The government has proved once again that it is incapable of thinking beyond the instant headline and ignores presumably unintended but totally predictable consequences of its thoughtlessness (UK to send asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing, 13 April).
The intention is to send single men to Rwanda for a biblical 40 years or more. Any people smuggler with a business plan will tell asylum seekers to no longer travel alone, get settled and then bring their families – the least risky strategy. They will say: “Bring your families now so that you will not be put on a plane to Rwanda.” The consequence: more children on dangerous boats; more children drowned in the Channel; then another crackpot scheme announced to “solve” the humanitarian disaster caused by the last plan.
The way to reduce the problem is to set up legal and accessible ways of claiming asylum abroad and reducing the need for desperate people to attempt desperate routes. That is the way to undermine the people smugglers who are exploiting market opportunities that the government has created.
The “war on refugees” is no more winnable than the “war on drugs” that it so resembles in its enthusiastic embrace of folly and its lack of hope of victory, except on the battlefield of soundbites.
Mike Cushman
London
• This letter was amended on 15 April 2022 to clarify the wording of the second pararaph.
