Tuesday brought the announcement of Reform UK’s plans for immigration and asylum, plans which were then relentlessly platformed by the BBC and other media outlets in an exercise that felt like a day-long party political broadcast for the UK’s seventh largest party.
Even cursory examination revealed the plans to be as impractical and they were immoral, but it’s all too clear that Nigel Farage is setting the agenda on the immigration debate, and Labour’s initial response by Party Chair Ellie Reeves criticised the plans for their “lack of detail” rather than their lack of humanity. Fortunately the Liberal Democrat response from Ed Davey, Daisy Cooper and others was considerably more robust, if much less reported on.
But there is a fundamental dishonesty at the root of Reform’s policy, and it’s one that Labour is too scared to challenge. That dishonesty is encapsulated in the statement from Farage that “the only way to stop small boats crossing the English Channel is by detaining and deporting absolutely anyone who comes via that route”.
That’s simply not true. The only way to stop the boats is in fact to fulfil the Lib Dem manifesto commitment to create the currently non-existent legal routes to claim asylum, which really would remove the incentive to risk small boat crossings and destroy the people-smuggler’s business model.
Labour could do that, as could the Tories before, so why don’t they?
Currently you can normally only claim asylum once already in the UK, yet you can’t apply for a UK visa for the purpose of claiming asylum, and without a visa you can’t legally board a flight to the UK and pay an airline instead of a smuggling gang for your journey. This creates a Catch-22 that prevents legal asylum claims. Effectively it is unwritten UK policy to choke off the number of asylum claims by making it extremely difficult to make an application, requiring a high-risk journey to the UK courtesy of a criminal gang, something Labour is no more willing to admit than the Tories before them.
They could of course create legal routes and allow desperate refugees to claim asylum at British Embassies or Consulates close to whichever hell-hole they are escaping from. But they know that most asylum claims are accepted – either initially or on appeal, and that would increase the number of legal asylum seekers coming to the country.
And lets be honest, it’s not really about the legality or otherwise of the immigrants, it’s about appeasing a very vocal minority who just really don’t like foreigners from certain parts of the world. But the system as it stands gives a (thin) veil of legitimacy to racism and xenophobia by allowing them to preface all discussions about asylum seekers with the word “illegal”, and this plays into Reform’s hands and leaves them to play the “legitimate concerns” card.
As it stands, Labour’s plans to tackle small boat crossing seem no more credible than Reform’s. Unlike the Lib Dems, their 2024 Manifesto made no mention of safe and legal routes for asylum seekers, and by choosing not to make the economic and humanitarian cases for controlled immigration and a properly functional asylum system they are trying to fight on Reform’s home turf. By presenting policies and setting targets that they are unlikely to meet, Labour are playing into Farage’s hands and increasing the chances of a Reform Government in 2029.
* Nick Baird is a Lib Dem activist and Chair of the Cheltenham Party. He is writing in a personal capacity.
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18 Comments
We have an opportunity to be bold and declare that people should be able to lodge a claim at any British embassy, anywhere in the world, without requiring to come to the UK first. Yes, we may get a large increase in applications but it would illustrate our commitment to upholding human rights.
We should not simply content ourselves by quibbling abut the impracticality of Farage’s proposals, but say loudly and clearly that they are immoral and wrong.
Sorry, that should conclude “. . illiberal, immoral and wrong.”
The obvious door step question regarding safe and legal routes is as follows:
“If the Liberal Democrats wins the next general election and arrangements are made for what the party considers to be an adequate number of safe and legal routes, what will be the party’s policy for those who choose not to use the safe and legal routes and instead elect to travel across the channel in a small boat?”
The second obvious question is
“Will there be a cap on numbers, if so what will it be?”
The third obvious question is
“if there is not a cap on numbers, how many people do you think will come, and what arrangements will be made to house and provide services for all the people?” “How will it be paid for?”
Sorry there are more than 3 questions, in order not to be electoral poison it has to be well thought out. Especially after what happened when the A8 countries joined the EU, which eventually led to the UK leaving the EU.
@ Slamdac,
Perhaps I ought to offer you some answers…
1. The policy is simple, all such arrivals would be promptly processed and, if they meet the criteria for asylum, they will be given the right to stay. The point of establishing safe and legal routes nearer the places of danger is that most of those currently using small boats won’t need to do so, thus reducing the incentives to criminal gangs. Less customers, less benefit to the criminals.
2. Given that the number of small boat arrivals is approximately 7% of the overall net migration figure currently, perhaps you ought to be thinking about an overall cap on migration. Now, whichever way a government chooses to go on that, they’ll encounter the usual difficulties, in that there are significant sectors of the economy that require workers unavailable amongst the existing population. I’d go for a points-based system myself, but it does require some top quality analysis of the economy and isn’t without its own challenges.
3. I suspect that the number of asylum seekers won’t fundamentally change, although most of the applicants will be using the reinstated safe routes, and will be abroad when they apply and await the outcome. But, the reason for the current cost is that the previous Government decided that employing people to consider the applications was a burden and preferred to stack asylum seekers up in hotels. It’s notable that Home Office caseworkers were processing 75% less applications than before. Employing one extra caseworker costs far less than housing the applicants that they would have dealt with, and the cost of handling asylum seekers has soared accordingly.
As I often say, good administration costs, maladministration costs much more.
But, to be honest, Slamdac, perhaps you’d like to offer answers to your own questions, since you’re so keen to challenge others?
1. They should be detained and deported. Without a hardline policy there will be no reduction at all of people crossing by small boat. It is naive to think otherwise. Also it will be electorally unsustainable to have legal routes without an absolute prohibition on crossing by illegal routes.
2. There will need to be a cap on numbers. Not sure what it will be but I would guess about 60,000 a year. Again it is naive and politically unsustainable not to have a cap. There are 8 billion people in the world. They can’t all live in the UK.
3. Given the cap. The cost should be manageable.
@slamdac
If a woman who had been tortured in Iran entered the UK illegally to claim asylum would you deport her back to Iran to be tortured and possibly murdered?
Not currently.
But if the Liberal Democrats had set up safe and legal routes and she chose to bypass them and travel to the Uk from France or Belgium in a small boat. Then Yes the law would need to require that they are sent back.
Otherwise the safe and legal routes, which I support, will not have public support and will not reduce the number of small boat crossings, as anybody who thinks they may not qualify for asylum will just come by small boat.
@ Slamdac,
When you say 60,000, do you mean that as a cap for net migration or for asylum seekers alone?
But remember, if they then travel by small boat because they don’t think that they’ll be eligible for asylum, then prompt processing will enable them to be swiftly returned. After all, if even they don’t think that they’re eligible, they’re highly unlikely to qualify, are they?
I would also add that a hard line attitude would need to be taken to make a cap workable as otherwise as soon as the safe and legal cap is reached people will just take to the small boats without a deterrent.
In order to implement our other policies we will need to take a hard line on this policy, otherwise we have the square root of zero chance of being elected.
60,000 for asylum alone. But it would be a hard cap.
@Mark Valladares: What makes you think that the number of asylum seekers wouldn’t fundamentally change if we established safe routes? That seems totally implausible to me.
It seems to me much more likely that, depending on how easy the safe routes are to reach, the number of people actually submitting claims for asylum would quickly balloon. Particularly if the safe routes are accessible from near people’s home countries, the numbers claiming could quite literally reach millions of people per year – such huge numbers that it would be utterly impossible for us to accept more than a tiny fraction of those who apply. In turn, that would plunge our asylum system into a massively bigger crisis than it’s currently in.
The policy is simple, all such arrivals would be promptly processed and, if they meet the criteria for asylum, they will be given the right to stay. The point of establishing safe and legal routes nearer the places of danger is that most of those currently using small boats won’t need to do so, thus reducing the incentives to criminal gangs. Less customers, less benefit to the criminals..
As with the Greens – luxury beliefs from party members who (thankfully) know full well they will never be in a position to implement such a policy.
I might be a naive idealist but…
Asylum is a need and a special case of migration. All countries should make asylum as rapid and convenient as possible.
Eligibility for asylum is surely a UN definition. If not, then we should work to make it so.
Assessment of eligibility for asylum should be made rapidly and as locally as possible by any embassy, or other entity, of any country, in accordance with that UN definition.
People confirmed as having need of asylum from their home regimes must be moved to a safe country where they are no longer in danger.
The destination country should be selected by matters of language and culture relative to the applicant and in proportion to per-capita GDP of receiving countries. This might be administered by the UN.
Voluntary immigration into the UK has rules and constraints that should be strongly implemented, including deportation.
@markValladares – hope i am not too late for you to see this. You are right re our policy but it is also our policy to have Humanitarian Visas so asylum could be applied for and dealt with before crossing the channel.
For some reason that is beyond me, this Lib Dem policy is never mentioned.
@MarkValladeres – as good old LDV itself published in 2021!
https://www.libdemvoice.org/a-radical-new-policy-humanitarian-visas-a-lifeline-for-refugees-67381.html
Can anyone explain why our party spokepeople ignore this policy?