WITH the Labour Party now in power in the UK after 14 years in opposition, new Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer is busy overturning policies by the Conservative government that lost a phenomenal 251 seats. One of the sticking points under Tory rule was the thorny issue of illegal immigration.
In a desperate move to counter this, the Conservative government entered into a controversial £400 million deal with Rwanda in 2022 for the country to take in migrants for their asylum claims to be ‘processed’. The plan called for ‘anyone entering the UK illegally’ after January 1, 2022 to be sent to Rwanda, where they would apply for asylum.
But from the outset, there was a legal tug of war between the British government and asylum bodies in the courts. By the time the Conservatives were thrown out of power by a disenchanted British electorate, the plan was going nowhere even though the government had forked out £270 million to the Rwandan government.
Now Starmer has said he is ‘not prepared to continue with gimmicks’ as he announced that the multimillion-pound scheme will be killed off. The Rwandan government, in response, said that was fine because it was a British government initiative, and Kigali would keep the £270 million already disbursed by the Conservatives.
The whole system of asylum and migration has become a political hot potato around the world. The problem is the blurring of the lines between asylum seekers and illegal migration, which has lumped those genuinely seeking protection with the illegals.
Every government has a right to halt illegal immigration that is only benefiting unscrupulous people traffickers. The Conservative government was exasperated by the apparent lukewarm attitude of French officials to the people smugglers operating from French beaches.
Many saw it as French bloody-mindedness over the UK leaving the European Union. Once Brexit took effect, the UK lost out under the EU’s Asylum Procedures Directive which sets out a common procedure for granting and withdrawing international protection.
Nevertheless, the French do not have any reason to turn a blind eye to the activities of people smugglers. However, even if some of those trafficked are genuine refugees they cannot pick and choose where they will seek asylum.
The Refugee Convention of 1951 states that the right to flee one’s country does not necessarily mean that refugees have the right to choose their country of asylum. Hence the concept of the first safe country of asylum.
So, it does not make sense for asylum seekers to enter and pass through several safe countries in Europe to make their way to the UK on perilous journeys across the English Channel. This is because the people smugglers have sold their clients a different story.
It is a clearly a money-making racket that sees the people smugglers earning millions of dollars, given that they charge up to $30,000 to take people across to the UK. In most countries from where the illegal migrants come from this is a princely sum.
Those asylum seekers that are taken in by the British coastguard appear well heeled. They are attired in designer jeans and trainers with expensive looking watches on their wrist.
This scenario is a far cry from the refugee camps that I have visited in Djibouti, Somalia, Liberia and Ghana over the years. There, one saw people who were traumatised and trying to cope with the uncertainties of their future.
‘Bayern’s Alphonso Davies was born in a refugee camp’
Despite this, there are many refugees from such camps in Africa who have made good as a result of orderly refugee resettlement programmes. Take the Buduburam camp, which was established in 1990 about 20 miles from Accra, for Liberians fleeing the civil war in their country.
When I visited it many times during an assignment in Ghana in 2005, I was always amazed to see how the refugees were dealing with the harsh reality of life. One thing that attracted my attention was the crowd clustered around the noticeboard outside the camp’s community centre.
They were looking to see whether they had been granted asylum by the US, Canada or Australia. What these three countries did was to send their consular staff from their diplomatic missions in Accra to interview the refugees and decide which ones qualified for asylum.
That is how the current Bayern Munich and Canada left back, Alphonso Davies, made it to North America with his parents in 2005. He was born in Buduburam in 2000, and I might have seen him running around kicking a football when I visited. Look at how well he has done for himself as a result of an orderly refugee settlement programme.
Of course, there are countless numbers of unsung heroes who have also benefited from such a programme and their countries of asylum. It is clear that safe and legal routes to claim asylum are the answer to the activities of the odious people traffickers as governments try to dismantle the illegal business that is costing lives unnecessarily.
Desmond Davies is the Editor of Africa Briefing Magazine. The original of this op-ed can be found in the July-August 2024 edition of the magazine
