The New Observer UK Section Specious commentary from the Refugee Council

Specious commentary from the Refugee Council

In response to planned legislation which adds some powers to go after “people smugglers”, for example making it an offence to deal in articles intended for “people smuggling”, the UK’s “refugee council”, an NGO, has issued a heart rending statement, dripping with virtue signalling. The Guardian quotes them as saying;

We are very concerned that by creating new offences, many refugees themselves could also be prosecuted, which has already been happening in some cases. This would be a gross miscarriage of justice.

Criminalising men, women and children who have fled conflicts in countries such as Sudan does not disrupt the smuggling gangs’ business model. When a refugee is clambering into a boat with an armed criminal threatening them, they are not thinking about UK laws but are simply trying to stay alive [1]

Why it would be a “gross miscarriage of justice” is not quite clear. I doubt someone (let alone a “child”) would accidentally deal in articles pursuant to immigration crime. (Quite amazingly the bill makes a specific exception which allows NGOs to supply such articles to people crossing the Channel [13 3b]).They may be referring to Section 18 which makes it an offence to endanger anyone’s life on a channel crossing. [2] I doubt very much this is going to be applied to children. From my observations of the UK Courts a defence that a defendant was forced to do something dangerous against their will would be likely to be a successful defence. I very much doubt that these provisions are going to see “innocent” people who are simply paying passengers on a boat prosecuted..

The Refugee Council talks about “fleeing conflicts in countries such as Sudan”. Of course, they pick Sudan for their “such as” example because Sudan is one of the few countries where Channel Crossing refugees originate from which is actually in a war. The other key countries are Albania, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan [3] and, according to the Refugee Council, Eritrea. [4] These countries do not have live wars. If Syria is also another origin country, the fact is that Syrians have been able to settle in Türkiye. Syrian refuges are generally those who are onward moving from Türkiye. And now, Syrians are generally being encouraged to return to Syria following the ousting the Assad regime.

The image of refugees being forced into boats by “armed criminals” and just focussed on “trying to stay alive” is laughably specious. The Refugee Council can’t believe it themselves. Based on numerous press reports it is clear that the refugees crossing the Channel have typically travelled hundreds or thousands of kilometres and paid people smugglers thousands of dollars for facilitating their journeys, including the channel crossing. No one is forcing these people into boats at gunpoint.

And, this is before, unfortunately, we point out the glaring point, which seems to be impossible to mention in official discourse. All of these people are in France or Belgium and could apply for asylum there. They are not in any sense “fleeing” anything.

I do wonder why the Refugee Council tries to manufacture this entirely false narrative. I note that it sits well with the key victim ideology which is so dominant in modern liberal culture. The Refugee Council is a multi-million pound business in receipt of considerable funds from government. In 2020/21 the bill for salaried employees was £7,598,000.00 [5]

Really it was the speciousness of the statement from the Refugee Council which prompted this post, but they are not the only people peddling specious narratives in relation to Channel crossings. The current government, after ditching the (unspeakable) “Rwanda” deportation plan, have resurrected the narrative that this problem is caused by “criminal heartless smuggling gangs”. They claim to be addressing the problem by going after the “smuggling gangs”. The problem with this is that a “smuggling gang” is just some dudes with a mobile phone and enough capital to buy an inflatable dingy. Take one “gang” out and another one will pop into its place. Rather as happens with the war on drugs. Everyone, of course, is studiously avoiding this obvious parallel. And that would raise the next obvious question; why does the government not want to deal with this problem?

It is out of scope of the post to try to answer that question but a couple of thoughts. It can’t be just about numbers of new immigrants. If the authorities just wanted to increase total net migration by another 50,000 (or less) a year, they could just issue that many more work visas or create some new special category of easy to obtain legal visas. My first thought is that the problem is that the only way this flow of refugees could be stopped would involve quite authoritarian (Trump-like) measures – such as detention centres, robust disregard for ‘international law’ (the 1951 Refugee Convention), robust and backed up demands that partner France doesn’t just push the problem onto the UK and forced deportations at scale. And that would break the liberal bubble. That is, my initial hypothesis is that accepting this flow of refugees is concomitant on adherence to our ultra liberal-progressive ideology. It is just regarded in Whitehall as a price that has to be paid.

Notes

  1. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/jan/30/rachel-reeves-keir-starmer-heathrow-growth-latest-politics-news
  2. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/59-01/0173/240173lp.pdf
  3. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/factsheet-small-boat-crossings-since-july-2022/factsheet-small-boat-crossings-since-july-2022
  4. https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/information/refugee-asylum-facts/understanding-channel-crossings/
  5. https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/BRC-Trustees-Annual-Report-and-Accounts-2020-21.pdf