Navigating Chaos: Unraveling the Dynamics of UK’s 2023 Immigration Policies
A desperate struggle… for what?
The judges of the UK Supreme Court, on 15 November 2023, unanimously ruled against the UK government’s Rwanda policy. During the ruling, extensive reference was made to legal obligations and the principle of non-refoulement, which states that asylum seekers cannot be removed from the UK when there is a risk of them being sent back to their home countries - a risk sending asylum seekers to Rwanda evidently holds. Yet, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has now vowed to change the law under the guise of an “emergency” to introduce legislation that would “confirm” Rwanda as a safe place. Why is the UK government so desperate to push for the removal policy when it does not seem to be compatible with either domestic or international law?
What is this “emergency” about?
The plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was first announced in 2022 with the aim of deterring people arriving in the UK across the English Channel in small boats. By the end of that year, the government had calculated that more than 45,000 migrants had crossed the Channel, reaching the highest figure since records began in 2018.
The backlog of asylum cases has also been growing, hitting a record high earlier this year with more than 175,000 asylum seekers awaiting an initial decision on their application. With such a large pile of backlogs, it is not surprising that the demand for asylum accommodation also rose. In order to fulfill its statutory duty to provide accommodation for asylum seekers who cannot afford housing and/or cannot meet essential needs, the Home Office has increasingly relied on expensive hotels, with the cost of housing asylum seekers rising as high as £8 million a day.
These numbers and trends became the grounds for Sunak to declare “stopping the boats” as a key priority for 2023. Since then, we have witnessed the introduction of the Illegal Migration Act 2023, criminalizing people arriving on small boats and giving the home secretary “a legal duty to detain and remove anyone entering the UK illegally”. In April, the government also announced plans to use the controversial barge, “Bibby Stockholm”, to house 500 asylum seekers - now reduced to a maximum of 425. The floating accommodation harbored in Portland port has been widely criticized for its vulnerability to fire hazards and severe living conditions that risk the mental health of people living onboard, as well as the danger of disease outbreaks which was well-demonstrated with the reporting of legionella bacteria on the barge in August. Sunak claims that such measures are needed to reduce the cost of asylum accommodation and to discourage people from coming to the UK. Despite facing criticism and his logic being commented as “frankly laughable” by opposition, Sunak claims that the policies are working. But is it really?
Is the asylum backlog really reducing?
Official figures up to 13 November show that the number of small boat crossings this year was about 30 per cent lower than the same period in 2022. However, it is not clear as to whether the government policies have contributed to the fall. In fact, it could likely have been due to poor weather conditions in the Channel that hampered crossings, especially in July and August, which are the peak months for small boats. Moreover, these policies have very little deterrent effect in practice, as they are not an important factor influencing the number of people claiming asylum. Prospective asylum seekers do not always know what policies will face them when they arrive in the UK, and decisions about where and how to move depend on other factors, such as the presence of family members.
A recent Financial Times article also raises questions about the effectiveness of the immigration policies in addressing the backlog of cases. Last December, Sunak pledged to clear the so-called “legacy backlog” cases, referring to asylum applications made before 28 June 2022. While data published by the Home Office shows significant progress, halving the number of outstanding legacy cases, a backlog of new cases has been accumulated, offsetting the gains made in addressing older claims. Additionally, immigration lawyers have accused the government of “massaging” the asylum backlog numbers to hide the actual number of migrants awaiting decisions, creating the appearance of progress in statistical data. In the first half of this year, 43 per cent of the asylum “decisions” were attributed to “withdrawals”, significantly higher than the 17 per cent of applications withdrawn in the same period last year. According to the Financial Times, an immigration barrister points out that the government had
“Quietly changed immigration rules to make it much easier to treat an application as withdrawn, if a person missed an interview, sent a document in late, or moved address without informing the authorities.”
This “secret backlog” implies that there are still asylum seekers in the country whose applications have not been considered or decided upon, but have nonetheless been omitted from the statistic of backlog cases and erroneously classified as asylum “decisions”. It is a result of procrastination to properly tackle asylum issues, stemming from the lack of productivity at the Home Office.
The policies are costing basic rights of asylum seekers
While failing to provide proper solutions to the issues it proposes to tackle, what the ostensible approach and other immigration policies are doing is simply pushing asylum seekers in the UK into even more dire conditions. The Home Office guideline states that asylum seekers should not spend more than 19 days in hotels or other initial accommodation before being provided with more suitable longer-term housing. Owing to the continuing backlog, 80 per cent of people wait longer than six months for their decision, resulting in many families staying in dire temporary conditions for months, and often over a year. These accommodations are often placed in locations far from necessities such as schools, doctors, and shops, costing the physical and mental health of asylum seekers. It has also been found that the government reallocated resources set aside for asylum seekers to its efforts to send people to Rwanda and has also cut their legal aid and funding, directly damaging the health and well-being of many vulnerable children and families living in temporary accommodation.
The newly introduced Illegal Migration Act also bars asylum seekers from “presenting refugee protection or other human rights claims, no matter how compelling their circumstances". It refuses to consider those who have entered the country through routes unclassified as safe and “legal”, which are rarely available for people fleeing war and persecution. These issues would not arise if the government were to simply withdraw the costs going into policies that are clearly not working and reallocate the funding to raise the productivity and speed in asylum processing.
The government’s persistent “tackling” of immigration-related issues is hence practically not working, damaging its international reputation, and merely putting asylum seekers on indefinite hold. But would the government see this as a “failure”?
The government’s attempt to win more votes
The desperation and persistence of the UK government amid its failure to solve anything only signals that all this chaos and noise is an attempt for political messaging. A YouGov tracker found that over the months, immigration and asylum issues overtook economic and health concerns to become the most important policy issue amongst people who voted for the Conservative Party in the last general election. It makes sense, then, the current government will try its best to secure more votes by tackling - or appearing to tackle - the issue that is likely to be the most decisive factor in the outcome of the forthcoming general election next year.
As the controversies around the Bibby Stockholm made it clear, these bold and noise-making policies are easy ways of responding to criticism from Conservative supporters that the government is “not doing enough” to tackle “illegal migration”. Moreover, thinking about the political appeal and electoral power that the Brexit narrative had in the last general election in 2019, “illegal immigration” is a perfect subject that will act as a Brexit-equivalent tool to show the Conservative Party’s commitment to “achieve the will of the people” and depict the oppositions as enemies “standing in our way”. It is hard to predict, as of now, whether this strategy will have its wishful goal of winning the majority of votes. However, it is a sad, foreseeable reality that it will appeal, at least, to a certain proportion of the population.
As the UK government persists in using immigration and asylum issues as political tools, the repercussions of this “game” become a harsh reality for those seeking refuge. The more these policies prioritize symbolism and optics, the more severe and obscured the plight of asylum seekers becomes. Moreover, these policies not only harm the lives of refugees but also deceive the British population, creating an illusion that the government is effectively addressing immigration issues when all it is doing is “moving people around like chess pieces”.
In light of these concerning developments, it is imperative for Britain to awaken to the harsh realities and the deceptive nature that the government’s policies have introduced. Only through a collective acknowledgement and a demand for more compassionate and effective approaches can the nation hope to address immigration issues responsibly and uphold its commitment to human rights.
Image courtesy of UK Prime Minister via Wikimedia, ©2023. Some rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
