Changing the Culture of Disbelief at the UK Border Agency

One of the most thought-provoking fringe events I attended at Lib Dem conference was on asylum policy. Hosted by my new favourite MP Julian Huppert, it featured passionate experts from the UNHCR and Refugee Council, along with Tom Brake, a prominent backbench Lib Dem MP on justice and equality issues.

A real problem arose from the discussion about the culture of mistrust at the UK Border Agency regarding asylum applications. At the moment, the UKBA staff assessing asylum claims have a habit of using any minor doubts over the validity of a claim to reject it and let the courts decide if the claimant wishes to appeal the decision.

This leads to a huge number of initial claims being made in error. A third of rejected cases are overturned on appeal. This is inefficient, expensive and creates huge anxiety for the asylum seeker, whose fate is left in legal limbo often for years.

The question floated at fringe was how do we change this culture? Here's my suggestion: Pay UKBA staff a bonus which they get to keep whilst they make correct initial decisions. But for every incorrect decision they make (when the courts overturn an initial decision), deductions are made from the bonus.

This would mean it is now in the financial interest of UKBA assessors to not waste court time and money by getting the decision right first time. It should also ensure that staff take a more sympathetic approach to dealing with asylum cases.

I managed to catch up with Tom Brake and his well-informed researcher later. I was informed UKBA staff are currently incentivised to get cases closed within six months, whatever the outcome. The coalition has come out against these kinds of arbitrary targets set by the Labour government, which do little to ensure the best quality services are provided for each individual's circumstances.

Changing these incentives to get more decisions right first time would be fairer to asylum seekers and save the taxpayer money. Win!

Please Help Precious and Florence

Allow me to take your mind to three different places:

Think back to when you were 3 years of age. I suspect your memories are hazy at best - mine certainly are. Our lives only properly begin from the age of 4. From this age we begin to form our own autonomy, our own social networks, our own self identity.

Now jump forward to being 10 years old. It is incredible how much we develop in those 7 years. We now have a good understanding of our surroundings, our friends, our place in the world.

Lastly, I'm asking you to take yourself to somewhere much more difficult. Imagine, as a normal, 10 year old child, that this understanding of the world around you is suddenly removed. Your family, friends, teachers gone. Your home, your street, your community gone. Suddenly, you find yourself living in another world, in an alien environment, under the custody of strangers, unable to speak the same language as anyone else.

For me, this is too horrible to be imagined. But the government is acting to inflict this exact situation on a 10 year old girl.


Precious Mhango fled from Malawi 7 years ago came to the UK from Malawi with her parents after her father was granted asylum. Sadly, the father was abusive towards his wife, Florence, so she fled with her daughter to Glasgow, and settled there. Precious speaks English (with a Glaswegian accent), attends primary school and is an ordinary young girl.

However, since Florence andPrecious came to the UK as the family of a refugee, their legal status was tied to an abusive man. If they are deported, the family of the husband are highly likely to take custody of Precious. It is just plain wrong that a mother and her young girl's life can be shattered by the government because of the actions of her abusive husband/father.

Our asylum laws weren't designed to cope with situations like this, but instead of showing some compassionate common sense, the government is insisting on following the letter of the law - even when it clearly produces unjust outcomes. The Home Secretary has discretionary powers to grant leave to remain to Florence and Precious, and I urge you to take action and insist that this injustice is not allowed to happen.

What you can do:

Join the Facebook group.

If you live near Glasgow, attend the vigil being held at 5:30 this afternoon at the top of the Buchanan Street, near the Donald Dewar statue, at the bottom of the stairs outside the Buchanan Galleries.

Or simply blog about it, tweet about it, mention it to people you know, and tell them to mention it.

But please, just don't do nothing.

See also: Caron's Musings

Urging Action on RMJ Administration

Here's the first letter I've sent to my new MP, Nicola Blackwood, regarding the legal aid charity Refugee and Migrant Justice going into administration. Please read my letter about this case and consider sending a similar letter to your MP using the fab Write To Them website. It is unacceptable to allow destitute people who are being subjected to legal action to go without legal assistance.

Dear Nicola Blackwood,

I am deeply concerned to hear news about the charity Refugee and
Migrant Justice entering administration due to bureaucratic rules that
resulted in non-payment of Legal Aid by the Legal Services Commission.

Refugee and Migrant Justice provides invaluable legal services to
asylum seekers and other vulnerable migrants with the greatest needs.
This crucial service is now severely under threat.

If RMJ has to close, I understand this will lead to more than 10,000
people, including 900 children and victims of trafficking, torture and
armed conflict, being left without legal representation. This could
cause chaos in the asylum system. Lives will be put at risk and there
are likely to be many more miscarriages of justice, which are already
far too common.

With that in mind I am asking you to press the Department of Justice to
do all it can to rectify this situation and ensure that some of the
most destitute people in our country have access to legal assistance.

I hope you will take this matter seriously and I look forward to
hearing of your immediate actions.

Yours sincerely,
Duncan Stott

I'd like to apologise to Nicola for not mentioning that I intended on publishing the letter on my blog. With hindsight, it would have been polite to do this. I hope she will be happy for me to publish her response.

UPDATE: A demonstration is being organised against the likely closure of RMJ outside the Ministry of Justice at 4pm on Friday if you can make it.

UPDATE 2: Show your support by joining this Facebook group.

34th Softest Touch

The United Kingdom is in 34th place in the league of refugees taken in by a country as a ratio of its population.

The latest UN statistics show that we have 438 refugees per 100,000 inhabitants. This puts us behind Jordan, Syria, Montenegro, Congo, Chad, Malta, Iran, Djibouti, Lebanon, Pakistan, Kenya, Sweden, Serbia, Ecuador, Mauritania, Norway, Yemen, Germany, Venezuela, Luxembourg, Central African Republic, Switzerland, Gabon, Gambia, Rwanda, Cameroon, Canada, Guinea-Bissau, Panama, Austria, Netherlands, Sudan and Zambia.

The names in bold in the above list are other developed countries with a UN Human Development Index score greater than 0.9. Many of the other countries in this list are much nearer to the major sources of human displacement, and are therefore always going to take more refugees than other countries. But there is no reason why the UK shouldn't be beating many of the names in bold. The new coalition government should be aiming to get the UK towards the top of this list. It should be a source of immense national pride to live in a country that shows genuine compassion towards its fellow man; way more than some hollow gold trophy earned by a few kickball players.

Alan Johnson: Pathetic Hypocrite

Alan Johnson, 4th May 2010:

"They would have an amnesty for illegal immigrants, they would allow asylum seekers to work, which is utter, utter madness."

[source]

Alan Johnson, 24th May 2007:

Mr Johnson was asked by the Mirror if he supported an amnesty and replied: "Yes. We need secure borders but also to be pragmatic about people already living here."

[source]

Merry Christmas from the UK Border Agency

Who Did Alan Johnson Betray?

I have dug up information to form a profile of the asylum seeker that was stabbed in the back by Alan Johnson. I am posting the details carefully as specific information could put his safety into jeopardy. All this information is from reports found online on local news websites. If you decide to find these stories, I ask that you don't reproduce his name or his country of origin.

The man originates from a country in central west Africa. The country has an appalling human rights record; Amnesty International has catalogued its human rights abuses, and states that the cases it has exposed mainly involve killing and torture for the repression of political dissent. The man worked there as a press officer for the opposition party. After other members of his party had been subjected to torture, he fled to the UK, and settled in Hull, where he has now lived for seven years.

Since arriving here he has married, and together they have had a baby girl, who is approaching her 1st birthday. They regularly attended a local church. He was a volunteer for the Citizens Advice Bureau, and a member of the Labour party.

In February his asylum application was refused. The UK Border Agency have three times failed to deport him, thanks to the efforts of his vicar and fellow church-goers who held revolts at Heathrow Airport. On one occasion he was even on the plane, but it took an intervention from an Air France pilot to secure his stay in the UK.

He was moved between five detention centres in as many months, separated from his wife and baby. During two of his attempted deportations, he claims he was kicked and beaten by guards. He has stated that his experience of the UK authorities has been even worse than his time in his homeland, because he expected to be protected in the UK, and be a free man.

So there it is. A profile of the man Alan Johnson betrayed. I don't know how the Home Secretary sleeps at night.

What Matters More? (Updated)

Here are a selection of today's stories from the Politics section of the BBC News website, and a quick reaction to them.

Elizabeth Truss has won the battle to remain as the Conservative PPC in South West Norfolk. But it doesn't matter.

Nick Clegg and now David Cameron have come out against the Queen's Speech, saying it will be an irrelevant Government puff-piece, with Clegg going as far as calling for the whole thing to be scrapped. I blurted about this yesterday. But it doesn't matter.

Vince Cable has suggested that until they are broken up, the banks should be taxed an extra 10% on their profits, given the amount of money they have been given in bail-outs. But it doesn't matter.

A Labour council candidate has apologised for calling the Queen a "parasite" and "vermin". But guess what? It doesn't matter.

Not when you hear this.

According to Private Eye, reproduced by Byrne Tofferings and Football Forum, Alan Johnson has deported an asylum seeker, knowing that doing so would put this person's life in danger. How did he know? Because before his ascension to the Home Office, he was campaigning to stop this man from being deported.

Obviously the hypocrisy is mind-blowing. But frankly, that is the least of Johnson's sins. He has deliberately put this man's life in jeopardy. If he comes to any harm, his blood is on Johnson's hands. And for what? The only reason I can think of is to lower the government's statistics on granting asylum by one. Why else?

This matters so much more than the current political news I listed above. The decision was directly a matter of potential life or death. And it was done in our name. Alan Johnson must explain his actions.

I have been trying to get a prominent Labourite Twitterers to respond to this, but it has been like trying to squeeze semen from a brick. So I encourage you to try asking KerryMP, BevaniteElie, ChrispLOL and BristolRed how they feel about a Labour Home Secretary making this decision.

UPDATE I: KerryMP and BristolRed have kindly replied. They are both saying they can't judge without more information. I covered exactly the same point yesterday regarding Paul Clarke's outrageous gun possession conviction. We might not know everything yet, but everything we do know looks deeply troubling, and no-one has come up with anything that shows us a more complex picture. Until Alan Johnson defends his behaviour, there is a dark stain on his reputation.

UPDATE II: Thomas Byrne has tweeted that The Independent on Sunday's John Rentoul is looking further into this. Good.

UPDATE III: Bevanite Ellie also replied. See Update I.