When you consider Rishi Sunak’s latest plans to tackle Channel crossings, think of Imad.
Because Imad’s Syrian Kitchen in central London has received a lot of critic accolades of late, not least for the “cheerful brightness that suffuses his food”. Yet Imad Alarnab’s story is one of survival, of his perilous, irregular journey from war-torn Syria to reach safety in the UK.
There are many others like him. They risk everything, as is all too clear today, as the Kent coastguard responds to a terrible incident in the Channel, where four people in a small boat, on the icy water, have lost their lives.
When my own child was in hospital earlier this year, he was treated by a doctor who travelled with his parents overland from Iraq to the UK seeking asylum. Today he is a consultant at one of our country’s leading hospitals.
Yet, according to the prime minister, people like him, and Imad the feted restaurateur, are just “illegals” to be detained and deported without ever being given a fair hearing in the UK. Sunak told the Commons yesterday that new legislation will “make it unambiguously clear that, if you enter the UK illegally, you should not be able to remain here”.
The only way people seeking safety would be allowed in, he said, was through government-designated safe routes.
See that for what it is: an inhumane response that would effectively rip up our commitment to the UN refugee convention, of which the UK was a founding signatory.
And see what it would mean. For this is a convention that was founded on the basic principles of international solidarity and responsibility-sharing. To withdraw from it in all but name would be a shift towards aggressive unilateralism.
The flimsy boats carrying men, women and children across the Channel are real but they also symbolise the global movement of people less fortunate than us who are fleeing violence and bloodshed. According to the UN in June this year, the number forced to flee reached 100 million. More than half remain within their own countries, but the rest are refugees primarily staying in neighbouring countries. A fraction of the total, 4.5 million, are in the process of seeking asylum.
Previous administrations have sometimes pushed what is allowed under the convention to the extremes, but they have always maintained the basic right for people to seek asylum in our country. We are a country that says it will promote human rights in the face of authoritarian aggression around the globe, but this new stance would align us with authoritarian governments.
Ministers could and should be taking a very different approach – seeking to work with our European partners to address the causes of people taking dangerous journeys outside formal immigration systems.
There are credible options, too, that would give people safe ways to reach the UK, providing alternatives to the smuggling gangs. We know that many are trying to reach family members already here – indeed the Home Office’s own internal analysis make this very point. Yet the UK has restrictive family reunion rules that mean a refugee child can’t bring parents or siblings and parents can’t bring young adult children. We could work with the UN to expand global resettlement programmes, like those that allowed more than 20,000 people displaced by the Syrian civil war to come to the UK.
Humanitarian visas that allow people to apply to live in the UK without first needing to have arrived here should also be trialled. They could focus on countries whose nationals make dangerous journeys to reach the UK and also have high subsequent rates of being granted asylum, such as Eritrea, Sudan and Afghanistan.
But even then, the reality is that some people will always have no choice but to take these journeys. This has been the case for generations. Respecting their right to seek asylum when they arrive must be paramount. And they are not all “bogus” or economic migrants. In the year to September, just over three-quarters of asylum decisions resulted in people being allowed to remain and go on to become UK citizens.
Decisions must be timely, with appropriate legal safeguards. At present, tens of thousands are left to languish for years on end awaiting a decision. Last year, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) submitted credible and workable proposals that, if implemented, would create an asylum system that is humane, fair and affordable. The government, however, chose to ignore them. Now there are nearly 150,000 people waiting for a decision.
So the prime minister is right to commit to clearing this backlog by the end of 2023. But that will need concerted action, not just words, and a fair, transparent process. In European countries such as Germany, the majority of decisions are made within six months. Those who wait longer are allowed to work.
In the midst of this global challenge of irregular migration, Britain has the choice of being authoritarian, callous and insular, or compassionate and tolerant. In polling, Britons more often than not choose humanity and tolerance. However men, women and children seeking sanctuary arrive, those are the values politicians must uphold.
Enver Solomon is chief executive of the Refugee Council
