Thread by @ZoeJardiniere

We need to talk about the Government's Equality Impact Assessment of the Nationality and Borders (Anti-Refugee) Bill.

More specifically, I could talk for hours about just this paragraph:

Let's take it line by line, shall we? I shall.

"There is a risk that increased security and deterrence could encourage these cohorts to attempt riskier means of entering the UK"

"These cohorts" specifically means Iranian, Iraqi, Sudanese & Afghan men.

This risk is indeed well-evidenced.
The Foreign Affairs Select Committee, which found in 2019 "a policy that focuses exclusively on closing borders will drive migrants to take more dangerous routes, and push them into the hands of criminal groups."
publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201919/cm…

Fun fact, for the seekers of irony out there: Priti Patel sat on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in 2019 when it published this conclusion...

Next: "However, deploying these measures does advance the legitimate aim of encouraging asylum seekers to claim in the first country they reach and not undertaking dangerous journeys facilitated by smugglers to get to the UK"

Hang on so, despite evidence that this will make people take MORE dangerous routes to the UK, it is pursued with the AIM of making them not do that... so it's still OK?????

Then my favourite bit, of course...

"though the evidence supporting the effectiveness of this approach is limited."

I'LL SAY.

Limited to... next to nothing? Squat? Zero? Eff all?

I mean haven't you just literally said IN THE PRECEDING SENTENCE THAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS THE ACTUAL OPPOSITE?

This is the situation we find ourselves in. The extremely serious MPs on the Bill Committee, in our extremely serious Parliament will spend the next 6 weeks going through this Bill with a fine tooth comb which FROM THE OUTSET has been admitted to be counter to the evidence.

This is the extremely serious country we live in.

Patel gets her jet skis and refugees' actual lives just simply don't matter because we can enact ACTUAL LEGISLATION THROUGH TWO HOUSES OF LEGISLATORS that admits on its face it's not evidence-based.

And it will pass, don't you worry. I'll go, along with other long-suffering advocates, to give evidence to the Bill Committee next week and we'll all tell them how the evidence does NOT SUPPORT THE MEASURES IN THIS BILL and they will nod very seriously and pass it anyway.

This Bill is SQUARELY aimed at the press, and not at parliament.

Any self-respecting member of either house should throw it out in disgust. This isn't about your politics. They are taking the ACTUAL piss.

None of you can even begin to imagine how much they rile me, them that run this country, my God.

Think I need to add, an explanation: this is how they are justifying causing racist discrimination against some nationalities (the ones listed above, who are ALL likely to be recognised as refugees).

They justify the discrimination by saying it wont work, but we wish it would.

Extremely serious. Great office of state, if you please. Not a pathetic racist joke, no, not at all.

"This is why it's OK that our asylum system discriminates against people from Afghanistan:

The aim we are pursuing is worth it. No, we won't achieve the aim, all the evidence suggests we're taking the wrong approach, but the AIM is worth it."

The Home Office, for real, 2021