- Most of the people who have been stranded on the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia for more than three years have finally been relocated to the UK.
- The government has signed a joint statement with Iraq, as part of its efforts to tackle the people-smuggling gangs that are responsible for small boat crossings in the Channel.
- More than 20,000 people have arrived in the UK by crossing the Channel in small boats since the government took office in July 2024
- France has warned of a “showdown” with Britain over the issue of small boat crossings in the Channel if a “legal” route for people to reach the UK is not established.
- Government documents and testimonies disclosed in the High Court have revealed further evidence of the “brutal and inhumane” conditions experienced by the asylum applicants who went through the Manston processing centre in 2022.
- The final asylum applicants who were being housed on the controversial Bibby Stockholm barge have left the vessel.
Approximately 60 people who have been stranded on the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia for more than three years have finally been relocated to the UK. The group arrived on flights from Diego Garcia and Rwanda on 2 and 3 December 2024. According to letters from the Home Office (Ministry of the Interior) dated 29 November, the individuals have been granted temporary entry for six months “outside of the Immigration Rules” and will not be allowed to work. The law firm Duncan Lewis Solicitors, which represented some of them, X posted that it was “relieved and grateful that our clients have arrived in the UK, after enduring three years of inhuman conditions”. Simon Robinson from the firm added that the occasion marked “a big day for justice, and an opportunity for a fresh start for our clients”. Tessa Gregory from Leigh Day Solicitors, which also represented some members of the group, said that bringing them to the UK was the “only sensible solution to end the humanitarian crisis” that had existed on Diego Garcia. Her colleague, Tom Short, added that “While our immediate concern is the safe transition of our clients into the UK, it is only right that in due course this further shameful episode in British governance of the Chagos islands be fully scrutinised through a public inquiry”.
The government has signed a joint statement with Iraq as part of its efforts to tackle the people-smuggling gangs that are responsible for small boat crossings in the Channel. The statement was signed during a three-day visit to Iraq and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) by UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. “These landmark commitments between the UK government and Iraq and the KRI send a clear signal to the criminal smuggling gangs that we are determined to work across the globe to go after them,” she said on 28 November. On the same day, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the agreement with Iraq as a “world-first that will help us smash the people smuggling gangs and secure our borders”. ECRE member organisation the Refugee Council issued a statement in response to the Prime Minister’s announcement. “Disrupting the gangs and ensuring the UK works with other countries (…) is important, but the Government should not see it is a magic bullet that will stop refugees taking dangerous journeys to reach to safety in the UK or fix all the challenges in the asylum system,” said CEO Enver Solomon, whilst also calling on the government to uphold its commitment to international law and respect for human rights when working with other governments
The government’s latest efforts to address small boat crossings in the Channel came as the number of people who arrived in the UK via this route since the new government took office in July 2024 passed the 20,000 mark. In this context, the Home Office attributed the record 6,288 crossings that took place in October and November to the high number of unusually calm so-called “red days” in the Channel in that period. Meanwhile, a report released by the Home Office on 28 November revealed that 20% fewer people had made the crossing in the first nine months of 2024 compared to the same period in the previous year.
Elsewhere, the French government has warned of a “showdown” with the UK over the issue of small boat crossings in the Channel if a “legal” route for people to reach the UK is not established. “The border between France and the United Kingdom is Europe’s common external border”, said French Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau, adding that it was “no longer possible” for France to bear the “entire burden” of defending it. He also threatened to “denounce” the 2004 Le Touquet Treaty which allows for reciprocal border controls by French and UK officials in each other’s countries. Retailleau’s warning follows a call by a group of French mayors to cancel the agreement. “The British government must stop being in denial,” said Calais mayor Natacha Bouchart. “In reality, they accept migrants passing through Calais, so they have to change the system. The UK should be stopping people, not us,” she added.
Government documents and testimonies disclosed in the High Court in November have revealed further evidence of the “brutal and inhumane” conditions experienced by the asylum applicants who went through the Manston processing centre in 2022. The new information, which has been disclosed by the government in response to a legal challenge to the decision to downgrade a planned statutory inquiry into the operation of the centre in 2022, includes reports from people who experienced inter alia racial and gender-based abuse, assaults and a lack of beds there. It also reveals that Home Office officials admitted that they had “completely lost [their] grip” on the situation in the centre. Lewis Kett from Duncan Lewis Sollicitors, which is representing some of the people involved in the challenge, lamented the “unprecedented” and “deplorable” conditions in which his clients were held, and insisted that “an independent inquiry will need the powers and resources to properly understand how this happened to learn lessons and prevent an incident like this occurring again”. Reacting to the news, the NGO Detention Action X posted that the government “must learn from these past failures, or risk repeating them”.
The final asylum applicants who were being housed on the controversial Bibby Stockholm barge have left the vessel. The men’s departure from the barge on 26 November marks an end to its use as asylum accommodation which began in August 2023. In July 2024, the Home Office announced that the contract for renting the Bibby Stockholm would not be renewed when it expires in January 2025. Commenting on the end of the Bibby Stockholm saga, ECRE member organisation Safe Passage X posted that the men’s departure had brought to an end “one of the most inhumane and dehumanising chapters in UK asylum policy”. Meanwhile, the NGO Migrant Voice X posted that it was “a good start” and the NGO Asylum Matters X posted that it was “time all these sites close for good”.
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