If anyone needed a reminder of what is at stake for the thousands of migrants and refugees trying to cross the Channel this summer, the circumstances surrounding the death of a young Sudanese man whose body was found on a beach near Calais have supplied it. The refugee, Abdulfatah Hamdallah, was found on Wednesday after trying to reach England in a dinghy with shovels for oars. Since people traffickers do not appear to have been involved, the tragedy has also revealed the mendacious inadequacy of the version of events being peddled by ministers. Their desperation to blame anyone but themselves for the present situation has resulted in an overemphasis on the role of smugglers and alleged failings by the French.
Reports of the deaths of at least 45 people, including five children, off the coast of Libya, would be what the UN refugee agency has called the deadliest shipwreck in that stretch of water this year. The discovery of 10 dead people on another boat near the Canary Islands is a further reminder of the terrible hazards faced by those who flee their homes and countries in search of a better life for themselves and, increasingly, for their children. The range of the victims’ nationalities makes abundantly clear the problem’s global scale. While survivors in Libya were primarily said to come from Senegal, Mali, Chad and Ghana, recent arrivals in Kent have included people fleeing Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt and Syria.
Obviously, there is no single solution to the multiple crises affecting countries around the world, one of the consequences of which is that millions of people are desperate to leave them. Just as obviously, the strategy most likely to lead to good outcomes is for countries to work together. This means long-term commitments to help poor countries to raise living standards and reduce conflict, as well as a joined-up approach to migration and the rights of refugees. For the UK government, one urgent priority must be to establish safe, legal means for asylum seekers to lodge claims. For the prime minister to denounce the current spate of Channel crossings as “dangerous and criminal”, while offering no alternative, is wrong in every way.
A recent poll finding that 49% of British adults had little or no sympathy for Channel migrants offered an alarming glimpse of the extent to which hearts have hardened. Too much emphasis should never be placed on one survey, but the myths about migration are ingrained. Partly this is the result of deliberately inflammatory politics pursued over many years with a view to attracting voters thought to be hostile to immigration. To her shame, Priti Patel’s recent efforts in this vein won praise from Nigel Farage. But it also seems tangled up in many people’s confused image of the UK as simultaneously a put-upon small island and a global power.
It is to their great discredit that ministers seem trapped in their own version of this, as they overreact to the increase in arrivals in Kent while making unrealistic demands of the EU, which has just rejected their proposal to extend current asylum arrangements beyond the transition period. Given that Germany last year registered 142,450 applications, almost three times the UK’s total of 44,250, it is little wonder that our neighbours have lost patience. Far more disturbing is the possibility that, in the nationalistic fug of Brexit, the UK government has lost sight of its international obligations and the basic standards of human decency they represent.