Europe rocked by migration crises

EUROPE’S migration challenges have hit the headlines globally recently, with 2024 US Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis even claiming that the region is “committing suicide” with its policies.

The extreme language of DeSantis perhaps reflects his flailing campaign’s search for media attention as much as Europe’s predicament. The issue is more complex than political polemicists like DeSantis acknowledge, not least because much of Europe, including G7 nations Italy and Germany, needs more workers.

However, there is no denying that this issue is right at the top of the political agenda again. This was shown, yet again, this week with simultaneous high drama in the French National Assembly and the UK House of Commons.

On Monday (Dec 11), the French National Assembly rejected President Emmanuel Macron’s immigration bill which would have provided new legal tools to remove thousands who entered the country via illegal routes, while allowing economic migrants the opportunity to work more easily.

This saw the far-right National Rally, led by the nation’s possible next president Marine Le Pen, join forces with left-wing legislators against the bill.

This huge loss has destabilised Macron’s presidency. And it comes soon after similar political turmoil in Europe, including the collapse of the last Dutch government after it could not agree on new restrictions on immigration.

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It is in this context that UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Tuesday faced the most important parliamentary vote of his premiership. The focal point was his plans to send a cross section of asylum seekers to Rwanda. The vote capped an extraordinary few days in London which saw internal Conservative battles play out in ways perhaps not seen since the aftermath of the Brexit referendum from 2017 to 2020.

While Sunak won the vote, he feared defeat. One indication of this is the fact that Climate Minister Graham Stuart flew on Tuesday from COP28 to London to support the government, then returned to Dubai on Wednesday – a round trip of some 6,800 miles (10,900 km). Moreover, several Conservative MPs on the House of Commons International Development Committee who had been due to travel to the Caribbean were reportedly ordered to remain in the United Kingdom.

While Sunak prevailed after pulling out all these stops, what is remarkable is how much of a mess his government found itself in over a flagship issue. No UK government has lost any bill at second reading (a procedural step in passage of legislation) since 1986. So a defeat would have been noteworthy, especially given the government’s significant working majority in the House of Commons inherited from the 2019 election.

The danger for Sunak now is that he knows Dec 12 could prove a Pyrrhic victory that merely kicks the can down the road in later votes in 2024. For his win this week came despite significant reservations about the legislation from a large minority of Conservative MPs – around two dozen of whom chose to abstain on Tuesday, and others more gave the government the benefit of the doubt in anticipation of amendments in 2024.

Mark Francois, chair of the ERG group (one of the right-wing factions of Conservative MPs), said after Tuesday’s vote that he believes the Rwanda bill isn’t tough enough. His group therefore reserves the right to vote against the bill at third reading if key amendments are not made.

This right wing faction, many of them Brexiteers from the UK’s 2016 Brexit referendum, are concerned that they could be outflanked by political maverick Nigel Farage who has called the Rwanda bill “pathetic”. The successor organisation of Farage’s UK Independence Party is the right-wing Reform UK which advocates “net zero immigration”, and is now polling at just under 10 per cent in many opinion surveys.

One reason this political balancing act is so difficult for Sunak is that any shift to the right to toughen the bill may well trigger a backlash among more moderate Conservatives in the “One Nation” group. This means that the potential failure of the legislation could be delayed, rather than ended, by Tuesday’s vote.

Looking beyond the growing political challenges for Sunak in holding his party together before the next election is what many voters would argue is the much more important issue of effective UK policy. For, even before a single asylum seeker has been sent to the African country, there are significant concerns about the Rwanda plan, which is forecast to cost some £400 million (S$673.2 million) by 2026.

The new legislation, opposed by all key opposition parties in the House of Commons, was introduced after the UK Supreme Court blocked Sunak’s previous Rwanda plan. That latter policy, first announced in April 2022, is at the core of the new plan: to try to deter people from crossing from continental Europe to the UK in small boats, by sending some asylum seekers to Rwanda.

The Supreme Court struck it off over doubts as to whether Rwanda is a safe country for asylum seekers. So the government’s latest bill aims to try to guarantee the safety of the refugees, including a new treaty with the African nation.

However, even if the Rwanda legislation ultimately becomes law in 2024, it is possible not one single asylum seeker may be sent to Rwanda before the next UK general election, which polls indicate the Conservatives are likely to lose. Labour’s leader Keir Starmer confirmed on Tuesday that he would repeal the bill, which he calls an “expensive gimmick”, if Labour wins power.

Labour’s alternative plan includes redirecting the money into better enforcement and bolstering security agreements with other countries to stop more of the boats bringing people to the UK. He also wants more to be done to reduce the backlog of asylum claims by processing them faster, plus removing people to the country they have come from, should their claims be rejected.

Other critics of Sunak’s bill continue to question the morality and legality of the Rwanda plan, including whether it is compatible with the European Court of Human Rights. They argue it does nothing to address the Supreme Court’s concerns about Rwanda, and sets a precedent about removing the jurisdiction of UK courts to consider the issue.

Taken together, this UK example highlights the high complexity for governments of tackling migration and asylum issues in Europe. With public confidence in the system falling, politicians must now prioritise effective, just schemes over political gambits that are more costly than efficient.

The writer is an associate at LSE Ideas at the London School of Economics