Most voters still do not understand just how harsh the Bill is

Ell Folan is the founder of Stats for Lefties

On 13^th March, the Illegal Migration Bill passed its second reading in the Commons by a majority of 62 votes. Yet despite a flurry of articles in the mainstream press, most voters still do not understand just how harsh the Bill is. In short: the Bill requires the government to deport anyone who arrives in the UK via irregular routes. It is such a stringent piece of legislation that two MPs from the right-wing Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) voted against it.

The Illegal Migration Bill is the latest in a long line of measures from the Conservatives aimed at discouraging irregular and undocumented migration, particularly via small boat crossings in the English Channel. These boat crossings have risen dramatically in the past few years: in 2019, just 1,800 people crossed the channel in small boats. By 2022, this had risen to over 45,000.

However, there are two things worth remembering about the sharp increase. Firstly, even the current 45,000 figure for small boat crossings is actually very small: it is, for instance, a miniscule fraction (1.6%) of the 2.9 million people granted a UK visa in 2022. The idea that this is a dramatic and unprecedented crisis requiring harsh intervention is an over-exaggeration; granting every single one of these people asylum would not impact the UK in any noticeable way.

Secondly, and more importantly, the sharp rise in crossings is largely the government’s own fault. As Amnesty International has observed, “there are no safe and legal routes for people seeking asylum” – and this is a direct consequence of two UK government policies. Firstly, you must be physically present in the UK to claim asylum; you cannot do it from another country. Secondly, there used to be a safe route by which asylum applications made in EU states could be transferred to the UK; these were the Dublin Regulations. But the UK left these in December 2020, scrapping the only safe route.

When these policies were combined with a significant backlog in processing cases, the results were disastrous. Resettlement numbers for the nationalities most likely to cross the Channel are 75 per cent lower than in 2019. The rise in small boats, in other words, is a direct result of the Tories’ failure to provide safe routes for seeking asylum.

As for the Bill itself, the details are deeply concerning. It imposes a new duty on the Home Secretary to deport all undocumented migrants who enter the UK, regardless of their circumstances or background. Victims of human trafficking, people who are pregnant, refugees fleeing war and persecution – all of them will be removed under the new law if they entered the UK irregularly.

It won’t matter if someone’s asylum claim is rock-solid; it won’t matter if they currently have a legal case challenging their removal; it won’t matter if they were trafficked here. If they entered irregularly, the Bill requires that any asylum claim will be automatically rejected, and they will be deported. Worse still, if someone is subject to these procedures, they can never apply for asylum or citizenship in the UK in future – and neither can their families. Finally, the Bill further limits safe and legal routes for seeking asylum in the UK, by placing an annual cap on the number of places available via legal routes.

You might be thinking that there is no way these harsh policies can be compatible with the Human Rights Act or the European Convention on Human Rights – and they aren’t. Home Secretary Suella Braverman was unable to provide Parliament with a statement that the Bill was compatible, but she has asked MPs to vote for the Bill anyway.

There have been various attempts to gauge public opinion on the Bill. The most recent survey found that voters backed the policy by 42% to 39%, with 7 in 10 Conservative voters supporting it. Other polls point to stronger support, with a PeoplePolling survey showing 52% in favour and 25% opposed. However, these polls only gave voters the option to support or oppose the policy.

Arguably the most informative survey comes from Opinium, who offered voters a choice of two options: process asylum claims from people who arrive via small boat (49%) or block everyone who arrives by small boat, regardless of how valid their claims is (28%). This survey thus showed that public support for the Bill is very weak when voters are given alternative options. Notably, in this survey less than 4 in 10 Conservative voters opted for the government’s harsh policy.

People often criticise the Labour Party for focusing on the practicalities of the government’s migration policies, as opposed to whether they are right or wrong – and that critique is entirely justified. But it really is true that if you think about the government’s plan for more than five seconds, it becomes obvious just how much of a wildly unworkable fantasy it is.

There is no way that the UK government can feasibly deport tens of thousands of asylum seekers per year, even if it automatically refuses their asylum claims. In 2022, the total number of ‘enforced returns’ (deportations) of asylum seekers from the UK was just 824. Given that 90% of those who arrive on small boats claim asylum, the government would be aiming to deport at least 40,000 people per year – a 4900% increase. This is not a proposal with any chance of becoming reality.

But even though the Bill cannot be implemented in full, the social consequences will still be devastating. There will now be little incentive for refugees and asylum seekers to remain in contact with the Home Office, as the prospects of gaining asylum will dry up overnight. This will make their lives more difficult and insecure, and make it harder for them to get jobs and housing. Those who are identified by the Home Office will face harsh consequences, with hundreds (perhaps thousands) of asylum seekers and refugees finding themselves deported to Rwanda, leaving them adrift in an unfamiliar country with a poor human rights record.

In short, the Illegal Migration Bill may be an unworkable mess – but even attempting to implement it will have serious and profound consequences for refugees and asylum seekers, plunging tens of thousands of vulnerable people into an insecure existence with no support. It must be opposed.

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