Asylum: the poisoned well

09/03/2015

I spoke slightly too soon the other day in remarking that only the Guardian had picked up on the EU asylum initiative. Even as I was writing, the Express was producing a front page story on the issue, which appeared last Saturday.

Typically of this repulsive newspaper, though, it runs with the headline "New migrant flood on way", with the sub-heading: "Outrage after EU warns Britain to prepare for more foreigners", thus presenting a completely distorted and alarmist view of the development, without in any way explaining what is really involved, and why the EU has launched its initiative.

Nevertheless, while there is no question in my mind about how wrong this newspaper is, on all counts, to explain exactly why requires complex and lengthy arguments.

From the end of last year, I decided to research the asylum question, and to get to the bottom of the issues, only to find layers of complexity that I had not even begun to appreciate. As a result, it took me almost the end of February, a full three months, before I was confident enough to write an analysis. This, I included in the latest edition of Flexcit and even that is the short version, the full-length (and as-yet unfinished) analysis running to over 120 pages.

The end point of this work, though, is not encouraging. As with other issues – not least EU regulation – the complexity and the intractable nature of the issues makes me wonder whether it is actually possible to have a rational debate.

Not only is the level of ignorance is so profound, that the various protagonists and commentators aren't even beginning to address the issues, much less understand them, the majority seem already to have their rooted ideas and are not disposed to change them.

Nevertheless, as I had already been toying with a general analytical piece on the issue of asylum, I thought the Express story might provide a topical hook on which to hang a blogpost.

Having spent a couple of days on the drafting, though, I seem to be no further forward than when I started. The piece is not only proving difficult to write, as it touches on so many aspects of contemporary politics and the associated public discourse, it also started getting very long and tortuous, so much so that it is never going to attract an audience.

I started by arguing that, before one can addressing the specifics of the Express story – and the "asylum" debate in general – it was necessary to have a minimum level of understanding of the basics, and in particular an understanding of the legal framework in which Member States and EU institutions operate.

It had to be understood that the framework was set by the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and extended by the 1951 UN Convention on the treatment of refugees and the 1967 Protocol. But, not only did any potential critic have to be familiar with these instruments, they also needed to understand the role of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) and the influence of judge-made law from the Court of Human Rights. And then there must be some familiarity with EU law, and specifically the Dublin Regulation.

To add to those basics, I considered it also essential to know something of the background to the formulation and development of asylum policy and its implementation, at national and EU levels, over the last thirty years or so. Only that would equip anyone to deal with the Express story, and understand why it was so wrong.

However, conveying those details is not going to happen in one blogpost. Not for nothing does the short version of the analysis in Flexcit run to 25 pages (see page 134). Summarising the detail in a few pages on a blog is simply not possible – not for me, at any rate.

But then, if I can't deal with the likes of a story that claims that Britain, "could be forced to accept a new surge of migrants under Brussels plans to set up refugee processing centres in Africa and the Middle East", what chance is there of dealing with the myriad of stories that are going to get thrown at us in any referendum campaign.

Yet, dealing with such stories is going to be essential. The point at issue – in this particular case – is that, under the circumstances, there is a certain logic to the EU proposal, and to many people, the approach the Commission intends to take may seem reasonable. Furthermore, it might actually lead to a significant cut in the number of "irregular migrants" that the UK will have to process – the very opposite of what the Express is claiming.

What the paper is suggesting is that the Commission's idea of "refugee centres" – close to the countries from which most refugees originate - will allow illegal immigrants access to the UK, giving hope "to bogus refugees who previously would have had to journey thousands of miles to make their claims".

In fact, though, the idea of these offshore refugee processing centres is not at all new, and not without merit. Interestingly, one of those who proposed them was Tony Blair in 2003, on the back of a Home Office paper.

At the time, though, the idea got a lukewarm response from the EU, although it was later picked up by Germany, with the support of Italy, for discussion at EU level. However, it was blocked first by Spanish Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso, on "humanitarian" grounds, and then by France's Dominique de Villepin.

Unable to progress by this route, it was nevertheless resuscitated by the then Conservative leader, Michael Howard, who put immigration and asylum at the heart of the 2005 general election campaign. He strongly advocated almost exactly what we are seeing in the Commission proposal.

The crucial difference in the Howard proposal, though, is that – as a practising barrister - he recognised that offshoring asylum-seeker processing could not be done within the framework of the 1951 Refugee Convention, and he thus promised that a new Conservative government would withdraw from it.

On that basis, his administration would have flown asylum seekers to the designated refugee centres, and would only have allowed a limited number, on humanitarian grounds, to enter Britain, in a controlled and predictable stream.

The great value of this system would be that only genuine refugees would be admitted, leaving economic migrants (usually the majority of asylum seekers) the choice of either remaining in the refugee centres, or returning to their homelands. This is precisely the system being adopted by the Australians to deal with their "boat people" and, so far, it seems to be effective.

Where in my view the Australian system is more than a little dubious is that the current Abbott government is by-passing the 1951 Convention, without confronting the need to withdraw from (or heavily amend) this instrument.

But, if in principle, we wished to follow, not only is it likely that we would have to withdraw from the 1951 Convention, we would also have to withdraw from the EU. It has embedded the principles of the 1951 Convention in the Charter of Fundamental Rights – together with a right to asylum – which now part of the Lisbon Treaty and thereby forms part of EU law, which which we have to conform.

When we come to the Express story, though, we see the paper asking us to assume that setting up refugee processing centres in Africa and the Middle East necessarily attracts "bogus refugees" who will no longer have to travel "thousands of miles" to the UK to make their claims.

Instead, we are encouraged to assume that they will be given free passes to enter the UK and be transported to that location, thus allowing Ukip MEP Gerard Batten to assert: "We have already been swamped, now we have to prepare for a deluge".

Just to cement in this canard, we then get Alp Mehmet, of Migration Watch, saying: "This is a half-baked idea that will only add to the problems the UK and other European countries have with illegal immigration. All these centres will do is act as a magnet for more people who want to come to Britain".

Thus is a huge opportunity lost. Not only does the newspaper fail to further our understanding of the asylum issue, and welcome what is probably the only long-term way of dealing with it, it also loses the chance of pointing out the flaws in the Commission proposal and why, to implement it, we must leave the EU.

The worst of it all, though, is that it puts "eurosceptics" apparently at odds. We have the Ukip faction, condemning something without even beginning to understand it, while airing the contrary case is too long and tedious to have any popular appeal.

Yet, as I have pointed out many times, the default position of the anti-EU movement is that we lose the referendum. This will be largely because so many campaigners and activists are promoting tired, inadequately researched nostrums. Unless we address these inadequacies, the "default position" will become the reality.

The really big problem, though, is how we even start breaking down the tidal wave of ignorance that is engulfing us and poisoning the well of political discourse.