If you come here, we’ll send you to Africa. That’s the message Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants to send to all migrants who are considering getting to the UK by crossing the English Channel by small boat.
The plan is in many ways absurd. Asylum seekers who make it to the UK illegally are soon at risk of being put on a plane. If not to the home country, the trip goes to Rwanda – in the middle of eastern Africa. There is not a natural stopping point between the British Isles and the countries from which most asylum seekers come.
The entire asylum process will now take place in Rwanda. If the answer to the application is yes, they get asylum there. If they get a no, they can stay there on other grounds. Only in very special cases is a return ticket to London possible.
Rwanda has a stable authoritarian regime, which is not particularly safe for political dissidents. But the fact that it is an unattractive place to end up is the core of the plan. It should act as a deterrent.
Sunak is now desperately trying to get some asylum seekers on a plane to Africa. He has promised the voters that he will “Stop the boats”. But the boats keep coming. And to sink. This week at least five migrants have lost their lives trying to cross the Channel from France.
But the Rwanda plan is not a guaranteed success.
The probability of being pushed for a plane ticket to Kigali is low. Only 2,200 reception places are ready, while between 30,000 and 50,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel annually in recent years.
Those who make it to the UK from countries such as Afghanistan and Iran are taking a sky-high risk anyway. They have to deal with people smugglers, dangerous border crossings and risk their lives in unsafe small boats.
It is not certain that the fear of Rwanda makes that much of a difference.
But it CAN work. In that case, there will quickly be more asylum receptions in Africa. Sunak’s Rwanda plan is a trial balloon, which many European politicians will be watching closely.
Here at home, the FRP has long dreamed of getting approval for something similar. The idea of receiving asylum outside of Norway has been discussed far into the Labor Party.
Rishi Sunak has good reasons for trying new ways to reduce the number of asylum seekers. Too many people lose their lives trying to get to European countries. That the prospects for legal residence are poor is not enough of a deterrent. Human trafficking is a dirty business that makes good money from desperate people.
But the fact that the British have so largely lacked control over their own borders is partly their own fault.
Getting control of immigration was one of the most important issues when the British left the EU. However, it did not go as the Brexit supporters wanted.
Yes, there was an end to free immigration from EU countries, but immigration from outside the EU has almost gotten out of control. For example, around 40,000 Albanians suddenly arrived in small boats across the Channel to seek asylum.
When they left the EU, the British also left the asylum cooperation and it became more difficult to send asylum seekers back to the first safe country they came to.
It would of course be much more practical to send the migrants back to France than to Africa. But after Brexit, they no longer have the same set of agreements. As a result, it has also become more complicated to deal with so many migrants crossing the English Channel.
Here, the British, led by the Conservatives, have messed it up for themselves. When they now struggle with border control, it is partly because they gave up the effective means of control they had before.
Now they are trying to stitch together a patchwork of agreements, with France, among others. The Rwanda plan is therefore most reminiscent of symbolic politics, which also has the advantage that all the attention overshadows the Brexit problems.
There is an imminent danger of the Rwanda plan collapsing. Legal issues may still delay flights. And if Sunak is unable to get this done before the election in the autumn, it may be too late.
But if he succeeds, it could change the asylum field drastically.
