IT IS telling that more than 1,000 faith leaders have condemned the Tories’ Borders Bill on the grounds that it will jeopardise aid and assistance to refugees fleeing death, destruction and joblessness caused by natural and man-made disasters.
The hundreds of thousands fleeing war in Ukraine are naturally in our thoughts and this highlights the crass inhumanity of a Home Office which disallows entry to those fleeing this latest inter-imperialist conflict without a visa — and at the same time, ceases to issue visas.
Reflect on the desperation of these people as they queue at the border with Poland and measure that against the desperation of people of colour studying in Ukraine who find that when they reach the eastern boundary of the EU, they are sent to the back of the queue on the grounds that Ukrainians, possessed of the universal passport that is a white skin, get priority.
The Borders Bill is the latest iteration of racist immigration policies implemented by British governments of all political hues since the beginning of the last century. Ministers disregard the fact that the Bill will breach Britain’s international obligations towards refugees.
There are precious few ways of reaching Britain, and asylum-seekers arriving here using methods deemed illegal, such as by boat via the English Channel, could be liable for up to four years in prison.
On arrival, refugees will be sorted into Group 1 and Group 2. Refugees who have not complied with a very strict set of requirements — such as using “legal” routes of arrival — will automatically be sorted into Group 2 and face an even more hostile environment.
The Bill imposes a higher burden of evidence on people claiming refugee status who often lack documentation and have been exploited by people-traffickers.
The Indian Workers Association rightly warns that the Bill is based on the assumption that refugees should claim asylum in the first safe country in which they arrive, perhaps an intimidating circumstance for any person of colour successfully surmounting the Fortress Europe’s less than colour blind border guards.
This conflicts with our international obligations under the Refugee Convention 1951 and is contrary to international law where the primary responsibility for identifying refugees and affording international protection rests with the state in which an asylum-seeker arrives and seeks that protection.
And any asylum-seeker allocated to Group 2 faces the prospect of a permanent separation from other family members in breach of the rights conferred refugees under the Human Rights Act 1998.
The vast majority of refugees from war, natural disasters or human-created catastrophe like climate change find their first refuge in neighbouring countries.
The numbers are staggering; from Syria there are 6.7 million refugees — mostly in neighbouring countries like Lebanon — Venezuela has 4.5 million people displaced abroad and Afghanistan has 2.7 million refugees.
The numbers who make it to Britain, mostly English speakers with family here or from countries with a history of entanglement — usually unhappy — with British imperialism, are tiny compared to those hosted by countries far less equipped to deal with their problems than Britain.
If we seek a common factor in understanding the global refugees crisis, the role of imperialism — both in the underdevelopment of many regions and in the conflicts that run unerringly along the ruler-straight borders of these countries — is startlingly clear.
The same can be said of the latest wave of refugees coming from Ukraine.
Britain, as an active participant in the destabilising advance of Nato to beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union, bears a special responsibility to give aid to refugees suffering from the fallout from this conflict.
