uk politics
Deaths in the Channel: Survivors and Rescue Teams Feel Targeted by Plan to ‘Stop the Boats’
Don't miss a story
A year ago today at least four people drowned while crossing the English Channel in an overcrowded dinghy. Their deaths barely made headlines, there were no public statements from the authorities and no inquiry is underway. The incident was instead co-opted by the Conservative Party, which seized on the chance to talk about the work they are doing to “smash the business model of the people smuggling gangs”.
But the Government isn’t smashing the people smuggling gangs. They’re going after migrants themselves. In January, Ibrahima Bah, a 19-year-old man from Senegal accused of piloting the stricken dinghy will be hauled through the courts again on four counts of manslaughter, held up as an example of what happens to those who have their hand on, or anywhere near, the tiller of a boat. If convicted, he could receive a life sentence.
The Home Office has long labelled small boat pilots as “people smugglers”. Evidence used against them is often contested. In Bah’s case, it involved being photographed close to the tiller. In June he reportedly told the court that he was merely a passenger who had initially refused to pilot the vessel until being assaulted and threatened with death by the smugglers if he failed to comply.
Often, the evidence used to prosecute is gathered from arriving migrants who are interviewed immediately after they disembark, when they are disoriented, traumatised and still under arrest. Their phones are taken, they are held in a police cell and they may not have legal representation. One of the survivors from the December 2022 incident told me that within an hour of arrival, he and other members of the group had been instructed to point out the pilot in what felt like a “police lineup”. Their statements would then be used as evidence to criminalise Bah, who had, they say, been a friend, “like a brother”, to many in the boat.
For the last year, more than a dozen of the survivors have been holed up together at a dilapidated guesthouse on the Kent coast, presumably so they could be called upon for further evidence in the trial, if required. I went to meet them there one foggy afternoon in September. Among the group were five Afghans who had narrowly escaped death that night, and who knew those who had perished in the shipwreck. "It was so cold, I did not know if I was alive or dead", Abdul-Azim told me.
A fishing trawler had come to their rescue at around 03:00, after at least 45 minutes spent clinging to the rim of the dinghy, its wooden boards collapsed inwards. By that stage, most of the group were in the water; others had been pushed back out to sea by a strong current and died in five degree water. One man slipped while climbing aboard the fishing boat and was crushed between the dinghy and the trawler. Another had been hit in the head by a broken wooden slat as the boat collapsed, knocking him unconscious. He, too, drowned in the freezing water, his body still missing, a year on.
EXCLUSIVE
Asylum Waiting Lists Rocket by 236% as Migrant Housed on Cramped Barge Takes Own Life
A day after the suicide of a man aboard the Bibby Stockholm exclusive data obtained by this newspaper shows migrants waiting three years or more for a decision on their future has more than trebled in the past year
Tom Latchem, Dan Evans and Adam Bienkov
One of the first responders to arrive at the scene, at around 03:30, was the RNLI Dungeness rescue team. Among them was Adam, a volunteer on one of his first shifts as a lookout for the boat crew. Two bodies lay face down in the water; he and other team members had to pull them up. “You never forget something like that,” he told me, standing on the shingle beach the following week. Shortly after that, a group of far-right ‘vigilantes’ (as they’re called by the RNLI) spray-painted ‘Taxi’ over the lifeboat station doors, parroting Nigel Farage’s claims the volunteer crews are a “taxi service for illegal migrants”. Crew members started taking their RNLI parking permits off their cars, after their tyres were repeatedly deflated. Most have been pilloried at the school gates or at their local pub.
Frontline search and rescue staff regularly tell me they resent their roles having become so politicised. “The Government has done nothing to stop the boats except slap a slogan on it", one Border Force member told me on the picket line in Dover recently. “We shouldn’t be used as a political tool - we’re civil servants doing frontline work. Our jobs shouldn’t feel political, or be political, but they are.”
As the scrutiny has worsened, so too has the public response. Search and rescue workers have been consistently demonised in the right-wing press, to the extent they have had to take measures to protect themselves and their families. The teenage daughter of a coastguard was recently approached in the street by three far-right men, who allegedly shouted and swore at her, accusing her father of people smuggling. Another search and rescue contact had left his job after he’d been beaten unconscious in a pub, recognised for TV interviews he had done. Many now understandably choose not to speak out for fear of reprisal.
To make matters worse, the frontline agencies are chronically under-resourced and under-funded. “It’s a clear political choice, isn’t it?” a member of the Border Force said. “We’re on our knees, but we can’t recruit because the pay is so bad, and our vessels aren’t fit-for-purpose.” A senior member of HM Coastguard commented that: “As long as we continue to put policy before operations, people will keep dying in our waters".
Don't miss a story
Rather than focusing its efforts on bolstering frontline teams, the Government continues to pile its resources into criminalising migrants who ‘facilitate entry’ by driving boats. Despite the grandstanding, the number of arrests of those accused of piloting boats is tiny: only 87 people since March 2022. It might sound like tough talk, but the figures speak for themselves.
Meanwhile, at the sharp end of it all, whiling away the days and months behind bars is a teenage boy, his mental health reportedly in tatters.
“What happened to him?” the survivors asked me that autumn day on the Kent coast. After they had given their statements, the line of communication had suddenly gone dead. I explained about Bah’s trial in the summer, and how the jury had been discharged. “Ibrahima is not a criminal. None of us are criminals,” Abdul-Azim said. “We saw our friends under the boat, we saw them die out at sea. Why can the Government not see that we are not to blame for this?”
Asylum Waiting Lists Rocket by 236% as Migrant Housed on Cramped Barge Takes Own Life
Newsletter offer
Subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive editorial emails from the Byline Times Team.
The number of asylum seekers waiting three years or more for a decision on their future has more than trebled in the past year, according to exclusive data obtained by this newspaper.
During the same period, those who have been waiting at least a year have seen their number almost double, Byline Times has learned, as has that of those awaiting any kind of outcome.
Our findings come a day after a man who was waiting to be processed took his own life onboard the Bibby Stockholm barge, which houses asylum seekers offshore, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s flagship Rwanda plan scraped through the Commons.
Migration experts say the uncertainty asylum claimants feel about the future, and the indefinite waiting time for a decision, cause intense feelings of psychological distress, which can lead to suicide.
Added to that are issues around the quality of accommodation, such as the cramped conditions aboard Bibby Stockholm, which has the capacity to house around 500 people in little over 200 rooms smaller than a parking space, described by one MP as a “quasi-prison”.
The former Home Secretary showed no interest in urgent threats to the UK as the National Security Strategy Committee reveals that Vladimir Putin made attempts to interfere with the last General Election
David Hencke
Responding to our data, Labour's Shadow Immigration Minister Stephen Kinnock told Byline Times: "Under the Conservatives, the asylum backlog has spiralled from just 19,000 in 2010 to 165,000 today.
"These long delays mean people are stuck in limbo and hotel use has reached a record high costing more than £8m a day.
"Labour will hire more than 1,000 new caseworkers to clear the backlog, and set up a new cross-border police unit to work with Europol to stop the criminal gangs in the first place."
A spokesman for Labour leader Keir Starmer, when asked whether Mr Starmer believed the huge waits for an initial decision could be having an impact on the mental health of asylum seekers, told Byline Times: "I’m sure that it is and that’s why Keir believes we need to increase the number of caseworkers that there are.
“We have set out plans to do that so we can have 1000 more caseworkers so that we can process claims more quickly and we can also reduce the hotel bill for taxpayers."
Today’s Byline Times data, obtained via a Freedom of Information request, highlights the human cost of the government’s ongoing immigration disaster and lays bare the full extent of asylum delays. Between January and March 2023, the number of people waiting three years or more years has increased by 236%, from 531 to 1,789, compared to the same period the previous year.
Over the same period, the number of those waiting a year or more to learn their fate has jumped 96% from 3,634 to 7,124. The number awaiting any decision has gone up 122% from 4,827 to 10,750.
Of Barges and Banishments: What the Bibby Stockholm Reveals About Our Dark History
Suella Braverman’s asylum barges are tied up with Britain’s imperial past, writes Iain Overton
Iain Overton
In the past few years, legal asylum routes to the UK have become largely cut off, leading to an increased number of people arriving in small boats. A shortage of social housing has seen those seeking asylum increasingly housed in hotels. However, the policy has been unpopular due to its perceived cost and impact on local services.
In an attempt to appease this, and end the reliance on hotels, the government has sought alternatives, such as former military bases, and the Bibby Stockholm, moored off the Dorset coast.
However, the use of the three-storey barge – which in 2008 saw two deaths when used by the Dutch authorities to house asylum seekers – has been controversial.
While the Home Office admitted it would house around 500 people on the Bibby Stockholm, an official brochure released by owner Bibby Marine shows there are only 222 “single en-suite bedrooms”. Cabins designed for single occupancy now have bunk beds, and people must share with strangers. Each person's living space is smaller than the average car park bay, in conditions likened to a “quasi-prison” by Conservative MP, Richard Drax.
From the start, there was considerable opposition to the plan, both from local people and national organisations, with campaigners calling it "cruel and inhumane". The vessel was first used for accommodating asylum seekers in August but was evacuated after Legionella bacteria was found in the water supply, with people returning to it in October.
Yesterday, on the day the government avoided a damaging defeat as the second reading of its Rwanda bill passed with a 44 majority, the Bibby Stockholm experienced its first death while under UK control.
Police were called to the 506-person capacity vessel in Portland Port, Dorset, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, and its officers are carrying out enquiries. The man, who has not been identified, is thought to have taken his own life in a communal bathroom. He was found dead at 6.20 am yesterday after reports of his screaming and banging on the walls of his shared bedroom.
Mr Drax, MP for South Dorset, said it was a "tragedy born of an impossible situation". "One can only imagine the desperate circumstances which led to this sad outcome; we must do all that we can to end this evil trade in human misery."
Home Secretary James Cleverly told MPs the death would be fully investigated, adding: "I'm sure that the thoughts of the whole House, like mine, are with those affected."
‘We Need to Confront the Lie That There are ‘Safe Routes’ for Refugees to Come to the UK’
The truth is that Rishi Sunak’s Government is complicit in forcing desperate people to risk their lives in order to seek refuge in this country
Zoe Gardner
Several studies have highlighted the human impact long waits can have on asylum seekers. A 2018 paper published in the British Medical Journal on the health of “forced migrants”, including asylum seekers, said that “unemployment exacerbates social exclusion”, while “long periods of inactivity provide time to ruminate on past experiences and worries about the future.”
A second study, published in 2022, examining the experiences of asylum seekers in Sweden, found that “overwhelming uncertainty about the future and the indefinite waiting time for a decision” on asylum claims” caused “intense feelings of psychological distress” in participants.
The Home Office told Byline Times that the department had taken steps to reduce the legacy backlog and that it funded programmes aimed at providing mental health and wellbeing support to adult asylum seekers.
Of the Bibby Stockholm, it added that all accommodation provided met regulatory standards.
A spokesperson said: “The government is committed to processing asylum claims without unnecessary delay. “We have more than doubled the number of decision-makers and have significantly increased productivity which has reduced the backlog of legacy asylum cases by over 60%
“We take the welfare of those in our care extremely seriously and at every stage in the asylum process our approach is to ensure that the needs and vulnerabilities of asylum seekers are identified and considered including those related to mental health and trauma.
“The Home Office, Dorset Council, local public agencies and the vessel’s management team work continually to ensure life on board the barge is positive for asylum seekers.”
ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE
Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.
We’re not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.
But Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, said: “This is an appalling loss of life but tragically not surprising.
“We know from our work supporting men, women and children in the asylum system that many are deeply traumatised and feel isolated, unable to get the help they need. Some are so desperate they self-harm and feel suicidal.
“Nobody who comes to our country seeking asylum should be left without the support they need yet the system has more hostility than compassion built into it. It is imperative that an independent review is carried out into this death so that lessons are learned to avoid any further tragedies of this kind.
“A new approach that always sees the face behind the case and treats every individual person with the dignity and humanity they deserve is urgently needed.”
UK’s Politics Now Wide Open to Foreign Donations, Peers Warn, as Government Scraps Time Limit on Brits’ Donations from Abroad
Newsletter offer
Subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive editorial emails from the Byline Times Team.
The floodgates have been opened to foreign interference in British democracy, peers have warned, as ministers pushed through the extension of votes - and donations - for life for Brits who live abroad.
The Government has just extended voting and political donation rights to British citizens living abroad, irrespective of how long they have been away from the UK. It was a manifesto pledge from the Conservatives in 2019, but critics have noted there are few checks to ensure that the sources of donations from abroad can be vetted.
This move has sparked a heated debate about the integrity of the UK's democratic process, particularly in light of the lack of checks on political donations from abroad.
On Tuesday, Byline Times covered a damning new report finding that the UK Government is “almost certain that Russian actors sought to interfere in the 2019 general election”.
The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, comprising MPs and peers from both Houses of Parliament, said it was alarmed that attempts to interfere may be made in the next general election – with no proper protection for politicians and political parties – and have sought an urgent meeting with the National Cyber Security Centre to discuss the matter.
Don't miss a story
Sign up to the Behind the Headlines newsletter (and get a free copy of Byline Times in the post)
In the debate on changes to the Representation of the People (Overseas Electors Amendment) Regulations on Tuesday night (12 December), Minister Baroness Penn, representing the Government, argued that overseas electors should be considered an integral part of the democracy and have the same rights as other citizens, including making political donations.
But Labour’s Lord Khan, supported by a majority in the House, warned the changes could "dangerously weaken" restrictions on overseas political donations and allow more foreign money to influence British politics.
With some 30 seats in the last general election decided by fewer than 1,000 votes, even a small number of overseas votes could swing results. And the new registration rules, which allow any UK voter to attest to the identity and past location of an overseas voter, were seen as potentially vulnerable to manipulation. This loophole, critics argue, could be exploited by those wishing to influence elections in specific seats by claiming they lived in swing seats some decades ago.
Bungs from Moscow
Under current rules, political donors who contribute more than £500 must be on the electoral register. The removal of the 15-year limit, however, might allow individuals with minimal connections to the UK, possibly from states hostile to Britain, to exert significant influence through financial contributions, opposition peers warned.
And Lord Khan noted that Brits who live in Russia and haven’t returned to the UK for decades could now donate vast sums from Moscow to political parties here.
“It is beyond belief that the Government [is] seeking to risk opening our system at such a critical time for our world. What would a political party do if, for instance, it were offered a donation of £50,000 by somebody who lives and works in Moscow today?” Lord Khan said.
The Labour front bench, represented by Lord Khan, as well as Liberal Democrats stressed that this could open the door to manipulation by hostile foreign actors.
There is no single body responsible for investigating the sources of donations, and donations made by Brits living abroad for decades will likely be treated the same as any other - rather than as ‘foreign’ donations which are theoretically illegal in the UK.
Lib Dem peer Lord Rennard was particularly concerned about the changes, arguing: “The absence of any cap on the size of donations will no doubt encourage more donations of, say, £5 million-plus to come from people whose real interests are not in this country.
“Why should a billionaire tax exile be able to fund a political party in the UK, and who knows where their money really comes from?”
EXCLUSIVE
There are fears lax rules could allow unfettered cash to flood in to UK politics from abroad
Josiah Mortimer
No Scrutiny
He added that the Government has “clipped the wings” of the previously independent Electoral Commission through the Elections Act 2022, and stripped it of the ability to launch criminal investigations into election finance laws.
There is also doubt over how fines can be levied to Brits abroad who are abusing the new rules.
“Political parties themselves have very little capacity to scrutinise overseas bank accounts, or to inspect the accounts of companies operating overseas, even if they want to. Earlier this year, the Government rejected an amendment to the then National Security Bill which would have insisted on greater scrutiny of the original sources of donations to parties. I wonder why?” Lord Rennard asked.
The chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, Julian Lewis, earlier this year backed tougher checks, noting that “the UK has clearly welcomed Russian money, including in the political sphere … We must protect against covert, foreign state-backed financial donations if we are to defend our democratic institutions from harmful interference and influence”
However, the Government voted against tougher checks by parties on sources of donations. “I think perhaps we should be told [why]” Lord Rennard said.
Lord Rennard suggested alternative models, such as overseas constituencies similar to those in France and Italy, to better represent citizens living abroad and avoid swing seat results being changed by those with little connection to the UK, as well as beefed up investigatory powers for the Electoral Commission and National Crime Agency.
Last month, the Government announced an increase in national party spending limits of 80%, allowing a party to spend up to £35 million in a general election year. The Conservatives are currently out-fundraising Labour by millions of pounds per quarter.
But Boris Johnson’s party spent just £16 million on his successful election campaign in 2019. “The reason for the new limits must in part be to allow for major new donations from abroad,” Lord Rennard said.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab) also pointed out that the slogan of the Boston Tea Party which triggered the American war of independence was: “No taxation without representation”.
“What we have in this case is clearly representation without taxation, as people can have very vestigial links,” the Welsh peer said.
An approach to foreign influence that relies on identifying particular state threats risks shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, writes Tom Griffin
Tom Griffin
Fraud Risk
Lord Anderson added that the idea of fining Brits abroad who breach election law - for example, by falsely claiming to have lived in a certain seat when in the UK - is “absurd”.
“How can any fines be enforced on someone who lives a good distance abroad? This is just window dressing; it is a spurious suggestion. What is the real motive of the Government in pressing this?..It is not the advance of democracy; instead, it gives the opportunity for many people to interfere in our elections.”
And he questioned whether the Government expects wealthy donors abroad to “suddenly surface” as a result of the proposals. “In their dying days, this Government have brought forward these proposals. My hope is that an incoming Labour Government will speedily reverse them,” the Labour peer said.
In theory, someone could have lived abroad for 50 years, with little evidence of where they used to vote, and a friend could vouch that they were telling the truth about their eligibility to cast their vote in a marginal seat and to make unlimited donations to a political party. The same “vouching” rules do not apply to voter identification, where the Government rejected people being able to “attest” for someone’s identity if they lack ID at the polling station.
There are an estimated 3.5 million British overseas citizens, amounting to roughly 5,500 per constituency, if they all registered. “If we assume that no more than 50% register, that is still well over 2,000 per constituency,” Lib Dem Lord Wallace said. Currently, around one million Brits abroad are eligible to vote (having lived abroad for up to 15 years), though that is now expected to grow to encompass nearly all the 3.5 million.
Lord Khan noted in the debate there were “already clear evidence of attempts by [foreign state] actors to influence UK democracy.”
A Timeline of Interference: How Trump and Russia Targeted Georgia Election
Big questions remain about Russia’s attempts to interfere in US elections
Stephen Humphreys
Already Happening
One of the largest donations to the Conservative Party this year, of £5 million, came from someone whose financial interests are centred in Dubai, one of the main offshore centres for Russian and Chinese money, Lord Wallace noted. Another of the largest such donations, of £2 million, came from a Tory-backer whose financial and commercial interests are in Indonesia and Thailand.
The Government appears to have noted the threat of foreign interference, with Penny Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons, writing to Tom Tugendhat, Security Minister, in September to call “for a new intelligence-sharing framework between the security services and the UK’s main parties”.
He added: “Some government insiders fear parties have too little access to sensitive information about potential donors.” Mordaunt was reportedly working with officials to identify new mechanisms for data sharing between intelligence officials and political parties. There is no allegation the rules were broken.
The Electoral Commission does not have powers to investigate either registration or the source of donations in other countries, Lords heard.
Lord Khan’s amendment to the Government motion, expressing “regret” over the heightened risk of foreign interference, passed after crossbenchers, Lib Dems and Labour peers got behind it. However, the changes as a whole are now law.
Baroness Penn, representing the Government, defended the move, saying, "Overseas electors are important participants in our democracy, and it is only right that they should be able to make donations to political parties in Great Britain in the same way as other citizens registered on the electoral roll in Great Britain…
“UK electoral law sets out a stringent regime of donations controls to ensure that only those with a legitimate interest in UK elections can make political donations, and that political donations are transparent. The same transparency measures will apply to those who are empowered to vote and donate through this expansion of the franchise, as applies to existing voters. Money from a foreign or unknown source is illegal.”
During the passage of the then National Security Bill, the Government committed to undertake a consultation on enhanced information sharing between parties, regulators and police to help “identify and mitigate” foreign interference in political donations. The Government will lay a report on that before Parliament by the end of next year, Baroness Penn said.
Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH
Josiah Mortimer also writes the On the Ground column, exclusive to the print edition of Byline Times.
So for more from him...
Do you have a story that needs highlighting? Get in touch by emailing josiah@bylinetimes.com
Rishi Sunak’s Attempts to ‘Vice-Signal’ His Way to Victory are Starting to Backfire
Newsletter offer
Subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive editorial emails from the Byline Times Team.
Some commentators have questioned why Rishi Sunak’s Government is focusing so much political energy on a scheme which, even in the unlikely event it ever gets off the ground, would only accommodate a tiny proportion of asylum seekers arriving in the UK.
For context, independent assessments suggest the Rwanda scheme would only be able to accommodate a maximum of a few hundred arrivals each year, compared to the around 175,000 people currently on the UK’s asylum backlog.
Or to put that another way, this is a scheme which, if absolutely everything goes right, will deal with just 0.2% of those currently seeking refuge in the UK. It is an irrelevance, albeit a very expensive one.
So why do it?
The answer is that it is the perfect example of the politics of ‘vice-signalling’.
For vice-signallers, the key motivation is to signal a particular negative political intention, even when the reality of your own actions is the complete opposite. For the Conservative Party this involves signalling their intentions to be as hostile as possible to migrants and refugees, while at the same time presiding over record levels of migration to the UK.
So as immigration numbers hit new highs, so too does the Conservative Party’s attempts to appear as hostile as possible to those who come here. Whether it’s painting over children’s murals in asylum centres, or briefing plans to put wave machines in the English Channel, the strategy involves signalling the greatest amount or vice for the minimum amount of effort.
The Rwanda scheme is the logical extension of this strategy and why the Prime Minister is so keen to be seen as attempting to get it through, even as it becomes clear that he has little hope of ever doing so.
Indeed in some ways, the Government may even believe that it would be better for the scheme to be blocked than for it to actually ever be implemented. After all, if the key motivation is to signal your own vice, rather than actually to do something meaningful, then what better way to achieve that than for your tokenistic plans to be blocked by a coalition of “lefty lawyers” and the Labour Party. The politics of vice-signalling can only work when its proponents are able to drive a wedge between their own vice and others' virtue.
Of course this is not an argument for the Government’s opponents to allow the Rwanda scheme to go through. The Government's plans would not only be a clear breach of international law, but also of the UK’s long-standing responsibilities to offer refuge to some of the most vulnerable people on the planet. It is both legally and morally wrong and should be strongly opposed.
However, it is important to understand what the real motivations are here.
Boris Johnson’s Covid Inquiry Appearance Exposed the Complicity of his Accomplices
The Covid Inquiry has revealed the former PM to be a deeply negligent and dishonest individual. The only question now is how he was allowed to get away with it
Adam Bienkov
The Politics of Vice-Signalling
Once you identify the politics of vice-signalling, then you can see it everywhere. During the debate on the Government’s Bill to declare Rwanda a safe country, on Tuesday, the Conservative MP Nick Fletcher delivered a particularly extreme speech in which he suggested that parts of his Don Valley constituency had become a “ghetto” due to migration.
Fletcher told MPs that “the reason the [NHS] waiting lists are so long is that people do not speak English in these places any more”, adding that “this is what is happening. Members can shout me down. They can say what they want — I really do not care — but this is what is happening.”
Of course the reality is quite different. According to official figures just 0.1% of Don Valley residents cannot speak English, with only 0.8% having lived in the UK for less than five years.
Don't miss a story
Yet for the vice-signallers, such facts are an irrelevance. The intention is not to actually examine the country’s problems and to help solve them, but to merely signal their own bad intentions, regardless of what is actually happening in the real world.
The problem for Sunak and his party is that such attempts to vice-signal can often backfire. As he's discovered this week, the problem with any Government setting up a vice-signalling battle is that there are always other people who are willing to raise the stakes much further than your would be able to.
The problem for the Prime Minister is that in attempting to set up a vice-signalling contest with his political opponents, Sunak has so far managed only to create one with his own backbenchers instead.
The Overton Window: The Missing
Newsletter offer
Subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive editorial emails from the Byline Times Team.
The first time that Evidence Joel knew her life would never be the same again was when she saw the clothes still there, on the side, neatly folded. Just as she had left them for him before going to bed that cold March morning, after her night shift as a nurse.
Still folded. And the meal she had prepared and left in the fridge. Still there. Uneaten.
Evidence went to knock on her son Richard’s locked door – her beloved ‘Rich heart’ – but there was no answer, and when she managed to break the lock and swing that door open, her heart also broke.
He was not there.
Since that moment, Evidence has – with an irony so painful it not need be said – been gathering evidence of what happened to her lost son.
She called the police, of course. But they told her that as Richard, her handsome boy, was 19, she had best sit and wait in case he came back. But he has sickle-cell disease, she told them, a blood disorder that means he has to take his medicine or else he’ll have an attack. But still they told her to wait.
She refused. She found the footage from the security cameras that showed her son leaving her west London block of flats the night before, just after she had left for work. He was not dressed for a winter’s night. She knew the cold would hit him hard, perhaps even bring on an episode. But when she called the police back, the fear and pain rising in her, she says they still did not listen.
“If I was someone with blue eyes, blonde hair, you know, I’d have been treated differently,” she says.
Phone call after phone call did not help. The days passed.
She walked the streets by her home, late into the night. Not eating, sleeping – just searching. She visited neighbours. She wrote to her MP. She called and she called and she felt that each time she spoke to them it was as if they had never heard of her boy.
“I need you to look for my son,” she said.
“Go home,” they said.
The Overton Window: Homelessness
The Home Secretary believes homeless people live in tents on the streets of this country as a ‘lifestyle choice’. She needs to take a closer, compassionate look…
Iain Overton
It was only when she called up the charity Missing People that things shifted. Richard Okorogheye, the news reported, was missing.
She read the headlines. Her son. Her only son. This wasn’t happening, she told herself. But she knew it was. And only when those headlines appeared was she seen and a detective assigned to the case.
Weeks later, they found Richard’s body. He was a 90-minute journey from his home, cold and alone, in a pond in Epping Forest.
“I wanted to die,” she says. “Since I’ve come here from Nigeria, I’ve served British communities with my whole heart. Without discrimination. Without prejudice.”
But when it came to helping her find her son, she felt unseen.
There are plenty of answers still missing.
Did they check his phone? Who was he speaking to late into the night on his Playstation? Why did he go all the way to Epping? He was always afraid of the dark and the cold – why would he enter the freezing lakes of that forest in the pitch black?
The police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, found that the Metropolitan Police should apologise to her after officers provided an “unacceptable level of service” regarding the case.
“If my skin was different, my accent,” she says, “they’d have taken my case more seriously.”
And that hardest question of all emerges – would Richard still be alive if they had done so?
What we do know is that when the charity that helped her – Missing People – researched the ethnicity of missing people in the UK for the year 2021-2022, it found significant disparities among different ethnic groups.
Black people were over-represented, comprising 13% of individual missing reports and 14% of all missing incidents, despite making up only 4% of the general population. The charity raised concerns about systemic race issues in the treatment and handling of young black missing people. For instance, fewer missing black children were found by the police than white children: only 16% of cases compared to 23%.
This brings no comfort to Evidence.
“I feel I am barely living,” she says. “Sometimes I sleep and I do not want to wake up. I find myself calling ‘Richard, Richard’ in my dreams. But he’s not there.”
And as she lifts the phone to show an image of her son – the last one of him she has – her eyes close and her breathing slows and the weight of her missing son is all that you can feel.
‘One of the World’s Most Cyber-Attacked Nations’: Parliamentary Report Confirms Russian Interference Attempts in UK Elections – and Slams Braverman’s Inaction to Prioritise ‘Stopping the Boats’
Newsletter offer
Subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive editorial emails from the Byline Times Team.
“The UK Government is almost certain that Russian actors sought to interfere in the 2019 general election”, according to a stark new report on an issue consistently under-investigated by the Conservative Government and under-reported by the established press.
The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, comprising MPs and peers from both Houses of Parliament, is alarmed that attempts to interfere may be made in the next general election – with no proper protection for politicians and political parties – and have sought an urgent meeting with the National Cyber Security Centre to discuss the matter.
“It is unclear if the support for ‘high-risk individuals’ will be offered to all parties before, during, and after an election and what work the NCSC is doing to preserve the integrity of free and fair elections in the UK overall,” the Committee said. “This work is vital to defending democracy and providing impartial support.”
The disclosure has brought condemnation from MPs and the advocacy group The Citizens, since the Government has previously denied there were any attempts of Russian interference in the 2019 General Election and during the 2016 EU Referendum.
In a striking conclusion, the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy states that its report “confirms that Russia’s Federal Security Service has carried out multiple attacks on the UK since at least as early as 2015 and at key times including around the 2019 General Election” and that, despite this, and while still refusing to carry out a full investigation, “the Government continues to assert today that attempts to interfere with UK politics and democracy have not been successful”.
The committee states that this position is “untenable” and called on the Government to “now, finally, commence a full investigation of foreign interference” as recommended by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee’s 2020 Russia Report.
It said that the National Cyber Security Centre believes a failure to do so “puts the UK’s democratic processes at grave risk”.
Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, who first raised the issue of Russian interference in UK politics in December 2016, told Byline Times: “I am flabbergasted that, having denied or obfuscated this for years and resisted our legal attempts to get them to investigate Russian interference all the way through the courts, the Government is now admitting it’s been going on since before the Brexit Referendum, as many of us said at the time.”
ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE
Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.
We’re not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.
A group of MPs, including Bradshaw, Green MP Caroline Lucas and Labour’s Chris Bryant, failed in their judicial review – an attempt to compel then Prime Minister Boris Johnson to investigate Russian interference in UK elections – after a judge ruled in 2021 that their concerns were a “matter for politics rather than the law”.
Clara Maguire, executive director of The Citizens, said “the Government’s acknowledgements fly in the face” of what it told the High Court in 2021. “It is also significant that no mention of Brexit is made anywhere in this disclosure. We need to know who these named individuals are, what information has now come to light, when the Government discovered this, and why they denied the significance of these attacks in the court case we brought.”
Stop the Boats But Ignore Russian Interference
The disclosure comes in a scathing committee report that states the entire UK is at risk from a catastrophic ransomware attack that could disrupt the country.
It puts the blame squarely on former Home Secretary Suella Braverman for ignoring the issue to concentrate on illegal immigration and ‘stopping the boats’. It says she “showed no interest in it”, with clear political priority given to other matters such as illegal migration.
The report states that Braverman could have introduced new legislation to protect people from cyber and ransomware attacks but did not include it in the King’s Speech, and calls for the Home Office to be stripped of its responsibility for cyber security and ransomware and for this to be handed over to the Cabinet Office.
“Russia-based and Iran-based actors continue to conduct spear-phishing campaigns against politicians, journalists, activists and other groups”, according to the report. And “Russian-speaking actors are the source of most attributable ransomware attacks against UK targets”.
“The Russian Government’s tacit (or even explicit) approval of these attacks is consistent with the Kremlin’s disruptive, zero-sum-game approach to the West,” the report adds. “It also provides revenue to the Putin regime’s well-oiled network of corruption and criminality.
“For many Russian hackers, ransomware is simply an easy way to make large sums of money, with next to no chance of being caught or prosecuted… the sheer scale of the threat demonstrates how vital it is that the UK is adequately resourced to upscale its defences, and to prepare for a major attack.”
The report cites the huge rise in ransomware attacks since the 2019 General Election with Sellafield, the NHS, private firms, local government, and the British Library, often given as targets as part of global attacks.
One example it points to is the North Korean WannaCry ransomware attack of 2017, when 200,000 computers were attacked worldwide including the NHS which cost the health service £92 million.
The report states that 2021 was the best year for ransomware but this year it expects it is on the rise again, with suspected record pay-outs to hackers. Hackers are also getting more sophisticated and have increased their demands, going “game hunting” for big organisations and individuals and sometimes tripling their demands.
“Large swathes of UK critical national infrastructure remain vulnerable to ransomware, particularly in sectors still relying on legacy IT systems, and we have particular concerns about cash-strapped sectors such as health and local government,” the report states.
I Spent Years Imploring the Conservatives to Investigate Russian Interference. They Didn’t Listen
As a Labour MP investigating disinformation, Ian Lucas saw first-hand the Government’s attempts to duck the question of Russia
Ian Lucas
Previous Warnings Ignored
MPs Bradshaw, Lucas and the SNP’s Alyn Smith – with support from The Citizens – made a submission to the European Court of Human Rights last March in a claim that the UK Government is infringing their rights to free and fair elections by failing to act on the findings of the Russia Report.
That inquiry found that the Government had “actively avoided looking for evidence that Russia interfered” in the UK’s democratic processes and that the “outrage is that no one wanted to know if there was interference” or not.
Then Prime Minister Johnson had suppressed the report in the run-up to the 2019 General Election for reasons unknown. Three years before, as Foreign Secretary, he claimed there was “not a sausage” of evidence of Russian President Vladimir Putin meddling in Brexit. Johnson’s associations with influential Russians have been explored in detail by Byline Times in recent years.
But the Russia Report was not the first inquiry into the issue that raised concerns.
The 2019 report of the House of Commons’ Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, examining disinformation and fake news, outlined the impact of the Russian Embassy in London and state-backed media outlets RT and Sputnik, in supporting the leave campaigns during the EU Referendum. It also revealed the role of social media operations through Russia’s Internet Research Agency and the now defunct data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica.
Labour’s Dame Margaret Beckett, chair of the National Security Strategy Committee, said the UK has “the dubious distinction of being one of the world’s most cyber-attacked nations”.
“It is clear to the committee that the Government’s investment in, and response to, this threat are not equally world-beating – leaving us exposed to catastrophic costs and destabilising political interference,” she said.
“In the likely event of a massive, catastrophic ransomware attack, the failure to rise to meet this challenge will rightly be seen as an inexcusable strategic failure.
“Our main legislative framework is irresponsibly outdated and the Government missed another chance to rectify this in the latest King’s Speech. The agencies tasked with detecting, responding to, and recovering from ransomware attacks – and degrading further attack capabilities – are under-resourced and lacking key skills and capabilities.
“If the UK is to avoid being held hostage to fortune, it is vital that ransomware becomes a more pressing political priority, and that more resources are devoted to tackling this pernicious threat to the UK’s national security.”
A Government spokesperson told Byline Times:
“We welcome the JCNSS’s report and will publish a full response in due course.
“The UK is well prepared to respond to cyber threats and has taken robust action to improve our cyber defences, investing £2.6bn under our Cyber Security Strategy and rolling out the first ever Government-backed minimum standards for cyber security through the NCSC’s Cyber Essentials scheme.
“We have also, this year, sanctioned 18 criminals responsible for spreading a prolific ransomware strain, taken down a piece of malware that infected 700,000 computers and led on an unprecedented international statement denouncing ransom payments, signed by 46 nations.”
COP28: Meet the Top UK Politicians Paid Big Money to ‘Advise’ Oil-Rich Gulf States
Newsletter offer
Subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive editorial emails from the Byline Times Team.
COP28 wraps up in Dubai this week. Reports suggest the draft agreement has dropped references to a phase out of fossil fuels after opposition from oil and gas-producing countries led by Saudi Arabia.
That this COP has been marked by an unprecedented lobbying blitz has been much commented on in the British press. But I was surprised to see little mention of an inconvenient truth for British politics: that former cabinet ministers - and even prime ministers - have been paid millions for ‘advice’’ by many of the oil-rich Gulf governments that stridently oppose phasing out fossil fuels.
Let’s start with Lord Philip Hammond. Theresa May’s chancellor formed his own consultancy firm, Matrix Partners, two months after stepping down from government in 2019.
Matrix Partners recorded profits of at least £990,000 in the two years to March 2022. Hammond has been paid at least £275,000 by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and £68,000 by Bahrain - although the real sums will likely be much higher as these figures are for 2021/22 only.
A spokeswoman for Hammond pointed out to me, correctly, that he has been advising the Saudi Ministry of Finance - but the Saudi economy is driven by oil revenues.
Hammond has emerged as a vocal critical of the UK’s net zero commitments, which would see a drastic reduction in fossil fuel consumption. In August, he told The Sun that ministers had been dishonest about the cost of the energy transition, writing that “a pound spent on decarbonisation cannot be spent on something else.” (Evidently The Sun’s fact-checkers missed the Oxford University study last year that found transitioning to a decarbonised energy system would save the world $12trillion by 2050.)
Hammond said to be one of the wealthiest parliamentarians, has rejected criticism of his work for autocratic regimes. “If change is heading in the right direction, which I’m absolutely clear it is in Saudi Arabia, then I think we should encourage that change,” he told The Times at the weekend.
‘What is he Doing for his Wage?’: Lord Philip Hammond’s Revolving Door Continues
ust two years after leaving office, the former Chancellor and life peer is now free to lobby the Government on behalf of businesses registered in tax havens and set up by Conservative peers
Stephen Delahunty
It is incredibly easy for senior British politicians and civil servants to swap government offices for consultancy retainers.
In theory, ex-ministers have to register with the Office of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments if they take up any new paid or unpaid work within two years of leaving office - but even Acoba’s chief, ex-Tory MP Eric Pickles, admits the body is toothless.
When Philip Hammond told Acoba that he would be working for Mohammad Bin Salman’s regime, the Whitehall watchdog noted that the former chancellor’s inside knowledge of the UK government “could be perceived to offer an unfair advantage” - but approved it all the same.
In 2021, Acoba did find that Hammond had used his government connections to lobby for a bank he is paid to advise - but all it could do was write a strongly-worded letter. Hardly a great deterrent for rule breakers.
Hammond is not the only senior British political figure to move into consulting for unsavoury characters.
Nadhim Zahawi was a guest of the United Arab Emirates at COP28. The (briefly) former chancellor was reportedly acting as an “intermediary” between the UAE and the Barclay family as it seeks to regain control of the Telegraph Media Group - a role Zahawi failed to declare to the benighted Acoba.
BlackRock said it attended a meeting at the request of the Government to form a relationship with Nadhim Zahawi Nadhim Zahawi spent part of his last week as Chancellor seeking advice and “continued support” from the world’s largest asset manager on the Financial Services and Markets Bill and a number of other UK issues, Byline […]
Stephen Delahunty
Elsewhere, former Conservative cabinet office minister Francis Maude advises the governments of oil rich Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kazakhstan through his consultancy firm.
Francis Maude Associates and Partners (FMAP) Ltd - which lists 35 employees in company accounts released last month - has a number of former Tory ministers as senior advisors including Nicholas Soames, Nick Boles and Nick Hurd as well as the former chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, Robert Chote and former British ambassador to Saudi Arabia Simon Collis. Maude’s former colleague Philip Hammond has also been a senior advisor at FMAP.
Although FMAP “does not undertake work for the UK government or seek to do so”, the firm has strong links to the heart of power in Britain.
Shortly after stepping down as Boris Johnson’s deputy chief of staff last year, former FMAP founder Conservative peer Simone Finn returned to the firm, which she co-owns with Maude.
EXCLUSIVE
The House of Blair, Serbia’s Regime and the Mob
John Sweeney reveals how the former Prime Minister is advising a Serbian regime he once bombed and his wife is representing them against the last independent TV channel
John Sweeney
Then, of course, there’s Tony Blair. The former prime minister’s eponymous institute was reportedly paid £9m to advise the Saudi government and has also worked for the UAE.
The Tony Blair Institute remains very active in the Middle East. Its most recent company accounts talk of working “closely with the Egyptian government’s ministry” at COP28 and of “supporting governments” when “the baton passes from Egypt to the United Arab Emirates in 2023."
The Tony Blair Institute declined to say if it had been advising the UAE at COP28 - where Blair met Rishi Sunak - but said that “Mr Blair has no personal consultancy with any country, whether in the Middle East or anywhere else. Nor does he take a fee from any country with which the Institute works.”
Politicians don’t necessarily need to set up their own consultancies to work with oil rich Gulf states. The Sir Bani Yas Forum, which meets annually in the UAE to discuss issues facing the Middle East, does not release names of its agenda or its participants but Blair has attended and former foreign secretary David Milliband was paid at least £60,000 to sit on the Forum’s advisory board while he was an MP.
In 2021, then chair of the Defence Select Committee Tobias Ellwood declared more than £8,500 from the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs to pay for a trip to attend the Sir Bani Yas Forum.
ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE
Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.
We’re not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.
Sue Hawley, executive director of Spotlight on Corruption, said that “there are legitimate questions as to whether former Prime Ministers and Chancellors should face much longer lobbying bans and bans on lobbying for foreign governments.
“Current record levels of public distrust in politicians are being fuelled by the perception that former ministers get to line their pockets after leaving government. It is clear that the regulation of the UK's revolving door is broken.”
Just as Rishi Sunak was busy making Westminster’s most notorious prime minister-cum-lobbyist David Cameron his new foreign minister, another Conservative MP was preparing jump on the consultancy bandwagon.
Longtime chair of the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs, Graham Brady declared that he had set up a consulting firm in the most recent Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
Graham Brady Consulting Ltd is not trading (yet) but earlier this year Brady – who is standing down at the next election – hit the headlines when he told an undercover reporter from the campaign group Led By Donkeys that he would be willing to advise a fake foreign firm. Brady said that a rate of about £6,000 a day “feels about right” – but did make clear that any payments would be on the public record.
This piece originally appeared on Peter Geoghegan’s ‘Democracy for Sale’ Substack. Sign up here for updates. (https://democracyforsale.substack.com/)
‘Selling Weapons to Israel Could Make UK Complicit in War Crimes’
Newsletter offer
Subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive editorial emails from the Byline Times Team.
This week, I joined leaders from civil society calling on the UK government to immediately suspend arms sales to Israel. This is not only the right thing to do but is also what the government should do to uphold its own laws on weapons licensing.
Under the UK’s arms export regime, licenses cannot be granted where there is a clear risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law. The Israeli military’s conduct of hostilities in Gaza creates a clear risk of UK arms being used in grave abuses including reinforcing the unlawful blockade and carrying out unlawful attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure. That is why human rights groups have brought a legal challenge to try to stop the UK selling arms to Israel, and Parliament is debating the issue today (12 December)
Since 2015, the UK has licensed at least £474 million worth of military exports to Israel, including components for combat aircrafts, missiles, tanks, technology, small arms and ammunition. The UK provides approximately 15% of the components in the F-35 stealth bomber aircraft currently being used in Gaza.
The Israel-Hamas War: Searching for Moral Clarity Amid Conflict
Former British diplomat Alexandra Hall Hall reflects on the complexities involved in the conflict and why there are no easy answers – if any
Alexandra Hall Hall
The horror we have witnessed over the last two months in southern Israel and Gaza has shocked humanity. The brutal attack by Hamas-led gunmen on October 7 resulted in the killing of about 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to the Israeli government. Hamas is still holding scores of civilians hostage, a war crime. In response, the Government imposed an arms embargo, and a range of other sanctions on Hamas officials and entities.
Israeli authorities responded to the Hamas attack by tightening the screws on their 16-year unlawful blockade of Gaza – which is part of the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution – by imposing a near complete blockade on the enclave. This amounts to collective punishment of the population, a war crime.
Over the past two months, Israeli forces have carried out unlawful and apparently unlawful attacks in Gaza and neighbouring countries on medical facilities, personnel and transport, a civilian vehicle and a journalist; and have struck multi-story residential buildings, places of worship and UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees facilities that were sheltering displaced people.
More than 18,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, about 70 per cent are women and children, according to Gaza authorities. Due to Israel’s blockade and bombardment, most hospitals are not functioning and people are deprived of essential items, such as food, water and electricity.
ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE
Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.
We’re not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.
As the Israel military resumed its offensive on 1 December in Gaza – which is just 11% the size of Cambridgeshire – there is no sign attacks will stop anytime soon. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that Israel intends to “turn Gaza into a deserted island”.
This is not the first time Israel has been accused of possible war crimes. In hostilities prior to 2023, Israeli forces carried out unlawful airstrikes that killed scores of civilians at a time, wiping out entire families, and targeted civilian infrastructure, destroying high-rise Gaza towers full of homes and businesses, with no evident military targets in the vicinity—acts that violate the laws of war.
The UK government is on notice of the risk its arms may be used in Gaza. Indeed, it has previously admitted that its arms were used in the 2008-2009 hostilities in Gaza. And during the 2014 Gaza hostilities, the government warned that it would suspend existing licenses if significant hostilities resumed, as it would not be able to ensure that UK arms were not being used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law.
Allies of Israel, including the UK, and backers of Palestinian armed groups should suspend arms sales and military assistance so long as parties continue to commit widespread, serious abuses amounting to war crimes against civilians with impunity. Providing weapons knowingly, that significantly contribute to unlawful attacks, would make the UK complicit in such abuses.
The UK should follow its own laws and immediately suspend licenses for arms and military equipment to Israel. In failing to do so, it risks breaching its own laws and being complicit in grave abuses.
Yasmine Ahmed is the UK director at Human Rights Watch.
‘In Fighting for the Cause of Refugees and Migrants, We Fight For Ourselves’
Newsletter offer
Subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive editorial emails from the Byline Times Team.
If Trump wins next year's US Presidential Election, as Robert Kagan in The Washington Post both terrifiedly and terrifyingly says is now inevitable, will there be a flow of intellectuals and scientists out of the United States in a reverse of the flow of intellectuals and scientists from Europe into the US in the 1930s?
A flow of US refugees – genuine refugees, fleeing the collapse of their country into an illiberal, mean-spirited, even perhaps dangerous place for anyone not of the MAGA persuasion – is not inconceivable. Who with a sense of decency could stomach a situation of Donald Trump’s making?
The triumph of the US began in economic power before the Second World War and was sustained and enhanced after it by those refugees from European fascism. What will the world be like with wealth-powerful bullying states overshadowing it and bridling against each other – a Trumpian US; an irredentist, expansionist China; a world dominated by dictators?
This speculation invites analysis, given that the likelihood is that this is our future. But for present purposes let us focus on the word ‘refugees’ just used in this unexpected connection: ‘refugees from the US’. And let us consider that the refugee crises of recent years are as nothing – are as mere Sunday picnics – in comparison to the vast displacements of populations soon to be precipitated by climate change: a catastrophe of hundreds of millions of refugees, not mere millions, into regions unprepared and unwilling.
We have grown used to refugees from the crises in the Middle East and Ukraine, but the future’s refugees will be different, from different places, and far more numerous, than those we see today.
The Identity Trap: Race, Representation and the Rise of Conservative Diversity
Rishi Sunak is in the running to be Britain’s first prime minister of colour – but the debate around whether this will be a good thing for ethnic minorities has laid bare conflicting ideas about the ‘individual’ and the ‘collective’, writes Hardeep Matharu
Hardeep Matharu
In the far-right rhetoric of Victor Orbán, Geert Wilders and Suella Braverman, ‘immigrants’ are lumped together – whether they are refugees or migrants – in one unwelcome mass of moving populations seeking (in the case of refugees) safety or (in the case of migrants) opportunity. But as this distinction illustrates, refugees and migrants are not the same.
Many refugees are anxious to return home when peace is restored; migrants are in quest of a new home. Does this distinction show up in the numbers on ‘immigration’, in the provisions made for them, in the way they are dealt with? No. They are all lumped into the category ‘immigration’ because would-be immigrants, when their numbers reach a critical mass, trouble native populations, which – everywhere in the world, when left to unreflective tribalist instincts – are naturally xenophobic if not downright racist.
The resurgence in recent years of far-right politics in Europe and the US is based on the exploitation of xenophobia as the tool of choice for gaining power. Once got, that power is used to roll-back democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law, aimed at reducing the state from a structure of governance on behalf of the people to a structure for wielding coercive power over the people. It is a familiar story to anyone who bothers to read history.
In the UK today, a desperate Conservative Party is flogging the immigration horse as hard as it can to try to save its skin – because it sees how the right elsewhere is gaining ground by means of the anti-immigration agenda. It has not yet finished delivering the state into private pockets and completing its agenda of creating a subject population unable to protest, strike, or expect decent public services. It wants to finish the job of asset-stripping the country for themselves and the masters behind them in the media and tax-havens and board rooms.
That the citizenry of the UK is not pouring onto the streets in protest at the screaming hypocrisy of a UK government stuffed out with the offspring of immigrants is testament to the dazement induced by the anti-immigrant rhetoric of these immigrant children. But what is worse is that the rhetoric is so effective in switching off thought on the part of so many.
For if they did pause to consider, just for a moment, what the individual units of ‘immigration’ actually are – ie: human beings; men, women, fathers, mothers, children – how could they persist in accepting the bemusement of their faculties? Readers of these words won’t need reminding, but here is the distinction between a refugee and a migrant, and what each is.
‘Asylum seeker’, ‘refugee’. What is such a person? A human being fleeing persecution, danger, death, struggle, terror, horror. A human being fleeing guns and bombs, prisons, torture, cruelty, murder. A human being traumatised, shaking with fear, desperate. A human being who has heard, who has emitted, screams and cries of pain and grief, who has run away from a nightmare. A human being in dire need of safety.
‘Migrant’ What is such a person? A human being quitting places of hunger, futurelessness, who wants a chance to make a life, for himself or herself and his and her children, who wants stability, opportunity, who wants a new life, who wants a job, a home, security, a chance to grow into something they feel they can be.
People leave places because they are pushed and because they are pulled. The refugees are pushed by danger, the migrant by sterility of opportunity. Both are pulled by places that are better, safer, far more promising. Their situation in either case is so bad where they are that they risk much, often everything, to reach better places. However unfamiliar the new place, the strange language, the uncertainty of their reception, it is better by far than the place they leave.
Their action takes immense courage, resolve and effort. They do what human beings have always done, from the moment that homo sapiens trekked out of Africa 60,000 years ago – indeed, from the moment that homo erectus trekked out of Africa two million years ago – to find better places to be.
And here is the clincher: immigrants add, they do not take away. Look at the US in the years 1880-1939 and ask whether the huge waves of immigration in those decades was a bad thing for it. Well, was it?
ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE
Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.
We’re not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.
In today’s UK there are 165,000 vacancies in the care industry – yet the politicians, to pander to ignorance and prejudice, bring down the shutters. Our NHS, our universities, our small business sector (99% of British businesses are small to medium-sized enterprises or SMEs), profit hugely from ‘incomers’. Germany and Australia need net immigration lest their economies stall; whereas the saner political parties in the former understand the problem, politicians in the latter play the same tattered card on both sides of the aisle. It is madness.
Among the solutions to the ‘problem’ of immigration are these: (a) educate the home population on the facts: immigrants add value; (b) invest in the countries that drive migrants outward because of the economic insufficiencies there, so that talent remains there and the impulse to leave is lessened.
And as to refugees and asylum seekers: chief among the solutions to this different problem are: (c) work to bring peace and stability to the regions that drive their terrified populations out; (d) be humane, be kind, welcome them when they stagger onto our shores, succour them.
Note always: migrants are those who explicitly seek to be immigrants. Not all refugees, indeed, perhaps not many of them, wish to be immigrants. Do not discriminate against either of them; discriminate between them and treat them accordingly – which with regard to both means decently.
It is essential to recognise, and not be fooled by, the use of the ‘immigration’ canard to blind us to the real agenda of the far-right. The far-right stir up hostility to an easily demonised ‘other’ as a mask for the rest of their wider and equally bad agenda. They are at present winning this nasty game. We must not let them. In fighting for the cause of refugees and migrants, we fight for ourselves.
‘Are the Conservatives Willing to Sacrifice Northern Ireland for the Rwanda Scheme?’
Newsletter offer
Subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive editorial emails from the Byline Times Team.
Another chapter in the Conservatives’ long-running saga of internal division is set to begin this week, as a showdown looms over Rishi Sunak’s controversial Rwanda Bill. However, despite the Government’s efforts to circumvent the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), there remains another oft-forgotten barricade to its assault on asylum rights: the Good Friday Agreement.
The introduction of the Safety of Rwanda Bill follows a legally-binding treaty signed by the UK and Rwanda. The treaty, alongside the subsequent bill, each declare Rwanda as a 'safe’ country, barring UK courts from considering otherwise.
The emergency legislation seeks to neuter domestic courts of their autonomy after the UK Supreme Court ruled that the Government’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful.
There are few more egregious examples of world leaders inventing 'alternative facts’. The highest court in the UK deemed Rwanda as unsafe, rather than address that legal conclusion, the UK is seeking to create a new one.
Sunak’s Rwanda Bill is a step back from former Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s demands to outright leave the ECHR, which many Conservatives see as an obstacle to achieving their immigration policy, but the Bill still stands at odds with the convention.
The Prime Minister has said that he “will not allow a foreign court to stop Rwanda flights”, referencing the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which has ultimate oversight over the application and compliance to the ECHR.
‘Populists Learn From Each Other’: Is the World Heading for a Tipping Point in 2024?
The prospect of another Trump presidency in the US, rising authoritarianism and multiple complex conflicts around the world make for a depressing picture
Alexandra Hall Hall
The UK has a dualist legal system, which means that it can legislate domestically against international treaties without having to explicitly leave them. This practice does not, however, relieve the UK of its commitment under international law.
What the Government seems to have overlooked with any great detail is that the ECHR isn’t merely referenced in the Good Friday Agreement, it’s threaded throughout. Any divergence from or weakening of the Convention will contravene UK commitments to the 1998 peace treaty.
The Good Friday Agreement placed an onus on the UK Government to incorporate the ECHR into Northern Ireland law, with “direct access to the courts, and remedies for breach of the Convention, including power for the courts to overrule Assembly legislation on grounds of inconsistency”.
It also created an obligation on the Northern Ireland Assembly and public authorities to adhere to the Convention – “neither the Assembly nor public bodies can infringe” on the ECHR – and further “that key decisions and legislation are proofed to ensure that they do not infringe the ECHR”.
This was given legal standing through the Human Rights Act which is the fundamental basis in UK law for implementation and applicable of the Good Friday Agreement. The Rwanda Bill not only opens up the Human Rights Act, it hacks it to pieces with significant sections disapplied in an effort to prevent courts and public authorities from considering Rwanda unsafe.
This is a pandora's box when it comes to Northern Ireland and could easily be seen as a wedge for further derogation of applications of the ECHR and court access.
According to one immigration solicitor and coordinator at the Committee on the Administration of Justice, “the Rwanda bill forms part of a broader pattern where the UK government isn’t outright leaving the ECHR, but instead attempting to dismantle it in UK law piece by piece through legislation like this. For Northern Ireland, any such attack on the ECHR and Human Rights Act is a blatant breach of the Good Friday Agreement”.
If Sunak manages to force this bill through what is to stop the Government from overriding potential future judgments against its contested Legacy Act? Or from further splicing and slicing of the Human Rights Act?
The Rwanda Bill largely blocks direct access to the courts and prevents interpretation and consideration of convention case law – all of which directly contradict explicit provisions of the Good Friday Agreement.
A further Northern Ireland based challenge to Sunak’s Bill is the Withdrawal Agreement, which prevents rights in Northern Ireland from being removed as a result of Brexit, including asylum rights, a case could be argued that the Rwanda bill infringes on the right to a safe country.
These difficulties will increasingly rear their head as the Bill proceeds, and the headache of what to do about Northern Ireland will soon return. One school of thought could be to exempt Northern Ireland from the disapplication clauses of the Human Rights Act, but you don’t get to cherry pick the ECHR – it must be applied equally to all citizens.
The Rwanda Bill is likely to be legally challenged, aside from the obvious overreach and interference with the authority of the courts, the UK could still be found in breach of international law. Home Secretary James Cleverly was unable to make a statement confirming that the provisions of the Rwanda Bill are compatible with convention rights, itself a damning indictment –this isn’t a public departure from the ECHR, but rather one undertaken stealthily.
ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE
Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.
We’re not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.
This Government has long been at war with the rule of law, from attacks on legal professionals, to repeated attempts at circumventing legal obligations and international treaties. The Rwanda Bill flies in the face of international human rights standards, placing the UK on course to potentially breach the Withdrawal Agreement, and threatens the Good Friday Agreement – all of which is still not enough for the Nigel Farage wannabes in the Conservative Party.
The ultra-right wing Tories are already briefing that the Bill does not go far enough. It will never be enough.
The Bill heads for its second reading on Tuesday wherein Sunak faces a revolt from his opponents on all sides, should the bill be successful expect more public funding to be squandered. The Government has already spent more than £140 million on its Rwanda policy, without one successful deportation.
The question at the end of this is just how much are the Conservatives willing to sacrifice to the alter of populist anti-immigrant rhetoric. The rule of law? International standing? The Good Friday Agreement? Or perhaps Northern Ireland as a whole?
The region has been a thorn in Brexiters’ sides, and there is one other alternative that rests not solely on the minds of people who advocate for a United Ireland, but on the minds of those who would sooner be rid of Northern Ireland than to forego their own political agendas.