Médecins Sans Frontières was scathing about the Nationality and Borders Act as it became law, saying the act ‘will enshrine the UK as one of the most anti-refugee countries in the world’. The legislation, a spokesperson said, ‘is unworkable, exorbitantly expensive and inhumane, targeting some of the most vulnerable people in the world’.
Of course, Médecins Sans Frontières is not democratically elected. Neither is the Church of England, which has also criticised the legislation. Also open to this charge is our reviewing chamber, the House of Lords, which heavily amended the legislation (amendments reversed in the Commons). The lawyers and the judges who halted the first flight of asylum applicants to Rwanda are not elected.
Also open to the charge that they are not elected are my dentist and my piano tuner. Yet, I trust to their skill and knowledge. I don’t ask my local councillor to have a go with drill or a tuning fork. Criticism of the act is technical as well as moral. It sets up unresolved conflicts between its provisions and domestic and international law.
The act only became law on 28 April, with flagship provisions allocating different rights to ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ asylum applicants taking effect from 28 June. But from the outset it has been beset by legal challenges with predictions of plenty more to come.
But is the government already losing interest in its creation? While the home secretary’s lawyers are reported to have opposed adjournment of a case testing the legality of the ‘offshoring’ policy, it is not a decision they have appealed. The case will now be heard in September, and people who are in detention ready for deportation will likely be freed in the interim.
There may never be a ‘Rwanda flight’. But as government attention drifts, what remains in place has the power to arbitrarily damage vulnerable lives. The Home Office has said no action will be taken against Sir Mo Farah, following his revelation that he arrived as a child in the UK illegally. Good. But few can rely on such a benign exercise of discretion. The case for this legislation to be revised is a technical as well as a moral one.
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