In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court in the UK has ruled that sending asylum seekers to Rwanda for their refugee status to be assessed, is unlawful.
As my wife frequently observes : ‘well, I could have told them that !’
The British government had made a fatal mistake in managing their asylum seeker challenge : they took their lead from Australia’s offshore processing policy and worse, at various times, they sought advice from former Australian politicians such as Alexander Downer and Tony Abbott. As Bill Hayden may have noted, a ‘drover’s dog ‘ could have told them that wasn’t going to work out too well.
The British government have so far committed one hundred and forty million pounds to the Rwanda solution ; some have suggested that this was just blatant bribery of corrupt Rwandan politicians and a necessary component of offshore processing. Certainly the Rwandan government has never demonstrated any ability or interest in processing refugee applications in the past and as they would assume the responsibility of processing these applicants from Britain there is no certainty that they would lift their game into the future.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has responded to the Supreme Court decision with the typical conservative solution and that is to pass some dodgy legislation in the House of Commons, get the Lord’s to sign off and thus get around the court’s decision – possibly they are still taking advice from Lord Downer (will they never learn).
As far as PM Sunak is concerned any set back can be overcome by a ‘dodge’. He demonstrated this when he considered that former prime minister and misguided lobbyist, his mate David Cameron would be a useful ally in Cabinet.The only problem was that Cameron had not been democratically elected to office by the long suffering British people : no problem, just hustle him through the back door of the House of Lords, a quick sword tap from King Charles, ‘arise Lord Cameron’ and bingo you have a new Foreign Secretary ready to serve .
A bit of advice for PM Sunak : offshore detention is not a solution it is a nightmare for all concerned although some host countries and dodgy politicians will make a nice little earner out of unsuspecting British taxpayers.
‘Pass the parcel’ is not a legitimate nor a viable strategy for processing asylum seekers !
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