more cost and chaos stranding people in a state of illegal limbo facing destitution and detention.
An analysis by the Refugee Council has found that in the first three years of the legislation coming into effect up to 190,000 people will have had their asylum claims deemed inadmissible, but won’t have been removed. They will be left destitute unable to work and will be reliant on Home Office support and accommodation indefinitely. This will come at a huge cost – around £9 billion will be spent over three years on locking up refugees in detention centres and accommodating people who can’t be removed to other countries.
It’s difficult to see how the Illegal Migration Bill will do anything to actually stop the boats and will only have unintended consequences that will just make matters far worse.
This leads to the second critical flaw. By making stop the boats the Sunak version of the ‘get Brexit done’ Johnson mantra, it inflates public expectations to an unrealistic level storing up huge political problems. In the public mind, success is all about an end to crossings. Anything less will be seen as failure.
This means the Government is in effect digging its own political grave on the issue by setting such an impossible goal. It simply repeats the mistake made by David Cameron. Once again, wildly over promising and under delivering. And it is a big political risk because by raising the salience of a problem that won’t be fixed it is likely to lead to Conservative voters backing other parties.
An approach of intelligent grown up realism would seek to explain to the public the challenge the government faces and adopt an approach guided by carefully thought through policies designed to actually make a difference rather than to have so little chance of success.
The final flaw is that the Government’s approach is far too harsh. ConservativeHome readers won’t be surprised that is my view. However, they may be more surprised to understand that public opinion is in the same place. This was powerfully illustrated by polling published last week by More in Common. It shows the public want wide ranging exemptions from the asylum ban including those seen as genuine refugees, women fleeing persecution, children, victims of modern slavery, those fleeing civil war and conflict.
The message is clear. The British public isn’t just looking for control, punishment and deterrence. It wants an approach that is based on both compassion and control. And the public also believe in fairness. As a Conservative MP representing a staunchly Brexit seat explained to me this week her constituents want people to be given a fair hearing so their asylum claim is properly assessed.
The Prime Minister has more than just skin in the game when it comes to his pledge to stop the boats. His is allowing his entire premiership to be shaped by it. This is not only high risk but it is actually rather foolish.
It’s never too late, of course, to change course. As I wrote back in November 2021 in a ConservativeHome blog: Less harsh control, more human compassion, less meaningless rhetoric, more intelligent realism, less nationalist posturing, more global leadership – that’s what’s needed.