That adults and children are risking their lives to cross the Channel’s shipping lanes in small and flimsy vessels is frightening. That they seek a new home in Britain is not. The overreaction to the uptick in arrivals via this route has been extraordinary. The home secretary, Sajid Javid, cut short a holiday, declared a “major incident”, redirected two Border Force cutters from the Mediterranean and requested the Royal Navy’s help. Meanwhile, the rightwing press talk of a “migration crisis”, evoking the surge in migration to Europe in 2015.
That year, 10,000 migrants landed in Greece in a single day. By contrast, 539 people, almost all thought to be seeking asylum, attempted to cross the Channel in small boats in the whole of 2018. (More than 40% were intercepted by French authorities.) The vast majority did so in the last three months of the year. The increase is notable. But it should not be overstated and, as the home secretary has observed, its roots are complex.
It is bizarre that anyone could consider this a crisis in the context of Brexit, the misery engendered by austerity, and the state of international affairs. If there is a crisis at all, it is of the government’s inhumanity and incomprehension on immigration and asylum issues, so fully exposed by the Windrush scandal and other incidents.
Mr Javid has warned of the risk of “a new route for ever-increased illegal migration”. Visiting Dover this week, he asked reporters: “If you are a genuine asylum seeker, why have you not sought asylum in the first safe country that you arrived in?” Worse, he appeared to suggest that the UK would discriminate against those who arrived this way to deter others: “We will do everything we can to make sure that you are often not successful because we need to break that link, and to break that link means we can save more lives.” (As lawyers noted, it would be illegal to use decisions to deter others; Mr Javid later said applications would be processed “in the normal way”.)
Around three times more people apply for asylum in France than in the UK. But others try to come to Britain for reasons including the desperate conditions many have experienced on the French coast; the longing to reunite with family; and the belief that language and other factors will better enable them to make a life here. They are entitled to do so. The Dublin convention imposes no requirement to apply in the first safe country, though it means that in general an asylum claim should be decided in the country in which a refugee entered the EU and that secondary countries can return him or her to that one. Despite the lip service paid to the safety of those attempting to cross, the message of Conservative politicians and the rightwing press does not sound like “keep safe” but “keep out”. The broader context is a hostile environment for refugees and migrants, with families separated by financial requirements for entry; the cruelty of indefinite detention; the refusal to let asylum seekers work; the callousness and inefficiency with which applications are handled.
Home secretaries are an easy target for attacks over immigration. The right approves of the kind of rhetoric and announcements made by Mr Javid, who is seen as a frontrunner for the Tory leadership, even if it reserves judgment on his effectiveness. The foreign secretary and defence secretary have also had their say. But a true account of the current situation would recognise that most refugees still live in developing countries, that a fairer sharing of the impact within Europe and more broadly is needed, and that greater compassion should be shown towards those who need protection, not only from the Channel’s perils, but from earlier suffering.
