The impact the policy will have across the world can’t be ignored, says Oliver Lough. Plus letters from Derrick Joad, Nigel Griffin and David Duell
Rafael Behr is right to draw attention to both the unworkability and the inhumanity of the proposed illegal migration bill (‘Stop the boats’ shows how Britain is really being governed: by Tory campaign leaflet, 14 March). But it is also important to look beyond domestic concerns. At a time when displacement across borders due to war, climate breakdown and economic collapse are becoming increasingly common, Britain risks joining a growing list of privileged countries whose actions threaten to undermine the basic right to seek asylum from persecution. Already, the US is turning away refugees at its southern border, and the militarisation and criminalisation of asylum in the Mediterranean is well entrenched.
Countries adjacent to crises are the primary hosts of most of the world’s refugees. They are not blind to the hypocrisy of wealthy nations, which insist that refugees be supported and protected “over there” while relying on hostile and legally dubious solutions to prevent them coming “over here”. If the world’s richest countries are prepared to undermine its norms, the international refugee protection regime risks descending into a free-for-all, where each country will act as it sees fit – denial of refugee status, detention, violent pushbacks and forced repatriation – with the rights and needs of vulnerable people relegated to an absolute last priority.
