Telling people that they can’t be refugees because they are from a particular country is not going to help at all.

Any hope that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak would take a less aggressive and confrontational approach to refugees and immigration more generally was dispelled by his speech today. Cruel, combative, unpleasant, misrepresentative and especially vicious towards Albanians, Sunak set out steps his government would take to punish and criminalise refugees.

Sunak repeatedly referred to “fairness” in his speech, but the 5 steps he outlined amounted to little more than increased cruelty and increased criminalisation of the universal human right to seek asylum. They were far from fair, and many have already been tried and deemed unlawful.
Sunak first promised that he would increase policing of the Channel, establishing a “new small boats operational command”, including the National Crime Agency. Whilst seeking international protection is not a crime, the link between asylum and criminality was obvious and intentional and clearly designed to appeal to a specific type of voter.

Sadly, this vein continued with Sunak then announcing this would free up more resources for immigration raids. He falsely claimed undocumented migrants were able to get bank accounts, and suggested that those without status in the UK have it easy. This is far from reality, and even those with status but no visa document encounter problems on a daily basis due to his government’s hostile environment.

Next Sunak said that housing asylum seekers in hotels would end. We hear daily from clients about how squalid these hotels are, but Sunak promised to make things worse for these people by moving them into disused military sites. It was as if Manston hadn’t happened, or as if Sunak actually wanted it to happen again.

Sunak’s fourth announcement was that he would double the number of Home Office asylum caseworkers, abolishing the asylum backlog by the end of 2023. Although any improvement to application processing times is welcome, a more immediate way to reduce the backlog would be to approve long pending asylum claims from countries such as Eritrea, Iran and Sudan where well over 90% of claims are ultimately successful.

Then came the moment Sunak, egged on by sections of the right-wing media, had been building to. He launched a scathing attack on the rights of Albanians to seek asylum in the UK, highlighting how the Prime Minister of Albania had said there was no reason Albanian asylum seekers cannot be returned to the country. It was scarcely believable to hear this, as if Sunak would rely on similar assurances given by, for example, the Iranian regime.

Sunak proceeded to explain how he considers Albania safe and his government will declare asylum claims as clearly unfounded. He then promised to codify his changes to processes and procedure into statute should they be challenged in the courts. The message to lawyers was clear: don’t try and challenge this government.

Finally, Sunak revealed perhaps the harshest part of his plans. New legislation will be introduced that will see those entering the UK to seek asylum detained indefinitely and swiftly deported, either to their home country or to unspecified other safe countries where their claims will be considered. Sunak despicably stated that refugees would no longer be able to frustrate removal attempts with spurious legal claims, as if somehow using the UK’s laws to hold the UK government to account is an abuse of the legal system.
A large segment of the speech was devoted to repeating the mantra that Albania is a safe country, ignoring of course that over 50% of Albanian asylum claims are approved. Crucially though, distilling asylum claims to a geographic rather than human matter greatly increases the risk of returning someone to persecution.

It was telling that mere hours before Sunak’s speech, our client, Tony, gave us the happy news that his asylum claim had finally been approved. 15 years after arriving in the UK, and a seemingly never ending legal battle, Tony had been recognised as a refugee.
Tony is from Ghana, a country like Albania that the UK considers “safe” for men. Tony is also gay, a criminal offence in Ghana. Whilst he could be imprisoned for simply possessing an innate characteristic, Tony also fears for his safety if returned to Ghana due to the homophobia that exists in the country.

Ghana may be safe for some people, but it wasn’t and isn’t for Tony. Categorising countries as safe or unsafe with no consideration of individual, human characteristics greatly increases the chances of people like Tony being returned to persecution, torture or even death. Asked for his thoughts on Sunak’s announcements today, Tony told us the following:
I cannot go back to my country, as it is not safe there as an LGBT person. People are still being killed in Ghana for coming out as LBGT. The government has to know that nobody decides their sexuality, you are born with it.
Telling people that they can’t be refugees because they are from a particular country is not going to help at all.

Tony is right. The government cannot just decide on a country by country basis who needs protection and who doesn’t. That is not how persecution works.
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Tellingly as well, Sunak’s speech barely made reference to the lack of safe routes to the UK. Ignoring his Home Secretary’s, Suella Braverman, disastrous performance weeks ago when she was unable to explain how a refugee from west Africa could make it to the UK without entering clandestinely, Sunak failed entirely to acknowledge that safe routes do not exist and therefore refugees have no option but to enter by other means and claim asylum. Until the government recognizes this, and stops prioritizing headline-grabbing over effective and safe policy making, further tragedies in the Channel are inevitable.