Labour’s hostile asylum policies are a dangerous waste of money

The government’s new ‘landmark’ £662 million deal with France to prevent people crossing the channel is neither “new” nor a “landmark”. Instead, it is following the same policies we have seen for years, racking up hundreds of millions in costs.

In the last decade the UK will have paid France more than £1 billion to stop channel crossings. We know these policies don’t work. At the same time though Labour has cut existing “safe routes” for people to seek asylum in the UK, including family reunification and Afghan schemes. The outcome is that more people need to use irregular routes.

The cost here is more than financial. The new deal would allow France to return those detained either to other European Union countries, which it already does, or pay them to deport potential asylum seekers back to their countries of origin. These include active conflicts such as Yemen and Iran, or Sudan which is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.

Read more:

• Labour’s asylum policies will destroy lives – and drive away voters
• Cut off and uncared for: This is what life is like for asylum seekers in the UK
• Pink Ladies: How an anti-migrant movement is hiding behind women’s rights protests

It would allow for people fleeing countries with well documented human rights abuses, such as Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Iraq, to be sent back to situations of persecution. Even trafficking victims from Vietnam – which has one of the highest rates of human trafficking in the UK – are being sent back to the very situations which led to their exploitation and abuse. All of this in possible contravention of international law, which prohibits people being sent back to unsafe countries.

It is well documented that harsher border policies don’t stop people needing to seek asylum, or change where they do so. The majority of people seek asylum in any given country because they have existing ties there, and no amount of “tougher border controls” changes that. Indeed, all they inevitably do is cause routes to shift, often to more dangerous ones which cost more lives. We are already seeing an increase in small boats crossings from Belgium, and lorries from Spain are still used by many people.

Channel crossing figures fluctuate, more often dependent on the weather than anything else. Numbers have dropped from a post-pandemic peak, during which people were unable to reach the channel due to three quarters of the planet being shut down. We have started to see an increase though, which is arguably linked to Labour’s closure of certain routes.

Coupled with Labour’s domestic anti-asylum policies, such as the denial of citizenship for refugees based on their manner of entry and limiting refugee protection to two and a half years, people seeking safety are being placed in ever more precarious positions. These policies also have a high chance of violating the Article 34 of the Refugee Convention, which requires states to make naturalisation as simple as possible.

There is a myth that people are coming to the UK because of how “generous” it is. The reality is that if people chose the country they sought asylum in based on what the government provides they would remain in France, or elsewhere in the EU, where support is far higher.

There is a claim that Labour is opening “new safe routes”. Yet one such route is community support, which has been around since 2016 and relies on the kindness of communities over the actions of the state. The others are work and study visas, which Labour has already limited for people who may need to seek asylum at some point.

The UK ranks 14^th compared to European Union countries in terms of the number of people, per capita, we take in. The number of people seeking safety is not the issue.

Then there’s the money question. £662 million could fund a small to medium sized hospital for a year. Based on the government’s own investment plans into affordable housing, it could finance more than 5,000 new homes. It could be used to help support communities, or reduce costs. The issue has never been about people coming to the UK seeking asylum, it has always been about how we allocate funding to ensure that everyone can be supported.

Daniel Sohege is the director of human rights advocacy group Stand for All.

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