UK: New UK Prime Minister Scraps Controversial Rwanda Scheme ― More Migrant Deaths in Channel ― New Government Sets Out Plans for ‘UK Border Security Command’ ― Polling Indicates Support for ‘Safe and Legal Routes’ for Asylum Applicants ― Condemnation …

• The new prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has announced that the previous government’s scheme for sending people who arrive in the UK irregularly to Rwanda would be scrapped.
• Five people have died in two separate small boat incidents in the Channel in less than a week.
• The Home Office (Ministry of the Interior) has set out the first steps in the establishment of a new ‘UK Border Security Command’ with responsibility for tackling the criminal gangs that organise the small boat crossings in the Channel.
• Polling conducted for the British Future think tank has shown significant support for inter alia the creation of “safe and legal routes” for people who want to claim asylum in the UK.
• The prisons watchdog has published a damning report in which it describes the conditions in an immigration removal centre in west London as “the worst” its inspectors have ever seen.
• Two new NGO reports have highlighted concerns about the well-being of people living in Home Office-managed asylum accommodation and residents on the Bibby Stockholm barge have staged a sit-down protest.

The new Prime Minister has announced that the previous government’s scheme for sending people who arrive in the UK irregularly to Rwanda would be scrapped. Speaking in a press conference on his first full day as prime minister following his party’s victory in the election that took place on 4 July. Sir Keir Starmer said that the scheme, which he described as a “gimmick”, was “dead and buried”. He added that the scheme had “never been a deterrent” and that, even if it had been successfully implemented, it could only have resulted in the deportation of “less than 1%” of the people who arrived in the UK by crossing the Channel in small boats. Commenting on the announcement, the chief executive of the NGO Freedom from Torture, Sonya Sceats, said: “We applaud Keir Starmer for moving immediately to close the door on this shameful scheme that played politics with the lives of people fleeing torture and persecution”. Her reaction was echoed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who X posted: “The Rwanda policy being scrapped is very welcome decision – but the task of rebuilding our asylum system to meet the challenges of this century is immense”.

The UK government has said that it will look into how much of the public money that had been spent on the implementation of the Rwanda scheme (£ 220 million by the end of 2023 despite nobody being sent to Rwanda) might be recouped. A spokesperson said that any savings from the scheme would be “redirected to a new Border Security Command to tackle small boat crossings”. For its part, the Rwandan government has said that it would consider any UK requests for funds to be returned but that there was “no obligation” for it to do so.

On 12 July, four people died as they tried to cross the Channel in a small boat. According to the French coastguard, they were among a group of people who fell into the sea off the coast of Boulogne-sur-Mer after part of their boat deflated. 63 people were rescued and brought ashore in France. Nine of them were reportedly in a “serious condition”. Commenting on the incident, the head of ECRE member organisation the Refugee Council, Enver Solomon, said: “This devastating loss of life in the Channel highlights the scale of the challenge facing the new government. Preventing more deaths which are now happening too often is a critical and urgent task”. “We need to bring an end to men, women and children who have fled war and oppression in countries such as Afghanistan, Syria and Iran being driven into the arms of the smuggling gangs by opening safe routes so refugees wanting to be with their families are not forced to take deadly risks. We also need to put in place cooperation agreements with our European allies to provide safe passage from France and trial the use of refugee visas,” he added. Solomon’s reaction was echoed by the chief executive of Safe Passage International, Dr Wanda Wyporska, who said: “Rather than continuing an anti-refugee approach, the new government must urgently open safe routes and restore the right to seek protection so people fleeing war and persecution have safe ways to reach the UK”. In a separate incident on 17 July, one person died and 71 others were rescued after their boat deflated off the coast of Gravelines. This latest death takes the number of people who have died trying to cross the Channel by irregular means in 2024 to 20.

The five most recent deaths in the Channel occurred just a few days after the government set out the first steps in the establishment of a new UK border security command with responsibility for tackling the criminal gangs that organise the small boat crossings. According to the Home Office (Ministry of the Interior), the command would “draw together work of intelligence agencies, police, Immigration Enforcement and Border Force” and “draw on additional resources, with work to bring in more investigators, experts and analysts to tackle organised immigration crime”. Announcing the new command on 7 July, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Criminal smuggling gangs are making millions out of small boat crossings, undermining our border security and putting lives at risk. We can’t carry on like this. We need to tackle the root of the problem, going after these dangerous criminals and bringing them to justice”. She also described the move as a “major upgrade in law enforcement”.

The new government’s strong focus on law enforcement measures may have come as a disappointment to the section of the British public that supports the creation of “safe and legal routes” for people want to claim asylum in the UK. According to polling undertaken by Focaldata for the British Future think tank and reported in the Guardian newspaper, “50% of people, and almost two-thirds of Labour voters, back a scheme in which humanitarian visas could be granted to up to 40,000 people a year with strong asylum claims or links to the UK”. The polling also indicated that half of the 2,500 people surveyed approved the decision to scrap the Rwanda scheme and to reallocate funding to the Border Security Command, two-thirds supported plans to process all asylum applications lodged by people who have reached the UK, more than half approved plans to end the use of hotels as asylum accommodation and almost two-thirds supported a proposed new returns unit.

The UK prisons watchdog has issued a damning report on conditions in an immigration removal centre in West London. According to the report by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP), the conditions in Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre, which is “the largest of its kind in Europe”, were “the worst” its inspectors had ever seen. The Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, told the BBC: “The level of chaos that we found at Harmondsworth was truly shocking and we left deeply concerned that some of those held there were at imminent risk of harm”. “Nobody should be detained in an immigration removal centre unless they are going to be removed quickly from the country, yet around 60% of detainees were released from the centre, with only a third deported, which begs the question of why so much taxpayer money was being spent keeping them locked up in the first place,” he added. The director of the NGO Medical Justice, Emma Ginn, described HMIP’s findings as “nothing short of national emergency” and accused the Home Office of showing “contempt for human life”.

In addition to HMIP’s criticism about the conditions in the Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre, concerns have also been raised about the well-being of people who are living in Home Office-managed asylum accommodation. A report by the NGO the Helen Bamber Foundation has warned that increasing numbers of people at the former military base in Wethersfield in southeast England are “attempting suicide, self-harming and refusing to eat”. Commenting on the report’s findings, Professor Cornelius Katona from the NGO Humans for Human Rights Network said: “It’s likely that more people will become more distressed, there will be more people whose existing mental health conditions deteriorate, and more who develop suicidal thinking and may act on it. All of the issues that we’ve seen are already getting worse”. “The underlying problem is that the accommodation is intrinsically unsuitable for vulnerable people, and particularly survivors of torture and trafficking,” he added. Elsewhere, a report by University College London and the UK member of the Every Child Protected Against Trafficking (ECPAT) Network has revealed that more than 100 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who have disappeared from Home Office-managed hotels and who remain unaccounted for “are likely to have been trafficked”. The report’s lead author, Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson said: “This is a national scandal which must not be repeated. It is still not clear what attempts have been made to find those who remain missing and make sure that they are safe” while the chief executive of ECPAT UK, Patricia Durr, said: “This research confirms our fears and emphasises the need for urgent action to find the missing children, and for a statutory independent inquiry to ensure this child protection scandal never happens again”. Finally, people living on the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland on the south coast of England have staged a sit-down protest over “delays in processing their asylum claims, overcrowding conditions and trouble accessing medical treatment”. One resident described the ship as the “hell barge” and said: “When we were moved on to the barge we were told we would be here for a maximum of 90 days, which was a period of time we felt we could cope with. But many of us have now been here much longer than that. Sometimes we have to wait a month for an appointment with the doctor and people’s mental health is deteriorating”.

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