MPs urged to uphold UK’s global obligations in migration bill debate

A European human rights commissioner has warned UK parliamentarians, before a debate on the government’s illegal migration bill, to uphold international obligations when scrutinising the proposed legislation.

In a statement, the UNHCR said: “The legislation, if passed, would amount to an asylum ban – extinguishing the right to seek refugee protection in the United Kingdom for those who arrive irregularly, no matter how genuine and compelling their claim may be, and with no consideration of their individual circumstances.”

In her letter, Mijatović raised concerns about the lack of guarantees that objections to removal would be assessed fully in accordance with the standards set out in the European convention on human rights (ECHR), the exclusion of most potential victims of trafficking from modern slavery protections, the widespread powers of detention, and strict limits on judicial challenges to detention, and warned the bill would reverse progress made in reducing the harmful practice of detaining children.

Legal experts have cast doubt on the UK’s claims of “possible reforms” to European court of human rights procedures that stopped an asylum seeker from being deported to Rwanda last year.

During a two-day visit to the country’s capital, Kigali, Suella Braverman told a selected group of government-friendly papers that she was “encouraged” by the government’s “constructive” talks with Strasbourg to overhaul court injunctions.

But legal experts have questioned whether the Strasbourg court would weaken a mechanism intended to protect people facing an “imminent risk of irreparable harm”, with one saying an apparent plan to ignore ECHR injunctions would be a “significant and dark turning point in [the UK’s] history”.