Politics
Asylum Bill - Anne Frank would be turned away
Published 03 May 1999
Nick Cohen on new Labour's intolerance of asylum-seekers
The government's determination to stop refugees from the Balkan war reaching Britain is taking its toll. The Immigration and Asylum Bill is charging through parliament faster than a Serb death squad. The special standing committee, established so new Labour could hear and then ignore the horrified protests of everyone from Amnesty International to Save the Children, has been ordered to stay up all night. Its Labour members might be expected to realise that millions descended from Huguenots, Jews, Ugandan Asians, Russians, Poles, Hungarians and those bogus economic migrants who fled the Irish potato famine would never have been born if Tony Blair had been in power when their constituents' ancestors needed help. But the poor dears are torn between loyalty to their leader and respect for an ancient right of asylum they defended with vigour in opposition.
Even the Tories could see the strain on their opponents' faces. David Maclean, the Tory MP for Penrith and the Borders, asked the committee chairman to provide counselling: "Is it your ruling that those Labour members who are fast asleep count towards the government's majority?"
"They're in their seats, so they count," came the kind reply.
As I explained here last week, the government's real aim is to make it legally impossible for an asylum-seeker to reach Britain and ask for a safe haven under the terms of the 1951 UN Geneva Convention. Select and tiny bands may be picked up and brought in - as a few hundred were last week - allowing new Labour to look cute on the Nine o'Clock News. But if a modern Anne Frank could escape, she would find herself caught in a carefully constructed trap.
The Thatcher government imposed what is known as carrier's liability on airlines. If flight attendants failed to turn away asylum-seekers travelling without a visa, the company would be fined. Since it is impossible for refugees to get visas, the 10,000 Kosovars who have reached Britain to date travelled overland. Mike O'Brien, the asylum minister, now wants to plug the last escape route by making lorry and car drivers liable for any refugee they carry without correct papers - that is, all refugees.
How, asked the Liberal Democrats and Tories, were the victims of oppression meant to find a haven when the Serbs had destroyed their identity documents and passports?
"Our obligations under the Geneva Convention do not require us to facilitate the arrival of asylum-seekers," said O'Brien (they do, actually), "most of whom have travelled through other European states that are as safe as this country before reaching the United Kingdom."
This passage merits dissection. Note that the humbug new Labour feeds its friends in the far-right press has mercifully disappeared: the new system will reject all asylum-seekers, the genuine as much as the bogus. O'Brien's remark about European states is important because, under EU agreements, asylum-seekers are meant to claim sanctuary in the first safe country they reach. He is implying that Kosovars should stay in central Europe.
The danger, already being realised, that Europe will respond by erecting its own barriers did not bother him. Finally, it is worth considering the convergence of the interests of Slobodan Milosevic and Blair. The Serbs destroy documents so Kosovars cannot reclaim their homes, and thus prevent them claiming sanctuary in Britain.
When the Tories introduced limited carriers' liability in 1987 Gerald Kaufman said the Conservative Party had "abandoned any standards of decency". Labour's home affairs spokesman (one T Blair) renewed the attack in 1992. It was "objectionable that no distinction is drawn between bogus and genuine claims," he said. As a former Labour supporter (come now, you can no more expect the descendants of refugees to vote for this lot than unborn children to vote for abortionists), I'm ashamed to report that when the Conservative right criticised the government for proposing a total ban on refugee movement by plane, train, boat, lorry or car, O'Brien ignored evidence that ships' captains had thrown asylum-seekers overboard to avoid fines and taunted the Tories for being soft on immigration.
The opposition was able to throw back many other brave words. In 1996, Labour warned that a Conservative order that employers check they were not hiring asylum-seekers raised the "old racist cry: 'they are coming for our jobs' ". It would lead to discrimination against British blacks and Asians, the party added. The fears have been justified. The National Association of Citizens' Advice Bureaux found, among many examples, a Chinese chef, who had lived in Britain for 28 years, being asked to produce his passport; and an educated and articulate British black who was told by an employment agency it would not put him on its books without Home Office approval. Labour in office has decided to stick with the Tory measure.
I asserted earlier that O'Brien responded to all questions of practice and principle by accusing his critics of being pussy softies. I wasn't being quite fair. The Liberal Democrat MP Richard Allan told me O'Brien had called him over during a break in the standing committee's proceedings. O'Brien was embarrassed by the Tory attacks. Couldn't Allan kick him a little harder? The Mail wouldn't run stories praising Labour's courage if the government was being rubbished by the Tories. But if the Lib Dems were to speak out, O'Brien might get the publicity he craved. "He didn't seem to be joking," said Allan.
The writer is an "Observer" columnist. Next week in the "NS", he will report on the birth of the Asylo, Europe's most devalued currency
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