If Britain really had been “broke” and “broken”, as the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, put it, his government would not have dared to sanction two far-right Israeli politicians over the “repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities” in the occupied West Bank, thereby earning the wrath of both US President Donald Trump and his protégé, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Sir Keir used those derogatory words not to describe the actual situation in Britain but to denounce his predecessor, the ethnic Indian Rishi Sunak, whose Conservative Party he blames for the migrant crisis. Predictably, in the midst of savaging Iran, the Israelis thought it “outrageous” that their ministers should be publicly punished.Seeking asylum is a fundamental human right. Britain, one of the most tolerant countries in the world, has always tried to do its duty although the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, condemned the UK’s agreement with Rwanda to outsource refugees as “incompatible with the letter and spirit of the 1951 Convention” which sets out refugees’ rights and the obligations of states to protect them. The UK is a signatory of the convention, which not only allows people to seek asylum in any country they choose but also forbids penalisation on account of irregular entry, meaning that the way a person travels to the destination should not affect the asylum claim. Yet, despite the Rwanda agreement, Britain has never evaded or avoided its global commitment, which must be contrasted with India’s position on the UN Refugee Convention. Home minister Amit Shah told Parliament that India was not a “dharamshala” for the world’s homeless and would not sign it. Tolerant, generous and hospitable beyond the BJP’s conception, the British government seeks to control the human flow through a rigorous application of due processes before granting refugee status. Sending asylum seekers from the UK anywhere else to have their claims processed is thought to undermine international law.Hence, the Migration and Economic Development Partnership that Boris Johnson announced as Prime Minister, saying that “anyone entering the UK illegally — as well as those who have arrived illegally since January 1, 2022 — may now be relocated to Rwanda”. Mr Johnson followed up by announcing on April 14, 2022 that Britain would send asylum-seekers to the Republic of Rwanda, which would decide their asylum claims. If successful, they would be granted asylum in Rwanda, not the UK. His aim was “to deter people from making dangerous journeys to the UK to claim asylum, which are facilitated by criminal smugglers, when they have already travelled through safe third countries”. The plan’s other stated purpose was to prevent men, women and children crossing the English Channel in small and dangerous boats that often capsized, drowning all on board.Perhaps condemnation might not have been so widespread if the Johnson scheme had not evoked memories of extensive human rights violations and crimes against humanity (as listed by a 2010 United Nations report) during the protracted civil war between Rwanda’s ethnic Hutus and Tutsis. But something being better than nothing, even this plan was preferable to India’s blunt rejection of the principle of “Atithi Devo Bhava”. Given the sad reality that 43.4 million people worldwide are refugees, a civilised nation like Britain could not just refuse hospitality or indicate (as our Citizenship Amendment Act does) that human concerns are only for people of one religion.The guilty Israelis, national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, were both banned from entering Britain, where their assets were frozen as part of the measures announced by British foreign secretary (minister) David Lammy. Mr Lammy accuses them of “incit(ing) extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights”. Australia, Norway, Canada and New Zealand took simultaneous concerted action. Britain can afford to risk reprisal by defying powerful opinion at home and abroad because its growth since the 18th century, when it was the first nation to industrialise, has been sustained not just by economic one- upmanship but also a sense of morality. If it hadn’t been for this background, Britain, with a population of about 69 million, would not have recorded a net migration of 906,000 — the highest-ever recorded — in the year ending June 2023. This net figure measured the difference between an inflow of around 1.3 million long-term immigrants and an outflow of 414,000 emigrating abroad. To understand how attractive a country is to immigrants, one must recall that in 2024, 43,630 detected arrivals, 19 per cent more than in 2023, were deemed “irregular”, 84 per cent of them having arrived in small boats. The approximately 36,816 people who crossed the English Channel in frail vessels in 2024 represented a 25 per cent increase over the previous year. On November 15, 2023, the UK’s Supreme Court declared the policy unlawful because Rwanda was not a safe country to which asylum seekers could be removed.Responding to the Supreme Court’s judgment, the government published a new treaty with Rwanda providing additional safeguards and introducing new legislation, which declared that Rwanda was safe for asylum seekers. On April 25, 2024, the UK’s treaty with Rwanda was ratified, and the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 became law and became operational.Since winning the 2024 general election and forming a new government, Britain’s now ruling Labour Party has cancelled the Rwanda scheme and announced that it will redirect money intended for the scheme to fund a new border agency. This applies to all who have claimed asylum, regardless of whether or not they are refugees. Anyone relocated to Rwanda would have had their claims assessed there; those who were recognised as refugees would not have been eligible to return to the UK. Publicly available information suggests that, as of July 2024, Britain had spent at least £318 million on the Rwanda scheme. It was compulsory, whereas Israel’s “voluntary departure” scheme presented the flight to Rwanda as a choice. Unlike the UK, which publicly announced its plans, Israel never had any official agreement with Rwanda although some 4,000 Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers based in Israel were sent to Rwanda and Uganda between 2013 and 2018, before the secretive arrangement was abandoned. The British scheme, full of holes and open to abuse, has also been abolished. But India’s adamant refusal to consider refuge for the few like the Muslim Rohingyas, who apply to India because they have no other choice, remains.
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