The Marine Accident Investigation Branch report on the mass drowning of refugees in the Channel in November 2021 blames an inexperienced, under-resourced UK Coastguard, poor weather and poor coordination with the French search-and-rescue team.

It isn't good enough. 🧵 This report does not provide answers to the fundamental question of why the UK authorities failed the desperate people on board this boat who asked for help.

Yesterday morning, as the arguments about the Bibby Stockholm raged in the UK, wave after wave of police descended on the largest refugee site in northern France. 🧵 Having given little warning, they strode though the side forcing men, women and children to flee their tents, leaving most of their belongings behind.

Thoughts on today's protests: a 🧵

If you don’t think refugees should be in hotels, tell the government to process their claims.

If you love your country, treat those less fortunate with dignity and respect. It’s not hard. Refugees don’t want to be in hotels. They want to work and contribute to our society. If their claims were processed they could do this and wouldn’t cost us a penny.

They would be paying taxes instead.

These decisions are not up to refugees; they don’t have a choice.

Today's tragedy in the English Channel raises serious questions about what can be done to prevent more similar deaths. We need to understand what happened, and why: a 🧵 Sometime before 3am this morning, somewhere out on the black, freezing-cold waters of the English Channel, a light dinghy carrying around 50 men, women and children began to sink. Losing air, one side had buckled and, with water coming in, the soft base was sinking into the sea.

There are no words to express our horror and grief at today’s tragedy. A full year on from 32 people losing their lives in the Channel, our Government has done nothing to prevent further deaths and so has failed both the refugees who need our help and our country. Three weeks ago we stood in solidarity with the relatives of those 32 souls and felt their undiminished grief. It is unbearable to think that more families will now suffer the same pain.

It is both appalling and grotesque that our government is basing policies that should protect the lives of vulnerable people on misinformation and misdirection.

news.sky.com/story/amp/rish… Let's be clear. A person’s right to asylum is based on the level of danger they are escaping from and does not depend on how they travel to the place where they are seeking sanctuary.

Suella Braverman's inability to answer a simple question about asylum today exposed this Government's rhetoric for what it is: abusive and inflammatory words utterly untethered from fact.

Here's how 🧵 In case you missed it, the question came at a Home Affairs Select Committee meeting today. Conservative MP Tim Loughton asked Braverman to explain the legal route to claiming UK asylum for a hypothetical young refugee from an African country.

Abdullah grew up in a village in West Darfur, surrounded by the horrors of war.

Life was incredibly difficult for him and his whole community, and at the time they relied on the help given to them by aid organisations. As a kid, Abdullah would look at the people helping and admire them. "Starting then, when I was very young," he says, "I wanted to work for an organisation like that when I grew up."

On 24 November last year 32 men, women and children died when their flimsy boat sank in the English Channel. It wasn’t an accident or a mistake or an error of judgement.

So what happened? A 🧵 These deaths happened as the British and French authorities consciously and deliberately ignoring desperate calls for help. They did so for a 12-hour period, beginning when the authorities were first notified of a boat in distress, and ending when rescue finally arrived.

Care4Calais is asking for men's coats this winter, because cold and wet conditions are descending on the North Atlantic and the refugees face life-threatening exposure in the coming months. Cold weather alone makes life very difficult for the people of Calais, but rain and sleet make the problem so much worse.

That’s why we need your help.

In the seven years that I have worked with refugees in Calais I have heard many sad and shocking stories. Yesterday, however, I read something that chilled me to the marrow. A 🧵 It was the record of the distress calls made to French and British rescue services by refugees in a boat in difficulty on the English Channel on the night of 24 November last year.

Thirty two of the 34 passengers would drown.

Forty-eight hours ago, Ali and his father Ashraf thought they would never see each other again.

The family are Christian, which made life in Iran dangerous for them. The authorities constantly intimidated and threatened them, so finally they made a big decision together. Ashraf and Ali would make the incredibly dangerous journey to seek asylum in the UK and, if successful, bring Ali’s mum and his two sisters – the three of them are triplets – to join them.

It was hard for Ali to leave his mother and two sisters.

Last night, at the 11th hour, five men were stopped from boarding a flight to Rwanda.

In the morning, seven had been expecting to be on the plane. Through the day, four of those seven made individual claims to the British courts to stop them being forcibly sent. Three more men had their deportations stopped by an intervention by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

This meant there was no deportation to Rwanda yesterday.

The ECHR gave four main reasons for its decision:

BREAKING: ECHR has stopped one of the Rwanda removals. We have just had the most amazing news. The European Court of Human Rights has issued an order to stop the deportation of one of the men to Rwanda. This means it is now possible for the other six to make similar claims. We are so relieved.

We urgently need to stop this brutal policy that will harm many innocent people. To find out how you can help, go to care4calais.org/stop-rwanda/
At the time of writing, 10.15am on Tuesday morning, there are seven refugees booked on today's flight to Rwanda. At least five of them have indicators of being trafficked and/or tortured.

Yesterday in the Court of Appeal we heard that the United Nations High Commission for Refugees unequivocally believes the UK Government’s Rwanda policy to be unlawful.

The single most important question about Rwanda is WHY? Rwanda is not about saving lives. If we gave other refugees visas like Ukrainians, noone would get in small boats.

Of the 113 people we are working with, ten still have documents saying they will be sent to Rwanda next Tuesday, 14 June.

Thankfully a further 15 people who had these documents have had them cancelled thanks to the efforts of the amazing law firms we are working with. They will continue working on the other ten.

Frighteningly it appears there are another seven people with removal documents whom we don’t know. Our great fear is that some of these people may not have lawyers to represent them.

The High Court has denied an injunction seeking to stop next week's planned flight of asylum seekers to Rwanda. He says that each case should be considered on an individual basis and there is no need for an injunction. However, as a result of today’s case six refugees have had their directions to be sent to Rwanda cancelled. This shows how important it is that no one is deported until the lawfulness of the policy is fully examined. Some of the refugees do not yet have legal representation.

Tomorrow morning we will be in the High Court to stop the Government carrying out its barbaric Rwanda scheme.

The Government says it’s sending only single men to Rwanda.

This isn’t true. We’re working with 100 people in detention with Rwanda notices, all men. Fifty five are married. And 17 have small children.

So the majority aren’t single at all. They’re just separated from their families.

We have spoken to over 100 people in detention who’ve been told they will be forcibly sent to Rwanda. Almost all are overwhelmed by total shock and despair.

Many came to the UK believing it to be a good place that would treat them more fairly than the places from which they escaped.

We say that the Rwanda plan is unlawful.

We hope the courts will agree with us.

Together with the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), Detention Action, and four asylum seekers facing removal by plane to Rwanda on Tuesday 14 June, we have now issued