No safe and legal routes announced for people fleeing conflict and persecution

The Bill will create significant obstacles, penalties and harms to people seeking asylum in the UK

‘The Government is callously using vulnerable people for its own political ends - this is about politics, not the people themselves’ - Steve Valdez-Symonds

In response to the UK government’s new asylum bill, Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s Refugee and Migrant Rights Director, said: 

“Attempting to disqualify people’s asylum claims en masse regardless of the strength of their case is a shocking new low for the Government.

“There is nothing fair, humane or even practical in this plan, and it’s frankly chilling to see ministers trying to remove human rights protections for group of people whom they’ve chosen to scapegoat for their own failures.

“People fleeing persecution and conflict will be irreparably harmed by these proposals, while the UK is setting an utterly terrible example to other countries around the world.

“Just like the cruel Rwanda scheme, this is a cynical attempt to dodge basic moral and legal responsibilities which this country continues to expect others to take.

“The Government is callously using vulnerable people for its own political ends - this is about politics, not the people themselves.

“Ministers need to focus on the real issue - which is the urgent need to fairly and efficiently decide asylum claims while urgently introducing accessible schemes, so people seeking asylum do not have to rely on people smugglers and dangerous journeys.”