Rishi Sunak has prioritized his government’s legislative agenda around the anti-immigration “Stop the Boats” campaign, aiming to discourage asylum seekers from attempting to reach the United Kingdom via the English Channel. However, the Rwanda deportation bill, designed to deport refugees and migrants to Rwanda for the processing of their asylum claims and resettlement, faced significant challenges.
In November, the Supreme Court invalidated Sunak’s initial Rwanda bill, asserting that the landlocked African republic was unsafe for asylum seekers. In response, the Conservative Party leader introduced the Safety of Rwanda bill to address these concerns. The new bill aimed to minimize legal challenges by requiring the House of Commons to declare, through a majority vote, that Rwanda is a safe country for asylum seekers. Sunak presented the Safety of Rwanda bill to parliament in December but encountered resistance from hard-right MPs within his own party, who argued that the bill was still not “sufficiently watertight.”
Despite the opposition, Sunak managed to secure a comfortable majority in favour of the bill. Some conservatives opted to let the legislation pass, hoping to exert influence and scrutinize Sunak’s actions in the final stages. Others maintained that the legislation leaves the government open to legal challenges and is therefore unlikely to resolve the issue, thus it ultimately represents a political victory that misleads the public. Arguably, this position holds the most truth. Rishi Sunak got himself a political victory that might help him rescuing his public perception among his voters.
However, in the long run, the plan is indeed unlikely to enter into force to any significant extent, therefore, inevitably it will become clear that he has not, in fact, “stopped the boats” and tackled immigration. To this must be added the fact that many Britons do not support the plan, although they strongly support decreasing immigration. As a result, it seems that Sunak’s insistence on savaging the Rwanda deal has more to do with an attempt to not project weakness then any significant practical gain. A similar scenario is presenting itself in relation to the deal between Italy and Albania.
A court in Albania is currently hearing a case questioning the constitutionality of a deal with Italy’s far-right government, alleging that it could violate the constitution by permitting the use of Albanian territory for reception centers for those attempting to enter the EU by sea. The agreement, disclosed by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in November, proposes initially hosting around 3,000 people in the non-EU member state, eventually processing up to 36,000 annually.
Under this deal, individuals assigned to Albania would be those rescued by Italian boats. Minors, pregnant women, and vulnerable individuals would be taken to Italy. However, Albania’s constitutional court impeded the ratification of the legislation in December, leading to a hearing to assess whether the agreement violates Albania’s constitution. The main issue with the agreement, likened to the UK’s deal with Rwanda, is that it would effectively require Tirana to cede a portion of its territory to Rome for Italy to exercise jurisdiction in Albania.
Furthermore, as with the Rwanda plan, there is a practical impossibility of ensuring the same asylum rights standard in a foreign country. In relation to this Médecins Sans Frontières claims that the deal goes beyond previous agreements between EU countries and non-member states, actively preventing people from fleeing and impeding safe access to European territory for those rescued at sea. Nonetheless, the Italian government continues to defend the agreement with the Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani denying outsourcing asylum processing and asserting that internationally guaranteed rights are not derogated. On the other hand, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović warns of a dangerous precedent, emphasizing the potential domino effect undermining the European and global system of international protection.
Ultimately, it would seem that the deal between Italy and Albania is set to face the same legal challenges as the Rwanda plan supported by Sunak’s government. Notwithstanding this, just like the British government, the Italian one is going to persist with it, regardless of the high likelihood of the agreement never entering into force. By doing so, it will be able to maintain the narrative according to which they have tried to deal with immigration but were stopped by higher powers. This allows the government to “save face” in the public’s eyes by providing them an enemy towards which they can channel their frustration. This, in turn, distracts from the government’s failure to come up with legal and enforceable solutions to the problem. How long this could fool the public for is debatable, but it surely looks like other countries are going to follow suit in this practice of entangling countries in disputes over potentially lost causes.
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations
