Asylum crackdown comes months after government last promised to ‘fix broken asylum system’

Political amnesia sees the prime minister present previous government’s proposals as ‘new steps’, Lizzie Dearden writes

There has been a lot of noise, but little meaningful change (AP)

“This landmark act will allow us to fix our broken asylum system so we can better support those in genuine need of asylum through safe and legal routes,” said the Home Office.

The statement was not a comment on Rishi Sunak’s announcement on new laws targeting Channel crossings, but on a previous raft of legislation passed in April.

Ministers vowed that the Nationality and Borders Act would “break the business model of people smuggling gangs” and stop small boat crossings, but they continued to rocket and eight months later, the prime minister found himself in the House of Commons proposing yet more legislation.

Such is the apparent political amnesia that during a debate lasting one-and-a-half hours on Tuesday, the Nationality and Borders Act was only mentioned three times - and not by ministers.

Many of the measures announced by Mr Sunak, such as increasing the threshold for modern slavery referrals and creating new reception centres, originate in those laws but were presented as “new steps”.

“Our legislation will deliver a system whereby a person who comes here illegally will have no right to stay and will be removed to their own country or a safe third country alternative,” he vowed.

That has long been the intention of the government, but the Refugee Convention, Human Rights Act and other laws have made the ambition impossible to realise – and it is unclear how Mr Sunak’s plan could overcome those obstacles.

Ministers previously changed the UK’s immigration rules so it could refuse to consider asylum applications from people who have passed through safe third countries, but with the Rwanda scheme stalled and no deal with the EU there are few other countries to deport them to.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) swiftly issued a statement warning that Mr Sunak’s announcement would violate international law and “undermine the global refugee system at large”.

The government has tried to displace its obligation to process asylum applications by demanding people apply instead for direct resettlement from countries where they can be selected by the UNHCR.

Mr Sunak also wants to impose a cap on that route, despite only 1,391 people using it in a year that saw 86,000 conventional asylum applications.

The prime minister claimed the government would distinguish “illegal migrants” from “genuine refugees”, but the vast majority of small boat arrivals have claimed asylum and more than half of decided applications were successful.

Crossing the English Channel on a small boat to seek asylum was not a crime until the government made it one in June, after several asylum seekers who had been wrongly jailed challenged their convictions.

So far this year more than 40,000 people have arrived in the UK on small boats, with the number surging to new records despite measures the Home Office claimed would act as deterrents – including the Rwanda deal and a £100,000 online communications campaign.

Parliamentary committees, experts and charities have long called for the government to tackle Channel crossings by creating alternatives, but it has persisted with an unevidenced approach of restricting access to asylum and criminalising asylum seekers.

There is no visa for those travelling to the UK to seek asylum, and resettlement schemes do not apply to refugees who have already reached Europe on their journeys.

While the prime minister’s latest announcement has made a lot of noise, there appears to be little meaningful change from the failed policies of the very recent past.