“The government must realise that it cannot make complex asylum policy based around headline grabbing intentions.”
Apsana Begum MP explains her opposition to the government’s Immigration and Asylum Bill.
Like the last round of reforms to the immigration system, the Immigration and Asylum Bill is poorly thought out. These reforms are designed not to solve structural issues in the asylum system, but instead to show how “tough” this government is.
The Bill is, in essence, Rwanda 2.0.
For a start, replacing qualified immigration judges in the First-Tier Tribunal with a new Independent Immigration Appeals Authority (IIAA) would be so complex that it will be unworkable. The government has provided no assessments on how much this new body would cost to establish, when it expects it to be operative, or even how exactly it will be more efficient than the Tribunal.
Belying its title of ‘Independent’ is the fact that it would be run by Home Office appointees. With no guarantees on political independence, it is no surprise that the Law Society has said these proposals would damage people’s right to a fair hearing and should be withdrawn.
And we must be clear in saying that the reason that there is such a backlog in Tribunals in the first place is because of the terrible decisions on claims by the Home Office. Pushing for speed over accuracy means that initial decisions are riddled with errors.
Additionally, I find it shameful that this Labour government is proposing to rip up the rights and protections of people who have endured unimaginable trauma, including the rights of children that are protected under the EHCR and the Refugee Convention. Indeed, the proposed reforms to modern slavery laws, experts have warned, will penalise victims even further, deterring them from reporting their abuse for fear of detention and ultimately emboldening criminal gangs. And more broadly, I find the way that this debate is being driven abhorrent. The Home Secretary’s comments that the human rights of foreign sex offenders are being prioritised over British women and girls are incredibly dangerous.
Every act of Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) is an injustice, and it is an uncomfortable reality that it is committed in every economic group, ethnicity, age and social group, and overwhelmingly by men who are in women and girls’ lives. VAWG is also perpetrated by people who move to the UK, but it is racist to suggest that this is an ‘imported’ problem alone. It flies in the face of women and girls’ daily experiences in the UK and actively undermines the urgent work of eliminating VAWG.
As over 100 women’s rights organisations previously wrote to the government to say, attempts to link sexual violence with immigration not only fuel racism and division, but also put survivors at risk and threaten to derail the government’s VAWG agenda.
This Bill, I fear, will actually put many of the most marginalised women and survivors in the UK – migrant, refugee and asylum-seeking women, or women who are victims of modern slavery – at even greater risk of harm, destitution, homelessness, exploitation and criminalisation.
These measures in the Bill are as performative as they are cruel.
Frankly, too, they are incredibly short-sighted. Just as the Rwanda Bill under the last Government was an expensive failure, French reports say that the ‘one-in, one-out’ system is being wound up after the pilot ends in October.
I have no doubt that the proposed Independent Immigration Appeals Authority will likewise be wound up early when it proves impracticable – but not after costs have spiralled and thousands of asylum seekers have been subjected to a legal and administrative hell.
After the failed Rwanda Bill, after the ‘one-in, one-out’ policy, the government must realise that it cannot make complex asylum policy based around headline-grabbing intentions. Surely, too, it must recognise that the anti-rights, anti-migrant far-right can never actually be appeased.
I am left asking as many of my constituents are asking me: when right-wing parties are pushing for deportations of people already settled here, how long until this Labour government attempts to follow suit?
- Apsana Begum is the Member of Parliament for Poplar and Limehouse – you can follow her on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram and TikTok.
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