Despite any differences between Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, they both keyed into a crucial aspect of the inability of the United Kingdom to control immigration effectively. In her speech in Washington D.C. in September 2023, prior to her departure from office, Braverman referred to the need to “start a conversation” around reforming the Refugee Convention of 1951. She also castigated the “luxury beliefs” of ivory tower critics who declare as immoral those concerned about illegal immigration. Referring to the need to break from the consensus dealing with migrants arriving by irregular means, Sunak used his speech in Rome to state that his host, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and he were agreed to work on changing international rules that got in the way: “If that requires us to update our laws and lead an international conversation to amend postwar frameworks around asylum, then we must do that.”
Their speeches are not directed at genuine refugees. They have overseen the admission of those at risk of persecution from Hong Kong and Afghanistan and even those fleeing the war in Ukraine, which arguably goes well beyond any obligations imposed by the Refugee Convention. So why advocate revision of the “postwar frameworks around asylum” of which the Refugee Convention has been a key component?
That convention was framed within the United Nations in a very different world. Of foremost concern then were those displaced in Europe because of the Second World War. The convention also drew into itself those protected by the earlier arrangements made in the 1920s and 1930s. Not being forward-looking, it meant to diminish the legal disabilities experienced by those who had already been displaced prior to January 1st 1951, its so-called dateline. The United Kingdom was a key sponsor, encouraging states to adopt a big-hearted attitude and recognise refugees from wherever they came, not merely those from Europe, and to accord treatment to refugees more generous than its literal provisions.
The convention became more relevant only after its protocol of 1967, which obliged newly acceding states not to apply the dateline or the geographical limitation to Europe and to effectively ensure the recognition of refugees prospectively, that is, to those not yet in being. Here lay the seed for the eventual questioning of the convention-protocol system and its potential demise. At the time, the chief aim of its promoters – a group of influential Western countries – was to ensure that the High Commissioner for Refugees had a solid treaty-based mandate to organise the protection of refugees outside of Europe. Unlike in Europe, where the main issue was, as noted, the removal of legal disabilities that might otherwise be imposed on foreigners, refugee situations elsewhere demanded humanitarian missions.
The protocol thus embedded the UNHCR’s position as the major aid-distributing agency it became in subsequent decades. In 1969, African countries supplemented the protocol by the OAU Convention on Refugees, that added an even broader commitment to allow UNHCR to intervene in refugee situations. It is only African countries which accepted such a wide ceding of sovereignty to the UNHCR. Why that happened is a subject yet to be investigated properly, but the prevailing context in which European powers were losing ground in Africa, while the contending Cold War superpowers were filling in the geopolitical space, partly explains why emphasis on humanitarian missions backed with Western funding became a preferred model to be applied in future hot wars. It was not coincidental that the United States, which had remained out of the Refugee Convention, became an eager sponsor of the protocol.
At that point, there was little if any movement to the West from the main refugee-producing regions. This began to change in the 1970s, became unignorable by the 1980s and has been expanding ever since. This is when a variety of Western countries began to put into place refugee recognition mechanisms, rejection from which attracted legal challenges. The law and its manner of dealing with refugee protection took priority for these countries and became a subject of continual adjustment. Especially from a non-Western perspective, the mass intervention of lawyers to protect refugees seems a sort of counterintuitive “luxury belief”.
A clear split became visible between the Western and non-Western approaches. Refugee-receiving countries in the latter group were hardly in a position to impose strict border controls or apply sophisticated legal mechanisms. Other than the African countries, they also objected to being placed under international legal obligations but made do with humanitarian aid and whatever resettlement plans the UNHCR or other countries were offering. Along with other states in the South Asian region, Prof. Bimal Patel’s account shows that India has perhaps quite wisely stayed out of the international bind of the convention-protocol system. Some others in Asia, including Japan (1982), China (1982) and South Korea (1992) have been acceding to the convention-protocol but not necessarily moving their own legal systems to handle large numbers of asylum claims. The small measure of international respectability accession conferred has now all but evaporated as the international order becomes more complicated, unpredictable and less susceptible to the demands of Western countries.
The Western rule-of-law states meanwhile became even more dug-in to their preferred approach, resulting in contradictions. The idea of revising the convention-protocol system is not new; it was aired in 1998 when Austria held the EU Presidency, but that discussion was since buried. States of the former Soviet Bloc and former Yugoslavia who became prospective members of the European Union were compelled to adopt refugee recognition procedures with legal guarantees. The EU has even formalised its adherence to the convention-protocol system in its own governing treaty, making departure from its constraints a more challenging prospect. Governments have struggled with the courts to reduce their obligations and remain compliant with the convention-protocol. While being an everyday feature of litigation, it was most dramatically demonstrated in the recent U.K. Supreme Court judgment concerning onward removals to Rwanda.
Minimally, states have to offer migrants some means of having their asylum applications assessed and remaining in the country while they wait. Limits to resources and the waiting periods demanded by the legal process mean that this can be dragged out, especially when the administrative burdens become significant. Undeniably, many who use the asylum procedure would never have qualified but use it to gain enough traction to enable them to stay on. ‘Lawfare’ litigation – a sort of politics played by legal means – such as that used against the Rwanda plan adds further burdens on the state trying to manoeuvre policy into a workable mode.
The British case shows signs of administrative resistance to political direction, even when democratic mandates have authorised stricter controls, something which is probably replicated elsewhere in Western countries. The overwhelming reliance on the rule-of-law model has backfired badly. States often end up with de facto resident populations whom they would not have otherwise selected, whose net societal contributions at best remain vague, whom they cannot expel and whose presence spurs the subsequent arrival of others in their networks.
Western countries have become stuck with the downside of their rule-of-law models and their inability to police borders effectively. The United Kingdom has joined Mediterranean and Aegean countries, which have a porous water border, whereas the United States currently offers an example where the political gumption to police land borders has evaporated. Turkey, Russia and Belarus have used their ‘migration diplomacy’ against countries to their west by lifting the lid on onward migrants.
Public impatience with respect to porous borders, the ineffectual nature of controls, compromise of selectivity and difficulties with sociability exacerbate conflicts. Trust in conventional politics is eroding and the Western drift is palpably towards putting those in charge who at least promise stronger controls, even if they may not live up to it. As Braverman had said already, pro-migration elites have to cope the least with the consequences of their “luxury beliefs”.
Rishi Sunak and others evidently understand that the legal space for manoeuvre is very limited if they do not engage in a renegotiation of the convention-protocol system. Their option of last resort is to withdraw from the treaties, which is permissible by giving a year’s notice, and to dispense with other preventative obligations such as those developed by the European Court of Human Rights. If it has not already arrived, that point may well be reached if the British courts were to strike down the Sunak Government’s Rwanda plan once again. The anti-immigration public mood in Europe may mean that Sunak faces less opposition and could even attract a group of other states globally to begin moving in the same direction. If that happens, we may see an end to the postwar asylum framework, perhaps not before time.
Dr. Prakash Shah is a Reader in Culture and Law at Queen Mary University of London.
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These popular modern movements seem to attract people with small brains who are completely blind to the consequences of their actions.
Nail…on…head…
Bravo..!
When reality bites…That is one hell of a rude awakening, but thank the gods she survived and her kids are OK. I hope she’s now a lot wiser for this experience.
Wiser? Unlikely, she’ll be looking around for a white supremacist to blame.
“Now she’s fairly changed her tune”… but not enough to admit she was in error before.
No sympathy whatsoever for the trauma suffered by this woman. She and her kind pose a huge threat to civil society. .
Sorry, couldn’t help it!
And for the downtickers,
I bet this young lady wished the police had been there to kneel on her assailants necks no matter what colour those necks were!
she wouldn’t have give a toss so long as her and her kids where safe! Convince me otherwise instead of cowardly downticking!
I read a comment elsewhere which questioned the authenticity of the blood pattern on her face and which posited that the blood had been mixed with water to create a more extensive and gruesome flow. In any case, and bearing in mind her political allegiances and stated goals, as her fellow knee taking anti white racist traveller has said, it’s all part and parcel of living in a big city. Sorry, not sorry.
I would query the fact that her lippy and eye makeup are intact, neither of which would survive the experience of being roughed up and dragged around – hell, I’ve only got to sneeze to smudge my eye make-up.
Edited to add, why are her earrings still in place too?
All we need is a report of a noose and her masked attackers shouting “this is MAGA Country” for the picture to be complete. And didn’t George Floyd hold a pregnant woman up at gun point during a home invasion?
She may well of been cleaned up in hospital immediately after the attack then used a bit of fake blood to recreate an injury for her post but I don’t think there’s any doubt she was attacked. The big question is what colour were her attackers? There’s a good chance they were one of her black siblings she’s so desperate to be an ally with. If this is the case no doubt the attack was a result of slavery, systemic inequalities and white dominance. There’s no chance black attackers could of been people with free will who chose to do it.
Exactly – and no way is that red stuff blood. She’s up to something.
Fancy chain round her neck in the bigger picture in the daily email. Her top ;looks unruffled too.
Nevertheless, it was a terrible thing to happen to her. Hopefully she’ll change her mind about dismantling the police.
Looks like raspberry juice to me
The full picture shows the top she is wearing has quite a damp patch like it’s been poured on. Her hair looks untouched as does her face except for the splatters.
Are there any reports of what the neighbours did after the attackers left? I couldn’t find any except the neighbours “wanting to help” while the attack was in-progress. I would have thought it newsworthy to report how they came to assist once the attackers had gone.
Yes, I’ve just had a closer look at the picture – eye make-up perfect, no smudges so no obvious attempt to wipe her face, ditto lippy. Her appearance is fake. Was her make-up done specifically for a photo shoot and some blood applied, carefully mind, just before the shutter was pressed?
So if the piccie is fake what about the story? I suspect some minor argy-bargy which she has blown up out of all proportion.
Might have been better to show a picture of her supposedly broken leg.
Some speculation in the Telegraph article about the colour of the assailants, but if they had been white it would have been trumpeted loud and clear, as is normally the case in the media.
That’s what immediately sprung to my mind, HP. If I had been savagely beaten, so much so that blood ran down my face, I don’t think the first thing I would have done would be to take a selfie. I would have been worried for my children. There is no obvious bruising, no – as you say – smudging of make-up, no blood-shot eyes, no swelling or other cuts. It looks like raspberry juice and not blood which doesn’t dry like that. You tend to mop up blood that is running with a tissue or cloth which smears it. This looks like it was squirted on to be honest. Call me a sceptic and of course I may be wrong but something about this doesn’t add up.
Entirely agree Aethelred and:
“You tend to mop up blood that is running with a tissue or cloth which smears it.”
This is increasingly becoming a Democrat story.
(I am sure the euphemism is obvious.)
Seen a lot of bloody and beaten people and she looks faked. Glad I’m not the only one who has spotted it.
Yes, agreed. It does resemble a joke shop, Halloween effect type of effort. However, it’s a lot harder to fake a broken leg. Plus, call me soft as clarts, but I don’t care who you are or what you’ve done, I draw the line at somebody’s attempted murder/serious assault being witnessed by their own children. I’m just relieved everyone concerned is alive, being America and all..
While I agree about the children witnessing the ‘attack’ if the blood is being faked then how much else is being faked. There is no pallor, no ‘pain face’, no fear or anxiety, nothing. Having broken bones and been ‘duffed up’ (I won, but it did not feel like it, I had more boo-boos than my two assailants), and having also seen a lot ot ‘stuff’ in the Army, I can assure you that her body will react like any other persons body. You just cannot help it, adrenaline rush shows and I am not seeing anything.
I have net zero sympathy. In fact these thugs did all right-minded people a favour because unless others like this woman suffer that which they are happy to see visited on others the de-fund the police madness will not cease.
Suck it up lady.
The lovely Julie Birchill nailed it when she called them ‘luxury beliefs’….amazing how easily they crumple in the face of reality!!?
…not the same State I know, but oh the irony!!
https://themessenger.com/news/walmart-is-building-a-police-station-inside-its-new-atlanta-store-to-deter-shoplifting
Walmart announced plans to build a police station inside one of its stores in Georgia, local news outlet Rough Draft Atlanta reported.
The Vine City Walmart Supercenter closed last year after sustaining fire and water damage in a suspected arson case. Walmart executives and Atlanta officials announced on August 29 that it’s slated to reopen next May — with the addition of a police substation meant to deter shoplifters.
LOL!
Or this:
Instead of giving thumbs down why don’t those commentators have the b*lls to express their opinions so that we can see where they are coming from? Can they be BLM supporters?
The only ones with downticks seem to be the posts that are enjoying her misfortune. She may well be a left-wing Dem fk-wit but that doesn’t mean everyone appreciates kicking someone when they are down. And no, it wasn’t me that down ticked.
Not at all. See Mogwai.
Oh I can tell you exactly why, based on personal experience and my experimentation. Apparently there’s a correlation between being a tight-wad and a coward. All you have to do is mention a small, furry children’s pet and it’s even smaller appendage and you’ll trigger the feck out of them. But you still won’t get an actual reply though.
Minneapolis were all for defunded the police. How did that turn out.
Instant karma!
LMFAO
So there IS a God.
Trying hard not to laugh but it’s difficult
“Let’s hope other wokesters can change their views on the police without being assaulted.”
Hopefully but doubtful.