Tuesday, September 26, 2023
Home Secretary to ask UN to help her pull up the drawbridge
The Guardian reports that Suella Braverman will be appealing to world leaders and political thinkers later today, to consider rewriting key refugee rules so they are “fit for the modern age”.
The paper says that the Home Secretary will be seeking to alter an agreement that she believes undermined UK plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda by arguiing that the United Nations 1951 refugee convention must be reformed to tackle a worldwide migration crisis:
Her words have prompted deep concern from refugee charities who claim she is urging the international community to “pull up the drawbridge” on people who have suffered torture and abuse.
Addressing the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, Braverman will say: “It is incumbent upon politicians and thought leaders to ask whether the refugee convention, and the way it has come to be interpreted through our courts, is fit for our modern age. Or whether it is in need of reform.”
The UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, claimed in June that the UK government’s £140m deal with Rwanda was “incompatible with the letter and spirit” of the convention.
The body questioned the legality of transfer arrangements of asylum seekers, saying that article 34 calls on states to facilitate the assimilation and naturalisation of refugees.
Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said Braverman’s plans were seeking to undermine a belief in a shared humanity.
“A world where the UK and other western nations pull up the drawbridge and turn their backs on those who have been tortured, persecuted and faced terror because of their gender, sexuality or any other reason, is a world which turns its back on a belief in shared humanity and shared rights,” he said.
“After the horrors of the second world war, the international community chose to stand up for those principles. Abandoning them is not an option.”
Sonya Sceats, the chief executive at Freedom from Torture, said: “Having already trampled over international law with the Illegal Migration Act, it is shocking to see the home secretary imploring the US and other democracies to tear up treaties designed to protect human rights,” she said.
With any luck this plea to visceral and narrow nationalism will be met with stiff resistance. The convention Braverman is trying to tear up was put in place after the horrors of World War Two, the holocaust and with millions of people displaced by the aftermath of that conflict.
Many of those conditions exist elsewhere in the world today. It is not for us to ignore the suffering of the victims of war, torture, famine and climate change. The sooner these racist, right-wing popularists are out of government, the better.
The paper says that the Home Secretary will be seeking to alter an agreement that she believes undermined UK plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda by arguiing that the United Nations 1951 refugee convention must be reformed to tackle a worldwide migration crisis:
Her words have prompted deep concern from refugee charities who claim she is urging the international community to “pull up the drawbridge” on people who have suffered torture and abuse.
Addressing the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, Braverman will say: “It is incumbent upon politicians and thought leaders to ask whether the refugee convention, and the way it has come to be interpreted through our courts, is fit for our modern age. Or whether it is in need of reform.”
The UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, claimed in June that the UK government’s £140m deal with Rwanda was “incompatible with the letter and spirit” of the convention.
The body questioned the legality of transfer arrangements of asylum seekers, saying that article 34 calls on states to facilitate the assimilation and naturalisation of refugees.
Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said Braverman’s plans were seeking to undermine a belief in a shared humanity.
“A world where the UK and other western nations pull up the drawbridge and turn their backs on those who have been tortured, persecuted and faced terror because of their gender, sexuality or any other reason, is a world which turns its back on a belief in shared humanity and shared rights,” he said.
“After the horrors of the second world war, the international community chose to stand up for those principles. Abandoning them is not an option.”
Sonya Sceats, the chief executive at Freedom from Torture, said: “Having already trampled over international law with the Illegal Migration Act, it is shocking to see the home secretary imploring the US and other democracies to tear up treaties designed to protect human rights,” she said.
With any luck this plea to visceral and narrow nationalism will be met with stiff resistance. The convention Braverman is trying to tear up was put in place after the horrors of World War Two, the holocaust and with millions of people displaced by the aftermath of that conflict.
Many of those conditions exist elsewhere in the world today. It is not for us to ignore the suffering of the victims of war, torture, famine and climate change. The sooner these racist, right-wing popularists are out of government, the better.
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Yes.The circumstance that brought into being the laws after WW2 ARE still in existance .It is a travasty she has the gaulle to behave the way she is.I note the audience she is speaking to is about a dozen or so.Implication she is 'whistling in the wind' to a large proportion of people .HOWEVER I find it both disgusting and an insult to the pains of the past that brought human rights into being after the war when the MEDIA gives her the publicity she craves.The media behaves like a lap dog sucking it up.
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