Human rights thank you

According to the new law in Great Britain, refugees without the possibility of asylum should be deported. That is foolish and inhuman.

It was the main reason for Brexit: the majority of Britons voted to leave the European Union because they don’t want any refugees on their island. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Interior Minister Suella Braverman have now presented a law intended to overturn the European Convention on Human Rights.

Braverman admits there is a “more than 50 percent” chance that their law would violate human rights law. It stipulates that migrants, who usually enter the English Channel by boat without permission, are first to be interned in prison camps and then deported to Rwanda. They should not be given the opportunity to apply for asylum.

The European Court of Human Rights has already thwarted Rwanda’s plans, and the new asylum law is doing the same. A number of Tory backbenchers are therefore calling for withdrawal from the human rights convention. That would put you in bad company: Russia and Belarus are the only non-member European countries. They were expelled because of the invasion of Ukraine.

Step down quickly because nothing else works
What is Sunak aiming for with the new asylum law? He knows he doesn’t have much time until the next election and opinion polls suggest the Tories will be defeated. Apparently Sunak thinks it will attract the public to get down on the asylum seekers because he is not making any progress on the more pressing issues – rising living costs, increasing poverty, empty supermarket shelves also due to a lack of foreign workers.

The asylum law is not only inhuman, it is also foolish. Since 2015, various British governments have tried to stop boats crossing the English Channel. The new law will not change that, because by the time it can come into force, this Tory government will hopefully be history.