Reform UK — foreigners are okay!
What a surprising turn of events!
Reform UK, the party known as the sappy child of the Brexit Party, the child of Farage and Catherine Blaiklock, became its opposite. The same party, which had been advocating for Euroscepticism and no Brexit deal, including no settled status, Reform UK, is not following the legacy of its father. The same Nigel Farage, who would be disappointed with reforming the country this way, with no 50k immigration cut, and the same father, who advocated far away from dreams about a fair immigration system that ignores race and ethnicity and focuses on skills, would cry for Reform UK.
What’s new?
Where do I start? Richard Tice agreed that 400,000 people leave the country every year; therefore, there is plenty of scope for bringing in skills in the form of legal immigrants. What a twist, especially when we all remembered this pressure, need, and longing desire to eliminate any immigrant from the face of the earth.
This policy will mean wages for lower paid will rise, it will help young British workers and so help to significantly reduce the number of people on out of work benefits.
Very confident claims to assume immigrants always get higher-paid work and young Britons were left on the ice with lower-paid jobs, and by increasing wages for this kind of employment, we are supposed to expect fewer people on benefits in the future.
The truth is that the number of low-paid workers dropped by 200,000 in 2018, and no one else but Philip Hammond declared to eliminate low pay in 2019. But Reform UK proved already that they are green by recycling someone else’s idea, forgetting that almost 2.2 million women earn less than the real living wage. We are not talking here about both genders (sorry guys), and to be clear, 59% of people on low-paid wages are women.
It would be nice to be mentioned in the Reform UK plan to make Great Britain great again with equal salaries, particularly since only 10.4% of jobs held by men are low-paid!
So, Mr. Tice, it’s not Britons who suffer from poverty, but according to data collected by the RSE Economy and Enterprise Committee (the Royal Society of Edinburgh), indeed women, with the rising cost of energy, food, and rent. Particular groups of women suffer the biggest blow from Brexit and inflation, such as black women, single mothers, and asylum seekers, which are the most underappreciated by the Reform UK groups.
But wait? Asylum seekers are the illegal element of this puzzle, aren’t they? What’s more, the party proposed that all illegal immigrants are a national threat, and what does the country do if the national danger is at the borders?
We must also create a new Department of Immigration staffed with people who believe in the task at hand: protecting our borders. The home office is simply not fit for purpose. The vast majority of the claimants (of asylum) are economic migrants or from Albania (what with this country conservatives deal is anyway?) under the oversight of their criminal gangs.
However, most people who are concerned are afraid to speak out on this issue for fear of being labelled (racists) or smeared (cancel culture).
Mr. Tice is very proud of the system he would like to implement on the island, the same system the Australian government has implemented accordingly (or seems that way).
We are aware that Australians’ struggles with immigration are different from those the UK is facing nowadays, and I hope that Mr. Tice can see the line. Comparisons can be drawn between these two countries in the spirit of believing that somewhere in the middle, the Reform UK would like to find solutions for the Great Britain problems.
Offshore processing in the case of Australia was based on resending asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea and the Pacific island of Nauru, where they were later offered return to their home countries, and recognized refugees were offered resettlement in another one.
Reform UK is searching for a different approach to their dilemma. They would like to resend asylum seekers to their countries of origin (the places they were running away from) or to another third country where they would be processed. Only people under the age of 18, those who are medically unfit to fly, or those at risk of serious harm in the country they are being removed to, would be able to delay removal. Get this straight: even if you rightfully run away from your country, you will still face deportation.
(Very inventive)
Australia’s policy was, and still is, should any boats arrive, to detain people arriving in small boats indefinitely — even once sent offshore. Most were freed only when their claim for asylum was resolved, and they were either deported or added to waitlists for resettlement in other countries.
Under the UK law, which we can only assume the Reform UK is supporting wholeheartedly, asylum seekers are held captive indefinitely, unless the home secretary changes their heart.
The Australian government’s policy — although not enshrined in law — is that anyone sent to an offshore processing center will never be resettled in Australia, even if they are recognized as a refugee.
The biggest dream of the party is the same as Australians introduced, meaning no citizenship for asylum seekers, as they are perceived as illegal immigrants. But there is a little trap in the legislation: according to the law, a person removed from the UK by law cannot go back and, in the future, would never apply for citizenship. This regulation already included legal immigrants who lost their right to remain in the country.
The most important aspect of Australian policy in 2013 was, however, the reintroduction of so-called turnbacks at sea, which had been used previously between 2001 and 2003. Defined by the Abbott government as the safe removal of vessels from Australian waters, with passengers and crew returning to their countries of departure, boats were prevented from reaching shore.
The UK had tried this before, following Australians, but the Royal Navy refused to uphold the orders, deeming them improper (sounds like they perceived it as inhuman tactics even the military didn’t want to use, but I am only saying).
The moment of truth…
The UK will never implement the Australian method because Australia’s government had many international support from its allies to complete the plan.
In Great Britain’s case, France and others refused to help because the British government has burned all bridges with the EU and other European countries by insulting everyone and using any slurs they could find to prove its own superiority.
Therefore, all-blame reform The UK should look at Brexit and the EU’s Common European Asylum System (CEAS), which no longer applies to the UK. Mr. Tice has forgotten in his heart that before Brexit, the UK was a part of the Dublin system. It was an arrangement in which a member state was responsible for the examination of an asylum application. The criteria included family consideration, recent possession of a visa or residence permit in a member state, and an examination of whether the asylum seeker has entered the EU regularly or irregularly.
The core principle of this system is the responsibility for processing asylum applications and determining which country will be involved in this process the most. The process itself helps with the overflow of people searching for support and a safe haven. The EU shares competences, and furthermore, when the UK was a member state, it retained control over elements of its asylum policy.
However, as the UK is no longer party to Dublin III or EURODAC, there is great uncertainty about the UK’s handling of asylum seekers arriving in the country.
Reform UK promised us a new home office that would manage unwanted and uninvited guests, but if they won, otherwise, this is all troubling. The party can only owe this defeat to their residents and the government.
Reference:
BBC News (2019). Young adults benefit from better pay. BBC News. [online] 29 May. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48446811 [Accessed 24 May 2024].
