The tragic deaths of at least six individuals on Saturday morning, resulting from the sinking of an overcrowded boat attempting to reach England’s south coast, have brought attention to the dire situation faced by Afghan refugees fleeing their homeland. This attention is well-deserved considering the deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover. The Taliban has engaged in brutal reprisals against its opponents, leading to the collapse of the independent legal system and a significant increase in poverty and hunger. Women and girls are particularly affected, facing a regime described as “gender apartheid” by a UN official, as recently highlighted by Gordon Brown in this publication.
It is worth noting that Afghan nationals were the second-most common nationality of people arriving in the UK via small boats last year, although the government attempted to divert attention by focusing on Albanians who constituted the majority of these arrivals. The government’s commitment to resettling 5,000 Afghans falls significantly short, with only 96 Afghans resettled in the UK in 2022 compared to the thousands who arrived by small boat in the year leading up to March 2023.
Last week, Lee Anderson, deputy chair of the Conservative party, made deeply offensive remarks suggesting that asylum seekers, including Afghans and citizens of other war-torn countries, should “fuck off back to France” if they objected to being housed on the Bibby Stockholm barge. Adding to the controversy, it was revealed that a water sample taken the day before the barge was used tested positive for legionella bacteria, potentially causing legionnaires’ disease. The individuals were eventually relocated to dry land on Thursday and Friday.
The government’s approach to asylum as an electoral issue rather than a policy matter is shamelessly evident as ministers struggle to explain why an alert raised in Dorset took three days to reach them. It is unfathomable that the home secretary was not immediately made aware of the disease outbreak risk on the very barge that symbolizes the government’s asylum policy.
Rishi Sunak’s team displayed remarkable cynicism by rallying around Mr. Anderson while using expletives to refer to refugees in public. The party should be deeply ashamed of stooping to this new low. It is unquestionable that chronic instability in countries like Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and Eritrea presents a serious problem, and irregular migration challenges politicians worldwide. However, the UK government’s retreat into populist aggression is disheartening, especially when what is truly needed is a strong commitment to multilateral solutions and pragmatic investment to address the backlog of 160,000 asylum claims. Instead, the Tories appear to be relying on the upcoming Supreme Court ruling on the legality of deporting asylum seekers to a “safe third country” (Rwanda) to exploit the issue for political gain while fanning public anxiety about arrivals and discomforting other parties.
There are valid differences of opinion on how to handle small boat arrivals, and the government has yet to publish impact assessments of its Illegal Migration Act. However, analysis suggests that this law will lead to the blocking of nearly 200,000 people from claiming asylum without the ability to deport them, resulting in a system that could cost up to £10 billion over three years. The current approach is indefensible.
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