Britain’s new migration deterrent plan is looking set for an early demise, with foes from activist lawyers to the United Nations aiming to kill the relocation policy in its cradle.
The Australia-style plan would see some migrants arriving in Britain by boat from France — a safe, European Union member-state where they do not face persecution — relocated to Rwanda while their often bogus asylum claims are processed. A similar policy in Australia has cut illegal boat migration practically to zero.
However, the British plan may not be long for this world, with the likes of the United Nations and even the government’s own civil servants apparently hell-bent on ensuring the anti-mass migration measures never come into force.
According to a report in The Telegraph, Boris Johnson is likely to face serious opposition to his measures from within the British deep state, with unions representing civil servants threatening mass walkouts and transfer requests in protest against the Rwanda relocation plan.
“As a civil servant, your choice is either to implement the Government’s policy or resign,” said the general secretary of one trade union on the matter. “The Home Office is often where the most controversial policies happen, but people will say that a line has been crossed.”
“Their choice will be either to go along with it or leave the Home Office,” the union tsar continued, adding: “It will be the case that a lot of people will leave either the department or the civil service.”
The Tory party government is also facing significant opposition from the United Nations, with the globalist organisation’s refugee agency claiming that relocating migrants to Rwanda would breach international law, despite Australia having successfully implemented a similar policy — in the face of similar criticism — for years.
While acknowledging the proposed policy would likely be effective in terms of deterring migration, Gillian Triggs, a senior bureaucrat at the UN’s refugee agency, said that the measure was an “egregious breach of international law and refugee law and human rights law”.
“It is very unusual, very few states have tried this, and the purpose is primarily deterrent – and it can be effective, I don’t think we’re denying that,” she admitted.
“But what we’re saying at the UN refugee agency is that there are much more legally effective ways of achieving the same outcome,” she continued, also saying that the UK was effectively “outsourcing” refugee claims.
Boris Johnson is also facing opposition from Britain’s unelected House of Lords, with members of Parliament’s upper house vowing to fight the new measures.
“The whole idea of declaring asylum seekers’ claims as inadmissible is wrong,” said one member of the house, Paul Butler, who owes his presence there to his status as the Anglican bishop of Durham. He described the proposed measure as “state-sponsored trafficking”.
“I think it’s a way of getting rid of people the government doesn’t want, dumping them in a distant African country, and they’ll have no chance of getting out of there again,” said another member, Alf Dubs, of the leftist Labour party.
“I think it’s a breach of the 1951 Geneva conventions on refugees,” he continued. “You can’t just shunt them around like unwanted people.”
Dubs also lauded the future efforts of “lefty” activist lawyers who are likely try and kill the new measures, with the Conservative Party traditionally having major difficulties trying to get any sort of immigration enforcement measures past the courts in the past — though this is in part due to their a complete lack of really trying.
The lord seems to believe this time will not be any different, predicting that the Rwanda processing plan will fall in a courtroom operated by Britain or some international body.
“If [Home Secretary Priti Patel] says she’ll get rid of the lefty lawyers’ claims, well, I think she may have another thing coming,” Dubs said. “My understanding is that they’re going to have real difficulties in getting this through anyway.”