New U.K. policy on refugees

Subject: International Relations

Section: MSc

Concept :

The Conservative government of the U.K. is proposing to adopt a new, stricter policy to deal with asylum seekers who arrive on the island via boat.
While the Illegal Migration Bill (IMB) is yet to be passed by the U.K. Parliament, once that happens it will have retrospective applicability from March 7, 2023.
With the rise of anti-immigrant sentiments fuelling some aspects of the Brexit campaign, the U.K. Conservative Party has been a strong advocate for tighter immigration policies.
Brexit became a reality on January 31, 2020.
This is purportedly aimed at protecting U.K. jobs or shifting the focus to skilled workers arriving through legal routes.

Why U.K. is bringing the migration bill now?

Recently, all major developed countries including U.K. has witnessed rise in numbers of asylum seekers. This is due to:
The recent years of the pandemic and the economic distress it has caused across developing countries;
The displacement of certain communities in countries such as Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq;
Displacement caused by Russia – Ukraine war.
Also, this step was taken to fulfil a promise made in January 2023 by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, to “stop the boats”.
The so-called small boat arrivals comprised approximately 45% of the total asylum applications made in 2022, which was close to 89,000.

Proposals of the bill

The Bill, when passed into law by the U.K. Parliament, will:
require that the Home Secretary detain and remove those arriving in the U.K. illegally, either to Rwanda or another “safe” third country;
would deny migrants the right to bail or judicial review for the first 28 days of their immigration detention;
block such migrants from returning to the U.K. or seeking British citizenship going forward.
The Bill would also seek to set a cap on the number of refugees who will be permitted to settle in the U.K. through “safe and legal routes”.
This, at the moment, only applies to people from Afghanistan and Ukraine, or British National status holders in Hong Kong.

New bill is incompatible with international law

This is more evident in the concept of non-refoulement – that refugees should not be returned to a country where they face threats to life and liberty.
This concept is encapsulated in the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees as well as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
K. is a signatory of both the conventions.

UN Convention on the Status of Refugees:

Under the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees and the subsequent 1967 Protocol, the word refugee pertains to any person who is outside their country of origin and unable or unwilling to return owing to well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.
Stateless persons may also be refugees in this sense, where country of origin (citizenship) is understood as ‘country of former habitual residence’.