Ministers will face a fierce battle in parliament over plans to force some asylum seekers to relocate to Rwanda, promised a Labor peer and a former refugee child.
Alf Dubs, who was brought to Britain from Czechoslovakia by one of the Kindertransport trains in 1939, told the Guardian that the government was trying to “deal” with international agreements designed to help asylum seekers.
Following the announcement that many of those who arrived in the UK in small boats across the English Channel will be removed and resettled in Rwanda, Dubs said peers will fight the “terrible, shocking decision” when legislation is introduced. .
“I think it’s a way to get rid of people the government doesn’t want by throwing them in a distant African country, and they won’t have a chance to get out of there again,” he said.
“I think this is a violation of the 1951 Geneva Refugee Conventions. You can’t just walk around them as unwanted people.
While conservative MPs have largely welcomed the policy as a way to try to avoid the exploitation of desperate migrants by human trafficking gangs and to limit the record number of crossings, Dubs said there would likely be legal challenges and fierce opposition from colleagues.
He cited an amendment to the bill on nationality and borders passed by the House of Lords earlier this month, which said the government could proceed with any offshore only with the express permission of both houses of parliament. The amendment is likely to be repealed when the bill returns to the Municipalities next week.
Asked if the resettlement scheme is likely to ever begin, given the threat of judicial review and other legal action, Dubs said: “I think it is unlikely. As soon as they try to remove one person, I’m sure there will be a legal challenge and I’m not sure the government will win. “
Although Home Secretary Priti Patel boasted to Tory MPs that he would oppose the “leftists”, Dubs said the government seemed “quite happy to be rude” to the UK’s commitments under the Geneva Conventions.
He continued: “If [Patel] she says she will get rid of the claims of the left-wing lawyers, well, I think she may have something else to do. My understanding is that they will have real difficulties to deal with this anyway. “
Dubs said the legislation needed to make the deal with Rwanda legal would lead to a “battle in parliament”, especially in the House of Lords.
Referring to the process where Municipalities and Lords continue to disagree and send bills to each other, Dubs added: “Without a doubt, the government will make us sit down and then just play ping-pong until they think about it. that they can tire us out. But I think there will be a lot of fighting for that. “
Durham Bishop Paul Butler, who sits in the House of Lords, also vowed to fight the move. “The whole idea of declaring asylum seekers inadmissible is wrong,” he told the Guardian.
“Where or how asylum seekers come from is irrelevant in international law. It is also obviously wrong to punish asylum seekers. Traffickers must be targeted and brought to justice for their heinous crimes. “
Butler called on the United Kingdom “not to transfer our international responsibility to another nation” – warning that it would “effectively carry out state-sponsored trafficking itself” if we forcibly removed people from our shores into a nation these asylum seekers did not know and did not want. to go for asylum. ‘
Butler agreed with Dubs that the project would be “extremely expensive” and said the money would be better spent on improving the way asylum seekers process applications in the UK and providing additional safe and legal routes. with those that exist for Afghans, Ukrainians and British Citizens overseas in Hong Kong.
The Home Office said the £ 120m partnership with Rwanda was necessary as existing approaches had failed and there was no single solution to tackling the migration of migrants to the English Channel.
He praised “Rwanda’s strong experience in supporting and integrating refugees” and said that the country was “internationally recognized for its security, strong governance, low corruption, gender equality and as one of the fastest growing economies in Africa”.
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