Rishi Sunak’s political battles are always short-term, more intended as a mere survival exercise than as a strategy. The British Prime Minister breathed a sigh of relief by finally pushing forward, early this Tuesday, his Rwanda Security Law, which delegates to the African country the management of irregular immigrants arriving in the United Kingdom, but the Government is fully aware of the avalanche of resources in view of a text that continues to have many holes, despite its hardness. The rule practically makes the possibilities that migrants have of requesting protection in British territory an exception.
As Sunak himself announced this Monday, the Home Office has trained 200 new officials to handle asylum requests; 500 people are already prepared to escort immigrants who are going to be deported during the trip to Rwanda, and another 300 are already receiving training to reinforce this security scheme; British justice has launched 25 new courts and 150 specialized judges to deal with the claims of newcomers.
And above all, the new law considerably reduces the possibility that those designated to travel to Rwanda can resort to the last resort of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg. Sunak is convinced that, with the blessing of Parliament, he will be able to face possible suspension orders, such as the one that prevented the first flight with immigrants from London to Kigali from taking off in June 2022. The union that represents the majority of civil servants – the so-called civil service – of the British Government has been the first to announce possible legal appeals against a deportation policy that could lead its members to break international legality.
“We would not have activated these new capabilities if we were not prepared to use them,” Sunak responded to that challenge. “We have made changes to the Code of Conduct for Senior Officials that make it clear that officials must simply follow the instructions of ministers, if we reach that point,” he explained. The new law leaves precisely in the hands of members of the Government the possibility of disobeying, in immigration matters, the orders of the ECtHR.
New deaths in the English Channel
Just a few hours after the new law was approved, the French coast guard confirmed that at least five migrants – three men, a woman and a girl – had died in the early hours of Tuesday while trying to cross the English Channel, from a area near the town of Wimereux. The “lifeless bodies” have been located on a boat carrying a hundred people trying to reach the United Kingdom by sea. They died as a result of the commotion caused on the boat when its occupants panicked, according to French agents.
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Three helicopters and several boats have participated in the operation, and 47 people have been rescued, four of whom have been transferred to a nearby hospital. The rest of the passengers, 57, have remained on the boat to continue their trip to the United Kingdom.
Notices and reactions against the law
The time to go to the Strasbourg court will come when the Government begins with the first deportations, which Sunak himself announced for next July. It will be then when the immigrants themselves designated to take the flight present individual appeals, or when some humanitarian organizations or law firms undertake their legal battle against Downing Street. The firm Duncan Lewis, which already represented many of the people who were supposed to board the aborted flight in 2022, has announced that it plans to act again when the plan is activated.
The law leaves a minimum exit gap for those immigrants designated to travel to the African country. If they suffer from serious physical or mental problems, or have been victims of torture or human trafficking, they can try to appeal to the British courts. For the rest, once in Rwanda, any type of application to the British system will no longer be possible.
There are many critics of the law, both from the opposition side and from the Conservative Party itself, who consider it a pyrrhic political victory for Sunak, which barely allows him to save face in the upcoming municipal elections on May 2 across the country. England. But he will hardly be able to overcome all the legal challenges that lie ahead. The hard wing of the toriesheaded by the former Minister of the Interior, Suella Braverman, assures that the text leaves many gaps open for the courts to paralyze its application.
“The law has been approved, but the entire deportation plan to Rwanda will go down in the history of British politics as an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ style adventure, which will be as absurd as it is inhumane,” said Enver Solomon, the president of the organization UK Refugee Council. “You won’t be able to stop the boats [que cruzan el canal de la Mancha], it won’t stop human trafficking and it won’t save lives. The deputies have limited themselves to approving a law that will only cause more suffering and more deaths,” he warned.
Figures versus reality
The British Government has already paid Rwanda almost €280 million by the end of 2023, and the total payment, over five years, will reach at least €430 million, according to the National Audit Office, an independent body. control of public finances. With contracted accommodation and care capabilities in Rwanda, the UK can only send 200 people a year to the African country. That is, 0.7% of the total number of immigrants who arrived on English shores in 2023 (29,437 people). Each deported individual will cost the British State around 174,000 euros. That is, almost 73,000 euros more than what it costs to maintain it in the United Kingdom.
“I am concerned that this law allows the implementation of a policy of deportations to Rwanda that prevents a prior evaluation of the asylum request in most cases,” the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe denounced this Tuesday. , Michael O’Flaherty. “I ask the United Kingdom to refrain from deporting people under the protection of this law and to reverse the effective breach of judicial independence that the text represents,” he demanded.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, has joined in denouncing the law: “It represents a new step by the United Kingdom in which it moves away from its long tradition of offering shelter to those who need it, and of attacking the Refugee Convention,” he denounced.
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