UK will finally off shore illegal asylum seekers crossing the channel

Ahwell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119235342#Comment_119235342

The only countries to have done that are Russia and Greece in 1960's when a military coup had abolished democracy. The European Convention on Human Rights is a central plank of the Good Friday Agreement. This isn't going to happen.

Edit: or maybe it is indirectly with this bill being introduced before parliament on Wednesday. This is some shower of a government

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119235073#Comment_119235073

Absolutely, but it should be noted that the ECHR is primarily designed to protect "British" citizens from the UK government, not just refugees or asylum seekers. Without international human rights laws, the Tories could legalise just about anything - internment without trial, reintroduce the death penalty, introduce life sentences for minor crimes etc.

If we look back at other examples of right wing governments who weren't keen on international human rights laws, it was always the actual citizens of the state who became their main target, not foreigners or refugees.

Fandymo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119234858#Comment_119234858

Refugees should be allowed, in small, controlled numbers, to move to Europe on the understanding they they will be going back to their country of origin once the threat passes.

They should only be accepted from refugee camps either within their own country, or in the nearest safe country. Anyone rocking up with no papers and a sob story should be deported to their point of origin before their feet have a chance to touch the floor.

Fandymo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119235447#Comment_119235447

No countries laws should be over-ridden by another organisation

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119235447#Comment_119235447

Whereas the left wing governments of the former Warsaw Pact had human rights as their central tenant.

this is starting to enter chicken licken territory now.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119235764#Comment_119235764

Yes, I could have added left wing or far left governments as well - quite a few examples from South America and Central America spring to mind, not just the Communists in the former Eastern Bloc.

But the general point stands that human rights laws are designed to protect a country's citizens from its own government. If a government is prepared to treat asylum seekers and refugees harshly, what would be to stop them turning their attention to 'undesirables' within their own nation?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119235883#Comment_119235883

Like I said, this is getting in to chicken licken territory.

a government no matter how good, bad or downright nasty still has to seek re-election and people will always have the ability to judge them.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119235992#Comment_119235992

For sure, but there's a problem here in that many people within a country might actually approve of human rights being eroded. Most populist governments are big on 'law and order'. Those people who vote for them might be absolutely fine with human rights legislation going out the window, just as long as it is other people who are being screwed over by the state.

Dyr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119235764#Comment_119235764

The concept of Human rights was invented by the French Revolution and enshrined by Stalin

Its up to the elected government of a democratic country to enact the laws which it will enforce, if you want to talk about human rights a fundamental one is the right for a society not to be ruled by those they cannot remove from power

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119237316#Comment_119237316

Also, human rights laws are mostly designed to protect ordinary citizens from *the Government* - I don't think this point is even remotely registering with the Rwanda supporters in the UK, who either want to chuck human rights laws into the bin or allow the Brexit Tories to decide what human rights are allowed.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119235536#Comment_119235536

What point of origin? If you mean France, then there was a mechanism for returning them but the UK have destroyed that and France simply won't accept them.

Fandymo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119237859#Comment_119237859

I’m talking about in general terms. Not just the U.K. The EU needs to lock down it’s borders.

Dyr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119237392#Comment_119237392

The Brits had human rights before the term was even invented. A fundamental on is a peoples right to choose the government that creates their laws. Unlike the laws imposed on them from outside their elected government as with the European court of Human Rights.

Its a bit rich frankly, looking to a continent with a **** track record for democracy as a bastion of it 😂

Ahwell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119238818#Comment_119238818

An elected UK government choose to become a member of European Convention on Human Rights. In fact, it was originally proposed by Winston Churchill and drafted mainly by British lawyers.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119238818#Comment_119238818

What if the national government decides to start oppressing some of its own citizens (or neglecting their rights at least)? That's the whole of point of international human rights legislation (e.g. the ECHR) - to protect a country's citizens from its own government if it decides to go rogue. For example, the main reason the ECHR was built into the Good Friday Agreement was in case a future UK government decided to start screwing over the rights of the Catholic / nationalist population again and they would then have a higher court to appeal to.

The fact that the Tories want to get rid of international human rights laws and replace them with their own ones should be setting off a load of alarm bells.

Has the sky fallen i yet?

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119239306#Comment_119239306

Has anyone been deported yet?

Fun fact: The UK has officially sent more PM's to Rwanda than asylum seekers.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119239359#Comment_119239359

These conversations always become polarised.

because you think people are being drama queens clearly means you support sending asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Podge_irl

Just to further emphasise how terrible the policy is, many of those MPs backing it do not even understand it and would clearly not support it if they did.

https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1538583330567999488

Peregrinus

So, the English High Court has ruled that the Rwanda rendition plan is lawful.

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/AAA-v-SSHD-Rwanda-judgment.pdf

This isn't the end of the story, though.

Firstly, because the ruling will certainly be appealed, probably all the way to the UK Supreme Court.

But, secondly, because on closer examination it looks like a pyrrhic victory for the government.

The issue came before the court because the Home Secretary decided to deport a number of individuals to Rwanda under the policy, and they challenged the decision. There were 19 such cases in all — i.e. decisions to deport 19 different individuals to Rwanda were challenged — but they all raise similar issues so they were grouped together. This ruling relates to all 19 decisions.

While the court has ruled that the policy overall is not unlawful, it has also rules that in every case the removal decision was unlawfully taken. It has overturned the decisions and directed the Home Secretary to take them again, with proper regard for the applicable legal rules and the individual circumstances of each case.

The court points out that the Home Secretary has to apply the policy in a reasoned manner to the individual circumstances of each case in which a removal decision is made. It then spends pages and pages listing a catalogue of ways in which the Home Secretary failed to do this in the 19 decisions before the court - there were multiple failures in the way each decision was taken — this section of the judgment continues for nearly 50 pages.

The overall impression created is that the Home Office currently doesn't have the resources and the administrative competence needed to make all the individual deportation decisions in the manner required by law. While the Rwanda policy is not inherently unlawful, the lawful implementation of that policy will be extraordinarily resource-intensive and financially expensive. It seems from this judgment that the process of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda will be lengthier and more costly than just making proper asylum decisions about them would be.

Fandymo

Fingers crossed they find a way to make it work.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120024347#Comment_120024347

Don't think you're going to get your wish. The UK government has already said they'll do nothing until the appeals process has worked itself out, which will be a while — this has to go to the Court of Appeal first, before going on to the Supreme Court. Plus I think there are separate proceedings on foot in the European Court of Human Rights. If at the end of all this the SC upholds what the HC has said, they they need to resource and train Home Office staff to implement the policy properly. By the time all that has happened we'll be quite close to the change of government, if not actually past it, and of course the Labour Party has already denounced the Rwanda plan as "unworkable" and have said they will ditch it.

Besides, the point of the Rwanda plan is to deter people from coming to the UK in the first place by confronting them with the likelihood that they will be deported to Rwanda. But the HC decision requires individual deportation decisions based on the circumstances of each asylum seeker. Routine deportation of asylum seekers won't be possible, and this is likely to reduce the deterrent effect of the plan. So the government will be looking at a plan that costs considerably more to implement than just processing asylum claims would cost, and that is unlikely to achieve its stated aim of deterring asylum applications. It's not inconceivable that they may abandon it themselves in favour of something that has some chance of actually working.

Fandymo

If the will is there, they’ll find a way. At least they are being proactive in trying to save their country

Beasty

The solution seems quite simple

Assess whether they qualify under UK and International law

If they do, they stay. If the don't they go back to their country of origin or Rwanda, and then they don't even need to take this further through the Courts (which is very unlikely to conclude under this Government anyway with a fair chance it could be a very different Government at that stage)

Ahwell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120024451#Comment_120024451

"save their country" from what? Having one of lowest number of asylum applicates per capita in Europe?

Fandymo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120024828#Comment_120024828

Asylum applicants. How many people get off boats and disappear into the ether?? Europe is being over run with fake refugees. Putting your head in the sand won’t work for very long.

Jinglejangle69

I see they returned 42 Albanians back then Albania, they arrived with no documentation.

Imagine it being that easy at, who would have thought it?

Montage of Feck

They should sent them to South Georgia.

Dyr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120024828#Comment_120024828

Save their country from becoming another fine example of a multiethnic society, like Yugoslavia was

Gatling

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120026343#Comment_120026343

Looks what's happening here since the influx of people from Ukraine, other's are also arriving here to claim asylum despite already have been granted asylum in other EU countries.

There needs to be a line drawn under asylum with the EU and UN and decide who are genuinely in need vs those moving to Europe for financial reasons