The Home Office is in the process of conceding all the “Rwanda plan” cases and agreeing to admit people’s asylum claims to be considered in the UK.
So ends perhaps the most shameful episode in the UK’s treatment of refugees since the 1930s. 1/ A period when the UK decided that it, alone among supposedly civilised nations, didn’t have to participate in protecting refugees.
When vulnerable people were treated like commodities to be traded across continents, for the intended political benefit of the Tory right wing 2/

This is an admission of defeat

1/

https://twitter.com/JamesCleverly/status/1790742428263006373

To be clear: many people whose asylum applications have failed will have perfectly strong claims- it’s common for people to have to apply for asylum twice or more before succeeding, often because of poor representation, lack of evidence or just bad decision-making
2/

We were always going to end up here.

The apparently irresistible force of cruelty to migrants & refugees driving our politics ever further to the right was always going to smash into the supposedly immovable object of our adherence to the ECHR & Refugee Convention. 1/ The far right’s logic is that, in that struggle, human rights law has to give way. But if, for whatever reason– morality, party management, realpolitik– you aren’t ready to permit that, you have to find a way forward other than endlessly fuelling the engines of the far right 2/

Here’s my take on the Rwanda judgment in the Supreme Court today.
It’s a longish one, but tl;dr: it’s a disaster for the Home Office and also for the Rwandans, & surely leaves the idea of outsourcing refugee protection to other countries in tatters, perhaps permanently sunk 1/ First up, it’s extremely interesting that the Supreme Court was keen to dispel the idea that the problem with the Rwanda policy is only that it’s contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights 2/

The Rwanda judgment: a quick guide 1/🧵 tl;dr:
There’s nothing intrinsically unlawful about sending asylum-seekers to have their claims decided elsewhere
Rwanda entered the agreement in good faith & may in due course create a fair asylum system
But it isn’t there yet & unless it does, people can’t be sent there 2/

This is a peculiar and somewhat slippery report from @CommonsHomeAffs about Albanian refugees which shows signs of, shall we say, tension between its headlines and what it actually says, perhaps as a result of disagreement within the committee. 1/
committees.parliament.uk/publications/4… Here’s its key recommendation 👇

But no-one has suggested that Albanians need to seek asylum “as a result of the actions of its Government”: in fact they’re mainly fleeing trafficking gangs, domestic abusers & feuding families from whom the state fails to protect people 2/

It’s 2024. Exhausted, traumatised, aching and lonely, you’ve just arrived in the UK hoping to claim asylum.

What happens now? 1/thread Let’s say you lived in a country where people are imprisoned, or even lynched, for being gay. Let’s say you ran a little bar where LGBT+ people like you can meet, discreetly of course. You passed on some of the profits to the local police so they turned a blind eye. 2/

Ah, my favourite type of article, the one which says that refugee advocates are the real racists, or is it just amoral dreamers, and their opponents are the real humanitarians >

https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1634859300647575552

> If I was writing a piece arguing my opponents hadn’t thought things through, I’d find space for matters like carriers liability measures, western culpability for human rights abuses or why resettlement programmes can never fully substitute for welcoming spontaneous arrivals >

A striking aspect of the Migration Bill is how far it places vast power in the hands of the Home Secretary over migrants deemed to have arrived “unlawfully”, and prevents them bringing challenges in the courts.

It’s extraordinarily authoritarian.

1/🧵 Of course this is all of a piece with an undemocratic government intent on restricting rights to protest, or even to vote, but it also reflects the Tories’ frustration with the Rwanda litigation which has prevented their pet project getting off the ground 2/

While we're waiting for the text of this much-trumpeted Bill let's amuse ourselves by demolishing their silly press release about it 1/

https://twitter.com/jonfeatonby/status/1633110933500313607

So here's the 1st thing the Bill is to include - but they already do remove those here without permission, if they find them & if it's consistent w asylum & human rights law. Are they seriously saying the problem in the past has been ministers not understanding what to do? 2/

Sunak’s statement on asylum:

tl;dr: long on rhetoric and grandstanding, long on cruelty, short on honesty, short on substance.

In other words, Tory party asylum policy. 1/🧵
gov.uk/government/spe… He was doing so well up to this point 2/

As I’ve said before, the Home Office has a recurrent problem with telling the truth, and its tendency to mislead courts, applicants, the public and even its own lawyers has now come under fire from the High Court.

Let’s explore this a little. 1/thread
bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/… This is the latest judgment in a long-running challenge to the HO’s policy of seizing the mobile phones of asylum-seekers, downloading personal info from them & refusing to return them for long periods. That’s already been accepted to be unlawful. 2/

My Albanian client is the sort of person Suella Braverman thinks is “abusing modern slavery legislation” & shd be sent straight back to Albania.

In fact the Home Office rejected her account of trafficking into sexual slavery & tried *twice* to expel her w no right of appeal. 1/ Those attempts were challenged in the courts & eventually she was able to appeal.

Cutting a long story short, this week a Judge allowed her appeal. He said the HO’s basis for questioning her account was “odd” and “unusual”. He dismissed its claims that she’d be safe in Albania.

Finally, actual good news from the Home Office - they've at last published guidance on waiving fees for people applying for visas on family grounds.

This shld genuinely help many people on low incomes join their families here.

(Short explainer follows, link to policy below.)

https://twitter.com/SoniaL77/status/1537346792953618432

This isn't before time: the HO accepted 15 months ago that they needed to change their policy as it was wrongly keeping families apart, and in fact it's the culmination of a battle over fees going back at least 11 years.

https://twitter.com/AlasdairMack66/status/1367783183077564419?s=20&t=mCnv2w9mbZvrhVJhmz0MLg

I see we're still doing "the Rwanda flight was never intended to happen" so let me explain again why I think that's wrong.

First, how seriously do we take govt sources claiming that an action which was thwarted was never intended to go ahead? Come on.

newstatesman.com/politics/conse… Second, this is just the latest in a string of anti-refugee measures, dating back decades: housing people on ferries, "dispersal" to grim accommodation round the country, mass detention, deliberate desitution: these things actually happened, and some continue to do so.

I’m representing one of the last people still on the Rwanda flight today and I must say it’s disturbing to see the Home Office briefing the BBC in this misleading & unpleasant way. First of all, my client hasn’t “lost repeatedly in court” - today is his 1st & probably only > > chance to persuade the courts to prevent his removal. (The Home Office has refused to climb down despite being aware of his poor mental health.) Second, the govt’s strategy throughout has been to defeat the generic challenges brought by charities by saying each person >

So today we’ve got an interesting mix of asylum stories –
👉Stats on how many asylum claims succeed
👉Stats on numbers of people waiting for asylum decisions
👉A report showing severe shortages of advice for asylum seekers
What do these things tell us about the asylum system? 1/ First, let’s notice that fully three quarters (75%) of initial decisions in the year ending March 2022 were positive (§3.1 of this document) 2/
gov.uk/government/sta…

So here’s a judgment about the government’s controversial powers to deprive people of citizenship, and the way they impact on people, including children, in a profoundly draconian way. 1/🧵

https://twitter.com/middleeasteye/status/1525211802979663872

What you need to know is that two men known as “E3” and “N3” each had their citizenship taken away by the Home Secretary on the basis of allegations of involvement in Islamist extremism (which they deny). 2/

Oh, nothing, just the Home Office threatening to abolish its own Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration after he decided to investigate its Rwanda plan

https://twitter.com/SonyaSceats/status/1525813507261874176

The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has invariably been an ex-copper or ex-spook - as integrated into the British state as it’s possible to be - yet still the Home Office isn’t happy to be scrutinised by them

The Home Office has very belatedly published its assessment of the Rwandan system for considering asylum claims.

And I, let me tell you, have questions. Many questions. 1/🧵

(Links in @jonfeatonby ’s tweet below)

https://twitter.com/jonfeatonby/status/1523777637281378306

There are so many red flags that it’s hard to see how Priti Patel could possibly have conscientiously determined that the Rwandan asylum system was fit for purpose or provides proper safeguards for people’s rights. 2/

Let me tell you about Wayoka Limbuela. He played a crucial role in UK asylum law & politics in a way he’d never have wanted & I imagine would prefer to forget.

Why? Because in 2003 the New Labour government tried to make him destitute for supposedly claiming asylum too late. 1/ Background: in 1999 New Labour excluded asylum seekers from mainstream benefits & put them on a parallel benefits system known as asylum support. This persists to this day & is the underlying cause of the appalling conditions many people are housed in 2/
theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/j…