Rwanda bill is a threat to peace in Northern Ireland
✒ THE Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, currently going through Parliament, has attracted much attention and criticism on several grounds but I wonder how many readers are aware of the threat it poses to the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, and consequently also to the Windsor Framework, the deal the UK made with the EU to sort out Northern Ireland’s postBrexit trade problems?
Under Section Six of the Good Friday Agreement the British government pledged to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights into Northern Ireland law, providing an extra way to ensure citizens’ rights beyond Stormont and Westminster. Article Two of the Windsor Framework makes specific reference to the Good Friday Agreement and these rights. As several organisations and experts have pointed out, the Safety of Rwanda Bill undermines the Good Friday Agreement by allowing the UK government to disregard international law written into it.
All this comes on top of the many moral, legal and practical problems with the Bill and the basic idea of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, all of which the government tries to shout down. It insists Rwanda is a safe place to send asylum seekers, yet the UK has granted asylum to at least six Rwandan refugees over the past two years. In fact more than 6,000 Rwandans sought asylum in other countries during 2022 alone.
Despite this, as some of the refugees in Calais have themselves said, the threat of being sent there is not a significant deterrent to would-be boat people: Not surprising, given the uncertainties about the policy itself and the relatively few asylum seekers Rwanda will be prepared to take. Such a risk must seem minuscule compared to the risks and hardships they have already overcome before they even get aboard an overcrowded rubber dinghy to cross the channel.
Particularly now that Stormont politics is active again, any threat to the Good Friday Agreement is surely something we should all be concerned about.
Francis Kirkham
via email