Israel’s Fortress State Is the Model for the UK’s New Asylum Policy
There is nothing innovative or humanitarian about Britain’s new policy of shipping asylum seekers, “on a one-way ticket“, thousands of miles to central Africa. Nor is there anything surprising about the choice of destination: Rwanda. Boris Johnson’s government has simply copied wholesale a programme established by Israel eight years ago.
When Israel introduced the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda in 2014, it did so in secret, fully aware that it was breaking the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention it ratified.
When the policy came to light, Rwanda initially tried to spare Israel’s blushes by denying its involvement. Israel, meanwhile, falsely claimed the deportations were happening on a voluntary basis.
The British government, by contrast, is being far more brazen. It has trumpeted its similarly abusive treatment of asylum seekers, making a feature of the compulsion. According to reports, the British scheme will deport refugees first, then force them to apply for asylum in Rwanda. If they succeed, they can remain in Rwanda. If they fail, Rwanda can forcibly return them to the place from which they fled.
Johnson presumably hopes the policy will play well with British voters in the run-up to local elections in May, as they tire of the seemingly endless deceptions and bottomless cronyism of his ruling Conservative Party. Last week the British prime minister was among those fined for breaking Covid lockdown rules his own government set.
With the mood against Johnson souring, however, he may have been caught off-guard by the backlash. The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, condemned the Rwanda plan in an Easter Sunday address, saying the failure to take responsibility for refugees was “the opposite of the nature of God”.
On Tuesday night Johnson was reported to have attacked Welby and the BBC’s coverage at a meeting of Tory party backbenchers, accusing them of being “less vociferous” of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than the government’s Rwanda scheme.
Dangerous journey
Some are dismissing the scheme as the prime minister’s latest wheeze to deflect attention from his political troubles. But that would be to ignore a growing confidence on the British right towards treating asylum seekers inhumanely – especially those who are not white. Johnson’s government has even been reticent to ride a wave of public sympathy towards those seeking sanctuary from the war in Ukraine.
The Conservative Party is amplifying deep-rooted nativist tendencies in the UK – and drawing inspiration from Israel, which has long experience of turning itself into a fortress state.
In a sign of the continuing need to pay lip service to humanitarian concerns, Johnson’s government has publicly dressed up the new asylum policy as a move to prevent people-smugglers from endangering the lives of refugees by transporting them in inflatables across the Channel from France. Dozens have died, including at least 27 people who drowned in November when a single boat capsized.
But Britain’s real motive – barely disguised – is the same one that drove Israel to adopt the policy. It wants to wash its hands of its legal obligations towards refugees by outsourcing responsibility to far poorer countries whose services can be easily bought.
Bad as that is, there is an even uglier ambition. The UK understands that Rwanda, one of the most densely populated and poorest countries in Africa, is unlikely to make serious efforts to treat the refugees with dignity or resettle them. Britain’s goal is to make an example of them. The refugees’ likely mistreatment is part of the programme, serving to deter others from following in their footsteps.
Britain is trying to make clear that anyone arriving on its shores will face not a warm welcome or British justice but the very oppressive conditions from which they fled in the first place. The vagueness of the policy – and who it applies to – is the point. Why make the hugely dangerous and costly trip to the UK if you are likely to end up effectively back where you started?
Johnson is demonstrating that post-Brexit Britain has the freedom to reinvent itself as the most hostile corner of Europe to refugees.
Dissent crushed
Rwanda is an ideal destination. Helped by western leaders like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Rwanda has largely succeeded in whitewashing its image with western publics following the Rwandan genocide of the mid-1990s.
