The testimonies are not just of human tragedy but of total disregard for human life. Moussa, a migrant from Guinea, explains: “There was a pregnant woman and they beat her until blood started coming from between her legs. She passed out.”
A Guardian investigation published on Thursday reveals harrowing stories of abuse of refugees by the Tunisian national guard, including beatings, rape and abandoning people in the desert, as well as collusion with people smugglers. The Tunisian authorities rejected the allegations.
Widespread and systematic human rights abuses happen in Libya too and have been going on for many years, well documented by the UN. In September last year the British government’s representatives said they were deeply concerned and, in a statement quietly released at the UN security council, called for these abuses to end.
Given Keir Starmer’s background as a human rights lawyer, his commitment at the European Political Community (EPC) summit to show a “profound respect for international law” and his principled and resolute opposition to the Rwanda scheme, it appears surprising that the prime minister chose this week to give so much attention to the controversial deals made by the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, with the regimes in Libya and Tunisia to reduce the number of people crossing the Mediterranean to seek safety in her country.
For Starmer, it is what he said in his opening comments at the EPC meeting before he emphasised upholding international law that appears to be particularly important: the “pursuit of solutions that will actually deliver results”. In comments made after meeting Meloni, he told the Times: “It’s about the politics of pragmatism.”
The global charity led by the former Labour foreign secretary David Miliband, International Rescue Committee, rightly did not hesitate to urge the prime minister not to prioritise such “costly and ultimately ineffective deterrence policies”.
Home Office ministers will say that in seeking solutions it is not necessary to be ideological bedfellows with other countries, and there is nothing wrong with wanting to learn from them: the government simply wants to look at what can be done to prevent people leaving their country in the first place.
Part of what should be a multi-pronged approach to ending the loss of life in the Channel – 45 people have perished this year compared with 12 last year – is certainly focusing on providing support to refugees to stay closer to home and addressing the reasons why they are fleeing.
This does not have to be achieved by arrangements involving vast sums of money and repressive regimes, such as Tunisia and Libya. Officials in the Foreign Office have proposed a more “holistic approach” to tackle the drivers of migration across Africa and the western Mediterranean. This involves something more akin to the deep commitment made in 1997 by the well-respected late Labour foreign secretary, Robin Cook, to an “ethical foreign policy” that uses aid and diplomacy without supporting authoritarian governments.
Much more also needs to be done to target aid to help refugees displaced by brutal wars in countries such as Sudan stay safely in the region, in the way Ukrainians were supported to stay in Poland when millions fled there soon after the Russian invasion.
This is not an either/or option: focusing only on preventing people from having to take dangerous journeys or trying to deal fairly with those who arrive in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. It should always be both.
For that is what Britain pledged to respect in the aftermath of the second world war, when it joined other nations – horrified by a lack of effective international protection for those seeking sanctuary – to find ways to uphold an international order that respected everyone’s humanity, including those crossing borders to flee from war and persecution. The 1951 UN refugee convention was the outcome, and Labour pledged to respect this incredibly important part of our international order.
Those coming across the Channel seeking asylum are from countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea, Syria and Sudan, which means it is very likely their applications will be accepted.
They pay people smugglers and take dangerous journeys because they have no other option. They cannot buy a plane ticket to fly to the UK because they are not allowed to enter with a visa and then apply for asylum. They cannot fly to join family or relatives already in the UK, who are desperate to be reunited with them. They can only dice with death across land and sea.
That is why there must also be more safe routes, as well as enforcement action to stop the gangs and greater upstream activity.
The anxiety inside government is that expanding these routes will upset the parts of the electorate who are particularly anxious about the number of people coming to the UK seeking asylum.
But the response to these anxieties, particularly after the far-right violence in the summer that targeted asylum accommodation, should be to dial up the importance of what Barack Obama, in seeking to set out an alternative patriotism to that of Donald Trump, called his nation’s “bonds of affection”.
The historian Simon Schama described this view of America as being “a community of inclusion rather than a fortress of exclusion”. The UK is also a place where mutual respect, care and decency prevail – epitomised in the public taking to the streets to clear up after the riots. That’s why for many decades in our neighbourhoods, schools and workplaces, refugees have been welcomed and integrated and became part of British life.
Governing should, first and foremost, be about upholding the values that matter most. For Labour, those have always been a commitment to international law, respecting human rights and inclusion for all, including refugees and people seeking asylum. Now is not the time to compromise on those principles.
