Long thread: On the 14th June the government claims that it will start forcibly deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda. Let's be brutally honest here, the plan only appeals to imbeciles and racists. Apply any humanity or sense to it and you see how terrible it is. 1/ #r4today
It's facing multiple legal challenges. Those challenges are likely to succeed. Not because of "lefty lawyers", but because it violates multiple laws. If courts find it illegal it won't be because of "do-gooders" it'll be because the Home Office is, yet again, breaking the law. 3/
The Home Office's own statistics show that 98% of those crossing the channel seek asylum and more than three quarters receive it. So they know they are talking about asylum seekers whose rights, including to use irregular means of entry, are legally protected. 4/
Even were that not the case, even was the "economic migrants" line, as abhorrent and pointless as that phrase is, true, then forcibly transporting people to Rwanda would still remain an utterly inhumane, cruel and pointless policy. 5/
UK takes, to put it frankly, a piss all proportion of asylum seekers compared to majority of countries. The "legal routes" the government wangs on about are all but closed. It's a fricking island. The only way most of the handful who do seek asylum can is via irregular routes. 6/
And before we have the "first safe country" lot chip in, the UK ranks 18th per head of population compared to the EU, so you're only argument is that countries taking more asylum seekers already should take even more so you can take fewer because you're a xenophobic backwater. 7/
No-one is seeking asylum "from" France, but the small number who come to the UK have pretty damn good reasons for not seeking it "in" France. Not only language and family ties to the UK, but regular and repeated attacks against asylum seekers in France by the authorities. 8/
Or how about the average of 1,600 far right attacks against them each year in Germany, made to sleep rough in Spain, forced back to camps in Libya where they are tortured or sold into slavery, or just put on rafts and towed into the middle of the Med as Greece does. 9/
Safety is subjective. On match day there are pubs and places you wouldn't go wearing one team's strip that supporters of the other would call safe. Just because somewhere is safe for your holiday, it doesn't make it safe for an asylum seeker. 10/
Countries like France and Germany, among others, do have higher and better benefits for asylum seekers than the UK though, so no-one is coming here for the "benefits" they receive, but they also hold dangers which the UK isn't close to as bad on. 11/
As I said though, most come to the UK because of family ties and language. These don't change no matter how many "deterrents" you throw at them. The UK is not, and never has been, the main destination that the majority of refugees head to, and that won't change. 12/
What also won't change though is those who do want to reach UK will continue to try and do so even if removed to Rwanda, and that's assuming that they even know about the supposed "deterrents" in the first place. Most asylum seekers don't know the asylum laws of each country. 13/
Majority get information from smuggling and trafficking gangs, two different things which we will come to in a second. Just as the person serving you your 2am burger van kebab isn't telling you the meat went out of date a month ago, gangs don't tell asylum seekers the truth. 14/
Smuggling gangs take payment upfront normally, so why would they care what happens when someone is picked up in the UK? They don't issue refunds here folks. For them it's win win, paid one time and if they are returned to France et al they may get paid to try again. 15/
Trafficking gangs take payment through exploitation afterwards, these are simplified definitions of the differences between the two. They are already telling those they exploit that if they try and seek help they'll be deported to Rwanda, so again win win for the gangs. 16/
So as a "deterrent" the plan obviously doesn't work, won't work, can't work. What it can do is actually boost the power of the gangs who the Home Office claim they are tackling. That just gets worse if people actually do end up being shipped to Rwanda. 17/
This government has criticized Rwanda's human rights record, Rwandan officials have warned of the threat posed to refugees by this plan, the UN has condemned it. We're talking about an unsafe country to ship people to. 18/
So what happens if you do? Funnily enough, dropping people off in an unsafe country, with no ties to it, and thousands of miles away from anyone you know, is not conducive to making you inclined to stay there. That puts you at risk of trafficking, again. 19/
You need money to pay smugglers normally. As already said, traffickers take payment through exploitation afterwards, so they're the ones who can con and coerce asylum seekers into having to use them in the hope of once again reaching the UK. 20/
Next problem this time though is that even should they make it back to the UK alive, and many won't, they are barred from seeking asylum, so effectively permanently forced into the grey and black economies where they are exploited by government policy. 21/
Everything about the #RwandaMigrationPlan is hideous. It's illegal, it's cruel, it's inhumane and it will not in any way shape or form "break the model of gangs". The only possible impact on gangs is to bolster them and create a never ending supply of people to exploit. 22/
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