Mr. Patrick Corrigan:

A very good point has been made with regard to the issue of victims of trafficking, which we have not touched on too much today, although I mentioned it in the opening remarks. In terms of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the UK is a signatory, Article 4 provides for an absolute right prohibiting slavery and forced labour. One of the EU directives - which, again, are still retained EU law in Northern Ireland - is the 2011 trafficking directive. That sets out minimum standards on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting victims. One of the particularly odious aspects of this legislation is the removal of rights and protections from victims of trafficking and a refusal to even entertain or consider people's complaints about being victims of trafficking. They, too, can find themselves caught up in this legislation, the sole objective of which is to remove people from the UK to Rwanda or another third country, or back to their countries of origin.

Again, if we look at the case the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission will be bringing to the High Court in Belfast in January, it is clear that this legislation breaches those rights, both under the European Convention on Human Rights and the 2011 EU law on victims of trafficking. If they are successful, there could be some sort of carve-out or relief given with respect to victims of trafficking in Northern Ireland, but it does not solve the wider problem for victims of trafficking across the UK.

With regard to the refugee convention, the whole purpose and design of this legislation is for the UK to sidestep its international obligations under the 1951 UN convention, so while it remains a signatory to it, it is trying to step outside its obligations. The whole idea is that all countries are obliged to collectively shoulder the responsibility for people who find themselves having to flee persecution, conflict or climate crisis, and it is the UK saying “No, we are here on the western fringes of Europe. We want to have a hard border and not allow anybody in.”

It would be a different matter, perhaps, if they created safe and legal routes but they do not, apart from a very few examples around Afghanistan, the Ukraine scheme and Hong Kong. Otherwise, people have no safe and legal routes and are forced to take to boats and other forms of travel that put them in jeopardy. Therefore, they find themselves at the harsh end of this new piece of legislation and they are deemed to have travelled unlawfully and entered the country unlawfully and, therefore, de factoare refused the possibility of claiming asylum, which is what is now outlawed by this piece of legislation.

How does one hold the UK to account under the UN refugee convention? It is a tough one. There are obviously periodic UN reporting mechanisms and there is a special rapporteur on refugee and migrant rights, so there are means to do that. Ultimately, however, there is a high degree of discretion for the UK. The UK seems to be willing to brazen it out at the moment in the context of the idea that it is in breach of its obligations under international law. We saw that previously around Northern Ireland, where they talked about being able to break international law in specific circumstances and specific ways, and, again, that is what they are doing at the moment.

Some of the rhetoric that surrounds this is deeply worrying. It is more broadly undermining the international human rights framework, and other countries do and will look at the UK and say: if they can sidestep their international law obligations, why can’t we? There is not really a good answer to that. We are tied together in terms of these international legal responsibilities and once there start to be breakages, particularly from countries like the UK, a permanent UN Security Council member, I think we are into very troubled waters.