It’s not just Britain. Europe, too, has a refugee problem with which it is failing to cope, as do the US and other wealthy countries. Rishi Sunak’s new, £500m payment to French police to curb Channel crossings ignores this bigger picture. How does confining desperate, blameless people in yet another detention centre help anyone? Like the Tories’ Rwanda deportation scheme, it’s a crude, inhumane way to dodge moral and legal responsibility. It’s high time this government realised Channel crossings are but one tiny part of a global refugee crisis. Its focus should be on urgent, collaborative pan-European and international action.
About 46,000 people used small boats to seek asylum in Britain in 2022, up from 9,000 in 2020, according to the latest official data. That sharp rise came despite four previous, costly and ineffective deals with France. While the figures may appear large, they pale by comparison with the enormous challenge facing Europe as a whole. The number of asylum applications relative to UK population size remains well below the EU average. In the year ending June 2022, Britain offered asylum or protection to a mere 15,700 people.
In contrast, last year saw about 330,000 illegal attempts to breach the EU’s external border, the highest number since the 2016 Syrian refugee crisis and an increase of 64% on 2021, according to the Frontex border agency. Separately, almost 13 million Ukrainian refugees entered the EU from Ukraine and Moldova following Russia’s invasion. The so-called western Balkans route, via countries of former Yugoslavia, was used by 145,000 “irregulars”, up 136% on 2021. The eastern Mediterranean route via Turkey also saw large increases.
Looked at globally, the small boats issue so cynically hyped by rightwing Tories and media looks even smaller. According to UN figures, a record 103 million people were forcibly displaced around the world in mid-2022, of whom about 37 million were refugees or asylum seekers. Yet nearly 70% of refugees and others needing protection remained in countries bordering their land of origin. In other words, the overwhelming majority did not head for Britain. This is not a UK “invasion”, despite what the home secretary, Suella Braverman, says. But it is a global crisis and Britain should play its part in addressing it.
UN data on where refugees predominantly come from underscores the scope of the problem. Five countries – Syria, Venezuela, Ukraine, Afghanistan and South Sudan – accounted for seven in 10 of all refugees last year. These outcomes reflect systemic geopolitical failures. In Syria, it’s a 12-year civil war that western democracies now largely ignore. In Afghanistan, it’s the fallout from the shameful decision by the US and UK to abandon the country to the Taliban. What has happened in Ukraine needs no elaboration here, except to say that it was wholly avoidable.
In addition to conflicts, terrorism and chronic instability in countries such as Somalia, Yemen, Iran, Myanmar, Eritrea and Mali, the cumulative human impacts of the global climate emergency and population growth also shape migration. Levels of global hunger and food insecurity have never been higher. Yet when did a Tory minister last make the connection between Britain’s predicted failure to meet its 2035 zero carbon emissions target and drought in east Africa that drive families into the arms of people traffickers in Libya?
Already impoverished people in developing countries are again at risk from Russia’s new threat to block Ukraine’s grain exports. Calais people smugglers are not alone in weaponising such problems. Turkey’s leader has threatened to flood the EU with displaced Syrians as has Belarus. Serbia, sitting astride the western Balkans route to the EU, has been less than helpful.
Sunak and Braverman are not alone in their blinkered outlook. Many governments have responded to the crisis with insular, badly thought through “solutions”. Poland, Bulgaria, Finland and Austria have, like Britain, resorted to erecting barriers, in their case a spate of wall-building. Others, such as Italy and Greece, have turned to illegal “push-backs”, resulting in deaths and tragedy in the Mediterranean. In the US, Joe Biden is reportedly considering Trump-style detentions of migrant families at the US-Mexico border, a practice he previously denounced. Trump’s infamous wall still stands.
The political damage inflicted across Europe from the failure to manage migration is vast. Italy’s new far-right coalition came to power on the back of public fears about uncontrolled refugee influxes. France and Germany have seen similar surges in support for xenophobic parties. In Brussels, there is continuing disagreement among EU states about overall migration policy. In Britain, lies and exaggerations about migrants boosted support for Brexit – and disfigures public debate to this day.
This gross distortion of a pressing, primarily humanitarian, life-and-death issue was on view again last week as rightwing Tories and their media allies, bent on distraction, whipped up a row about BBC football presenter Gary Lineker’s tweeted criticism of government refugee policy. Lineker is fully entitled to express his personal views, although he could choose his words more carefully. The BBC’s decision to suspend him is ill-judged and craven, and one it will regret. Braverman’s hypocritical complaint about the presenter’s “offensive” comments is jaw-dropping.
If Sunak wants to be taken seriously on refugee and migrant policy, or any other issue, he must look at the bigger picture – and ignore the prejudices of rightwing clamour. Britain should work closely with the EU on creating additional safe and legal routes for asylum seekers and a cooperative system of returns, as urged by Labour’s leader, Keir Starmer. A pan-European approach, in concert with UN agencies, which includes increased foreign aid budgets, improved conflict resolution and a halt to the victimisation of refugees (by states as well as criminal gangs) is the only sensible, humane way to tackle a global problem that no single country can hope to resolve on its own.
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