Last week, a young man named Abdulfatah Hamdallah lost his life trying to reach safety in the UK.
His death was not the first, and without action, it will not be the last.
Home Secretary Priti Patel tweeted that this was an “upsetting and tragic loss”. Her response shows she still doesn’t understand that she alone could have prevented this tragedy.
If Priti Patel really wanted these dangerous crossings to end, to tackle people trafficking and stop people from dying – all she needs to do is check her inbox where she would find a letter sent by 100 civil society organisations which outline the very solutions which she refuses to acknowledge, let alone commit to.
Without these changes, further loss of life is tragically inevitable.
Year after year, successive governments have abdicated responsibility, trying to push the blame back on to European countries – particularly France, spending millions on wire fencing and denying people their rights by demolishing campsites, and attempting to make the route “unviable”.
The government has been told time and time again by grassroots organisations, the French authorities, and migrants themselves, that this strategy will only result in more deaths and will push people further into the hands of people smugglers.
“This isn’t rocket science. Channel crossings are not a crisis of movement, they are a crisis of co-operation.”
Since she entered office, Priti Patel has allowed the conversation to be dictated by far-right hysteria and knowingly engaged in the same failed strategy that every Home Secretary before her has tried. This isn’t rocket science. Channel crossings are not a crisis of movement, they are a crisis of co-operation.
What we are witnessing is political peacocking between the British government and French authorities – a strategy founded not on a willingness to end crossings once and for all, but on maintaining the upper hand over our European counterparts.
The Home Secretary herself was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in 2019 when it warned that “a policy that focuses exclusively on closing borders will drive migrants to take more dangerous routes, and push them into the hands of criminal groups.” There couldn’t be a starker warning that more deaths would arise if urgent action wasn’t taken.
It is ironic then that in 2019, Priti Patel stated that Channel crossings would become an “infrequent phenomenon by 2020” while simultaneously engaging in the same startingly unoriginal, tired myths and inaccuracies which demonise migrants – resulting in more dangerous crossings, and driving people directly into the hands of people smugglers.
If the government really wanted to tackle the root causes of channel crossings, they would recognise that it is illogical and impractical to have in place a system which says that people can apply for asylum in the UK, but only if they are already on British soil. The government must ask themselves why the stakes are high enough to risk your life in the back of a lorry, on the undercarriage of a train, or in a 3ft dingy for the sake of a 15-mile journey. The crux of the problem is not the small number of people trying to reach the UK, it is that they are not being allowed a way to do so safely.
Over and over again, civil society organisations have to tell ministers how the law works and explain their own system back to them. It’s shocking that the government doesn’t understand that it is always legal to claim asylum, in any country of your choosing and that there is no requirement under any law to do so in the first country that you enter.
Conversations too around the “safety” of France or other European countries miss the point. For all of us, safety is far more than being on safe ground. Safety is about community, family, work, about not being isolated, and about being allowed to get on with your life in a manner of your own choosing. Safety is not a country; it is an innate sense of belonging and wellbeing. It makes sense that people with family and friends in the UK, who speak English, and come from countries which have historical, colonial ties with the UK would want to seek sanctuary here.
It is high time that the government implements what they already know - that the only way to bring an end to dangerous crossings once and for all is to introduce safe and legal routes of entry to the UK, engage with the French authorities in a constructive way and take a pragmatic approach which reflects the experiences of people seeking refuge in the UK. And it’s also time that we recognised the humanity of those seeking sanctuary in the UK,; that we start seeing them as people making difficult decisions which end up being the difference between life and death – and that no one should be forced to have to make those decisions in the first place.
Minnie Rahman is public affairs and campaigns manager for the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants.