The UK government announced new legislation it said will prevent all cases of migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats, a key policy ambition for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that is expected to face legal challenges.
(Bloomberg) — The UK government announced new legislation it said will prevent all cases of migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats, a key policy ambition for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that is expected to face legal challenges.
“Anyone entering the country illegally will be detained and swiftly removed,” Home Secretary Suella Braverman told Parliament on Tuesday, saying that some 45,000 people entered the UK on small boats crossing the Channel in 2022.
The new law was prompted by deaths in the Channel and pressures on UK asylum processes, Braverman said. It “will allow us to stop the boats that are bringing tens of thousands to our shores in flagrant breach of both our laws and the will of the British people,” Braverman added.
The government says that illegal migration — such as small boats crossing the Channel without presenting at border control — costs UK taxpayers £3 billion a year. Asylum seekers who arrive via the Channel have been housed temporarily in hotels at a cost of £6 million per day, the government said.
Sunak made stopping small-boat crossings a centerpiece of his policy platform for 2023 when he unveiled five key promises — alongside halving inflation, growing the economy and cutting healthcare waiting times. Unlike those, the Illegal Migration Bill is expected to face legal challenges and could find itself slowed down in the the courts.
Under the plan, the home secretary will have a legal duty to remove people who enter the UK illegally, and anyone who does so will be automatically banned from claiming asylum or citizenship in the UK, the Home Office said in an emailed statement.
The government will be able to detain migrants for an initial 28 days without recourse for bail or judicial review, and will then have open-ended powers of detention “for as long as there is a reasonable prospect of removal,” the statement said. Legal challenges and human rights claims will be heard overseas, and asylum seekers will be barred from using modern slavery laws to stay in the country.
The UK has already tried to implement deportations, last year introducing a program to relocate some asylum seekers to Rwanda. However, no flights to Rwanda have left the UK yet after the plan was grounded in June last year by an injunction from the European Court of Human Rights.
Braverman said the government was unable to make a “definitive statement of compatibility” with the European Convention on Human Rights, although she said she was “confident” the proposed legislation fulfilled the UK’s international obligations.
Critics of the legislation suggest that bill will inevitably end up in the courts, which would open up the possibility that the governing Conservative Party could propose leaving the ECHR ahead the next general election, due before January 2025.
Sunder Katwala, director of the British Future think tank, which specializes in migration and integration, warned: “Repeating the failed policies of last year but expecting different results will fail both the people needing protection and the many voters who want the Government to get a grip.”
The home secretary said the UK would open new safe and legal routes for asylum seekers, although was unable to explain what those routes would be or when they would be implemented.
The opposition Labour Party insisted that the government proposals were just the latest in a succession of abortive plans to tackle the issue. “This bill isn’t a solution, it’s a con that risks making this chaos worse,” Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said, responding to Braverman in the House of Commons.
Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, said: “We need an approach that replaces the chaos and cost of what we have now and focuses on compassion and competence, creating safe and orderly routes for refugees to reach the UK, such as refugee visas, and always give people a fair hearing so their rights are respected.”
(Updates with reaction from 11th paragraph.)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.