Migration: London wants "most radical changes"
The UK plans to drastically tighten its asylum law. British Home Secretary Priti Patel spoke of the "most radical changes in decades". The plans include life imprisonment for smugglers, the interception of boats on the open sea and reception centres in third countries. Anyone entering the country illegally will have fewer rights from the outset. Not only aid organisations are appalled.
Flying in the face of all laws and common sense
For The Times the government's plans are utterly ill-conceived:
“Rendering a category of asylum seekers as having a lower status of admissibility breaches the letter and spirit of the various refugee conventions to which Britain is a signatory. Contrary to what many have come to believe, the right to claim asylum is not watered down by having travelled, or even stayed for a while, in safe third-party countries. Nor is the status reduced by having entered a country illegally because, almost by definition, that's what many if not most refugees are forced to do.”