Amnesty International has slammed Labour’s “divisive and cruel” asylum crackdown, warning that it marks a dangerous drift toward treating fundamental human rights as optional depending on who you are.
On Monday, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced plans to reform the asylum system, with the aim of making it easier to deport people and more difficult for asylum seekers to stay in the UK long-term.
In a statement to the Commons on Monday afternoon, the home secretary is expected to announce
- Those granted asylum will have to wait 20 years before they can apply to settle permanently
- Asylum seekers will also have their refugee status reviewed every two-and-a-half years, rather than five, and will be returned if their home country is deemed safe
- People will be restricted to one appeal to their asylum status, and will be deported if this fails
- The government will change the way the European Convention on Human Rights is interpreted by UK judges in a bid to stop asylum seekers using their rights to a family life to avoid deportation
- A ban on three countries – Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo – from accessing UK visas if they fail to take back illegal migrants.
But Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s Refugee and Migrant Rights Director, has slammed the move.
He said: “The Home Secretary’s immigration and asylum plans are cruel, divisive and fundamentally out of step with basic decency.
“Forcing refugees into endless short-term applications, denying visas to partners and children and stripping away support for people who would otherwise be destitute will only deepen chaos, increase costs and hand greater power to people smugglers.
“This is headline chasing, not problem solving – a Government bowing to anti-immigrant, anti-rights politics instead of standing up for the basic principles that protect us all. Ministers claim to defend the ECHR, yet they are seeking to exclude unfavoured people from protection against inhuman and degrading treatment, and from their right to family life.
He added: “The moment a Government decides that fundamental rights can be switched off for certain people, it crosses a dangerous line that should never be crossed. This is how universal protections begin to rot. Once you strip rights from one group, you hand licence to whoever comes next to strip them from others.
“This headline-chasing cruelty will not fix the immigration system. It will only fuel fear, worsen instability and give legitimacy to the most divisive politics. Anyone who cares about universal human rights needs to act now, because if rights aren’t upheld for everyone – especially those who lack public sympathy – then they are not rights at all, but mere concessions that those in power may permit or withhold as they please.”