Episode 23 - Dr Anne Neylon- University of Liverpool- The Rwanda Plan

Over the last six months, many a Guest have lamented the Offshoring proposals in the government's New Immigration Plan. What appeared remote and a figment of either Priti Patel or some home office bureaucrats' fertile imagination has materialised in the form of a memorandum of understanding with the Rwandan Government.

We speak to Dr Anne Neylon, a Law Lecturer at the University of Liverpool whose insight and analysis on the Rwanda Deal came to the fore in her Blog https://criticallegalthinking.com/2022/04/19/the-uk-rwanda-and-the-spectacle-of-deterrence/

So this Bilateral (political) agreement will operate outside Domestic and International law. People who arrive in Britain to claim asylum without prior authorisation face the prospect of screening tests which will determine whether their Asylum Claim is admissible. Should they be found to have no grounds nor protected characteristics, they face a one-way ticket to Rwanda, whom for the princely sum of an initial £120Million will accept this human cargo from Britain. This ‘spectacle of deterrence’ as Anne so succinctly asserts, emulates the precedents set in Guam & Guantanamo Bay by the Americans, Nauru and Papua New Guinea by the Australians. Its Neo-Colonial in its expression and a dangerous assault on the spirit and letter of the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention. Anne’s analysis at this moment is critical, instructive and is a learning opportunity for those who are minded to resist this shift to a bygone era.