With Rwanda plan, UK trying to securitise migration: Expert

The Rwanda bill became law after it received royal assent

The UK’S controversial plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda is an attempt to politicise, securitise and externalise the issue of migration, according to a British expert.

A bill authorising the government scheme became law on Thursday after it received royal assent, despite raging criticism and persistent concerns over its human rights implications.

Amelia Hadfield, head of the politics department at the University of Surrey, also believes the government has tried to ‘circumvent a whole host of laws’.

“I think the most important criticism is simply that the bill requires the courts to ignore key sections of the Human Rights Act,” she told Anadolu in an interview. She pointed out that the Supreme Court initially blocked the scheme, terming it unlawful, after which the government found a way to ‘ get around the courts’ by introducing a bill deeming Rwanda a ‘safe country’.

“It also compels the courts to disregard other British laws, Britain’s own laws, and international rules, including the very important International Refugee Convention, which would block deportations to Rwanda,” she added.

The UK first tried to ship off asylum seekers to Rwanda in June 2022, but the first deportation flight was blocked by the European Court of Human Rights at the very last minute.

The British government has since signed a new treaty with Rwanda to address concerns raised by courts. Hadfield, however, said much of the persisting criticism is because the new law ‘has produced a whole range of legal challenges’.

She said the government ‘has attempted to push back and externalise migration instead of dealing with it domestically’.

“Worse than that, actually, it’s politicised it. It’s made it a political football at a time when migration is an incredibly divisive topic here in the UK,” she said.

“Even worse, I think it has securitised it. I think it has rendered migration as a whole an aspect of the safety and the security of the UK, and I think that is absolutely a step too far.”

Hadfield reiterated that the government is essentially forcing ‘courts to ignore key sections of British law, the Human Rights Act, (and) the International Refugee Convention’.

More importantly, she added, the new law also circumvents the European Convention on Human Rights, which specifically prohibits the inhuman treatment of migrants and asylum seekers.

She pointed out that the UK government itself had criticised Rwanda over ‘its poor human rights track record, its extrajudicial killings, deaths in custody, enforced disappearances and torture’. “So, why is a country which was unsafe in 2021, magically safe? Why do we have to see Britain uncoupling and decoupling itself from the range of highly regarded … international laws which are the very foundation of the rules-based system,” she said.

Tracing the origins of the issue, Hadfield said Britain has been looking for alternative solutions to migration, particularly from across the English Channel, since Brexit, specifically as the Common European Asylum System stopped applying to the UK from January 2021.

There were a series of attempts by various governments, including partnerships with France, but the crossings continue to increase, she said.

“These are patchwork solutions. These are band-aid solutions. They do not get to the heart of the problem, which is that there is no functioning postBrexit migration structure.”