News18 earlier looked at the BBC match of the day controversy, after presenter Gary Lineker was taken off air for the uproar on his criticism on UK’s new asylum law. Now, let’s take a look at what UK’s Illegal Migration Bill actually is and why some are opposed against it, as per reports.
What has been announced?
The Illegal Migration Bill places a legal duty on the interior minister to deport anyone who enters the UK illegally, superseding their other rights under human rights conventions, explains a report by AFP.
They would be deported home or to a “safe third country”, such as Rwanda, under an existing UK plan, where they could then claim asylum.
Legal challenges or human rights claims would be heard in that country. Applicants would be disqualified from using British laws aimed at preventing modern slavery to stop their deportation.
Illegal entrants who are removed also face·a lifetime ban on citizenship and re-entry to the UK.
The government is promising new “safe and legal routes” for refugees, but has yet to spell those out.
Lawmakers would set an annual quota for legal refugees eligible to settle in Britain.
Why is the UK proposing this?
More than 45,000 arrivals from across the Channel were recorded last year, with 3,150 already having made the journey so far in 2023.
Interior minister Suella Braverman says that as many as 80,000 could cross by the end of the year, and that the “broken” asylum system is costing UK taxpayers £3 billion ($3.55 billion) annually.
She and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also argue that their approach is more “compassionate” than allowing cross-Channel tragedies to occur.
In November 2021, at least 27 people drowned when their fragile dinghy deflated.
But the government says that in any case, many of the migrants are coming for economic reasons rather than for genuine asylum needs.
Last year, the largest contingent came from Albania, which has already agreed a return policy with Britain to take its illegal migrants back.
IS THIS A NEW PROBLEM?
The issue is neither new nor unique to the U.K. War, famine, poverty and political repression have put millions on the move around the globe. Britain receives fewer asylum-seekers than European nations including Italy, Germany and France.
But for decades, thousands of migrants have traveled to northern France each year in hopes of reaching the U.K. Many are drawn by family ties, the English language or the belief it’s easy to find work in the U.K.
After the Eurotunnel connecting France and England under the Channel opened in 1994, refugees and migrants congregated near the French end in hopes of stowing away on vehicles. They gathered in crowded makeshift camps, including a sprawling, violent settlement dubbed “The Jungle.”
Neither repeated sweeps to shut down the camps nor increased security patrols stopped the flow of people.
WHY ARE PEOPLE NOW CROSSING BY BOAT?
When the COVID-19 pandemic all but halted rail, air and ship travel and disrupted freight transport in 2020, people-smugglers began to put migrants into inflatable dinghies and other small boats.
In 2018, only 300 people reached Britain that way. The number rose to 8,500 in 2020, 28,000 in 2021 and 45,000 in 2022.
Dozens have died in the frigid channel, including 27 people in a single sinking in November 2021.
Groups of migrants arrive almost daily on beaches or in lifeboats along England’s southern coast, sending the asylum issue up the news and political agenda.
WHO IS IN THE BOATS?
The British government says many of those making the journey are economic migrants rather than refugees, and points to an upswing last year in arrivals from Albania, a European country that the U.K. considers safe.
The other main countries of origin last year were Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Of those whose applications have been processed, a large majority were granted asylum in the U.K.
Is it legal?
Britain is a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, which sets numerous responsibilities for countries towards people fleeing persecution or war.
Criticising the UK bill, the UN refugee agency noted that the convention explicitly allows people to flee their homeland and claim asylum elsewhere without passports or other papers.
Britain also has obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to avoid putting people at risk of torture or other forms of inhuman or degrading treatment.
The country’s own 1998 Human Rights Act also offers asylum-seekers various protections.
Braverman insists the draft law complies with international law.
But in a note to MPs at the beginning of the 66-page bill, she acknowledged she was “unable” to assess that its provisions are compatible with the ECHR.
What responses have there been?
The bill has drawn vocal support from many Conservative MPs and right-wing newspapers after serial vows by governments to crack down on cross-Channel migration.
But critics including UK rights groups and United Nations agencies have expressed deep concern.
The Refugee Council has said it is “unworkable, costly and won’t stop the boats”, while the Doctors Without Borders charity called it “cruel and inhumane”.
The main opposition Labour party wants the money spent instead on a crackdown on criminal gangs behind the cross-Channel traffic, arguing that the government’s plan will do nothing to deter them.
BBC football presenter Gary Lineker, a longtime critic of the government’s migration policies, even compared the new plan to the rhetoric of Nazi-era Germany.
WHAT DOES THE BRITISH PUBLIC THINK?
The government has vowed to push the bill into law, saying the British public wants to see tough action. “Stopping the boats is not just my priority, it is the people’s priority,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Wednesday.
vidence suggests the public’s view is mixed. A desire to control immigration was a huge factor behind the U.K.’s 2016 vote to pull out of the European Union. But overall immigration rose, rather than fell, after Brexit, hitting a record high of more than 500,000 in the year to June 2022. Britain also took in a record number of refugees last year, including 160,000 from Ukraine and 150,000 from Hong Kong.
At the same time, polls suggest immigration is no longer a top issue for many voters. Jonathan Portes, senior fellow at the think-tank U.K. in a Changing Europe, said there has been a “sustained shift towards more positive attitudes towards migration” since Brexit.
As for asylum-seekers, he said Britons want the country to be “relatively generous towards genuine refugees. But how that is defined is highly contested.”
With AFP, Associated Press inputs
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