Britain’s Rwanda Shame: Growing anti-migrants’ image?
Britain is fast losing its credential as a human rights defender and promoter. Through a raft of questionable policies and avoidable scandals, successive governments are doing more harm to the country’s reputation than any hostile country could manage. The recent decision by the Boris Johnson’s government to send refugees to Rwanda is, frankly, reprehensible. As if this isn’t enough, the Home Office announced that it will now electronically tag new arrivals seeking asylum. This criminalisation of other human beings, whose only offence, in some cases, is fleeing political persecution and civil conflicts, is immoral and utterly shameful.
In spite of Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade and its history of imperial conquest (there are only 22 countries in the world that have never been invaded or colonised by Britain), it has managed to whitewash its sordid past with good deeds. It led the global abolitionist movement, banned the trade in slaves in 1807 and completely outlawed slavery across the British empire with the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833—the United States’ emancipation proclamation that freed slaves was not until 1863. Britain even used its formidable naval power, often at great cost to its naval officers, to patrol international waters and to enforce the ban.
The country also has a history of contributing to international human rights legislation. The Magna Carta, a royal charter detailing liberties and political rights has inspired international human right laws. The drafting of the European Convention on Human Rights was largely supervised by a British man, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe. The country was also the first to ratify the Convention in 1951. Ironically, like a petulant child, it now rails against the same convention and threatens to withdraw from it because the European Court of Human Rights has ruled against its policies.
The truth is that the Rwanda policy is not completely out of character. It is a restatement of the ‘Hostile Environment Policy’ that former prime minister, Theresa May, pushed as Home Secretary. In May 2012, Theresa May granted an interview where she explicitly claimed that the aim of the new policy was to “give illegal migrants a really hostile reception.” That policy heralded a culture change within and outside the institutions of government. Within government, there was an overzealous effort to be seen as tough on immigration and to attract more right-leaning voters.
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Unsurprisingly, such efforts inevitably culminated in the Windrush scandal that made illegals out of legal residents. Generations of decent and hardworking Caribbeans who came to the country at the behest of the British government between 1948 and 1971 to fill post-war labour shortages were harassed out of the country because of a government’s politicisation of immigration to improve its electoral chances. The same hostile environment policy was behind the shameful stop and search of ‘suspected’ immigrants on the streets of London in the 2010s. Of course, it was black and brown people who were often targeted as ‘suspected’ immigrants.
More ignoble actions followed, including the ‘go home or face arrest’ adverts on buses and vans in boroughs dominated by minority groups. Immigration enforcement did not happen only on the streets, it was brought into people’s homes. The government weaponised anti-immigration sentiments by co-opting ordinary citizens and imploring them to ‘double’ as immigration control officers. For instance, landlords were expected to determine the legal status of their tenants or face severe fines. It is not shocking that such overtly racist and deeply problematic policies have fed into public consciousness with several surveys indicating a rise in racism in the United Kingdom in recent years. A report by the lInstitute for Public Policy Research declared that the ‘hostile environment policy fostered racism’ and encouraged discrimination.
Who can forget that at the height of the migrant crisis in 2015, a few days after 800 refugees lost their lives off the coast of Libya, Katie Hopkins, a prominent columnist in the UK, compared migrants to cockroaches. Where previously one thought that these policies and rhetoric were isolated and did not reflect the true image of Britain, with the Rwanda decision, there is now little doubt this is the new image of Britain. Britain appears less concerned about living up to its reputation as a country that traditionally upholds and promotes human rights. It increasingly focuses on policies that pander to sections of the society that are avowedly anti-migrants.
The Rwanda policy is morally dubious not only because it criminalises people seeking refuge, but also because it overstates the scale of the responsibility that countries like Britain bear and outsources the international obligations they hold. Supporters of the initiative argue that without such policies to discourage refugees, developed countries would inevitably be overrun by ‘hordes of human caravan’ seeking protection. The infrastructure would experience severe strain. Such arguments do not stand up to scrutiny. In the first place, poorer countries shoulder greater responsibilities for refugee resettlement. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 4 out of 5 refugees stay in the region of displacement and seek protection in neighbouring countries. It is why Turkiye (formerly Turkey) hosts more than 3.8 million refugees (most of them from Syria), and why there are more than 1.5 million refugees in Uganda.
The irony is that states like Britain that have done the barest minimum in taking in refugees are outsourcing responsibilities. In the year ending September 2021, Britain resettled only 1,171 individuals seeking protection. It is unconscionable that Rwanda, a country more densely populated than Britain is being seduced by the promise of slush funds.
As the post Brexit era begins in earnest, Britain must be reminded that what has always been attractive about it is the promise that human rights are important enough to be promoted and protected. Openly disparaging its human rights record and reputation will not win it friends or consolidate its global leadership. If the government is as keen to expand and deepen its relationship with the global south as it professes, then it must reverse this ill-advised Rwanda policy that portrays it unfavourably and undermines its global image as a truly welcoming society.
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Adediran is an Assistant professor in International Relations at Liverpool Hope University. He can be contacted on: [email protected]