Author: Gabriel Pryce
August 1, 2024
Introduction
On April 14th, 2022, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the United Kingdom’s Rwanda Plan: a policy to permanently relocate asylum seekers who had crossed the English Channel via small boats to Rwanda. The Rwanda Scheme became central to the Government’s policy programme for the next two years, despite being decried by advocacy groups and courts as in violation of the UK’s human rights obligations.
The United Kingdom’s asylum policy is symptomatic of a broader international trend in human rights, whereby human rights norms and principles are increasingly securitized. The term securitization was first coined by the Copenhagen School of International Relations[1] to describe a political process in which an issue or actor is discursively constructed as a security threat in order to legitimise a coercive or emergency response. Numerous scholars have established a link between securitization and human rights. Whether it be the repression of refugee rights in Europe[2] or the persecution of LGBT+ communities[3] in Russia, invoking a sense of insecurity has often provided a necessary pretext for depriving vulnerable groups of their human rights.
Securitization is, thus, highly pertinent for those who are concerned with human rights. The logic of securitization is itself flexible and malleable, meaning it can be applied by a multitude of different actors to a diverse range of human rights issues and political contexts. As such, understanding the role of securitization in UK asylum policy can yield significant insight into how day-to-day political discourse across the world may erode fundamental human rights.
The following article will proceed with a more detailed outline of securitization before applying this analysis to the UK’s 2022 Nationality and Borders Act and Rwanda Plan. This article will argue that, in framing small boat crossings in the English Channel as a security issue, as opposed to a humanitarian matter, the UK Government created a rationale for dehumanising asylum seekers and eschewing its human rights obligations. At the end of the article, I will also briefly discuss the implications of the July 4th, 2024 General Election on UK asylum policy and provide an overall summary of findings.
Section 1: What is securitization?
Put simply, securitization refers to the discursive construction of an issue or group as a security threat, in turn justifying coercive or extreme measures that would otherwise be considered disproportionate or illegitimate. In regards to human rights specifically, the logic of securitization seeks to pit national security against human rights, with the implication being that human rights must be disregarded in order for the security of a state or its citizens to be upheld. This “rebalancing” of rights and security poses a danger to vulnerable and minority groups, as the rhetoric of security may serve as a smokescreen for de-possessing them of their rights. Or, as put by human rights scholar Liora Lazarus, “this language of rebalancing commonly poses the rights to security of the majority against the rights of minorities which may be infringed.”[4]
In terms of the actual process of securitization, there are broadly two ways in which a group or issue can be defined as a security threat. The first way involves establishing a link between the targeted group and a physical danger to the integrity of a state or the safety of its people. As one example, in the aftermath of 9/11, several different countries invoked concerns around terrorism[5] as grounds for limiting civil and political rights. Here, politicians claim that they have a duty to restrict human rights in order to prevent physical violence from materialising.
However, stoking fear of physical violence is not inherently necessary to securitize human rights. The second, alternative way in which a group or issue may be securitized is through positing them as a threat to the national identity, values or cultural norms of a demarcated social group[6]. In this way, a government or organisation may not suggest that a certain minority group poses a threat of physical violence per se, but rather that their presence in society undermines cohesion or social stability, in turn necessitating the denial of their rights. Importantly, many states and organisations will draw upon both forms of securitization in their quest to subordinate human rights to the facade of security.
It is, thus, clear from the structure of securitization why it can be such a powerful tool in attacking fundamental human rights. The logic of securitization in and of itself is not restricted to any particular group or issue, nor does there need to be the existence of an actual, genuine security threat for the logic to take hold. Rather, it is at the discretion of the utilisers of securitization to identify and proclaim whatever issue or group they see fit as a security threat that needs subduing. This makes securitization a very flexible and adaptive discourse, which can be applied to a broad range of groups, human rights matters and contexts, irrespective of the actual reality or security situation.
Section 2: A Background to the United Kingdom’s Asylum Policy
In order to understand the role of securitization in the 2022 Nationality and Borders Act and Rwanda Scheme, one must first establish the broader political context in which UK asylum policy has developed. Indeed, the 2022 Nationality and Borders Act and Rwanda Scheme are the culmination of a much longer process in UK politics of politicising and securitizing refugees and asylum seekers.
Immigration in the UK has become an increasingly politically charged issue since the 1990s, as public concern began to develop around rising overall net migration. By the mid-2000s, fringe, far-right parties such as the British National Party[7] and UKIP[8] successfully capitalised on such anti-immigrant sentiment to garner electoral support. Despite the growing public fears around overall immigration in the UK, the total number of asylum applications in the 2000s was on a downward trend and hit a historic low of just 17,916 in 2010[9]. However, in 2015, over one million asylum seekers arrived on the European Continent seeking refuge, in events which are commonly referred to as the “European Refugee Crisis[10].” The influx of refugees in 2015 was primarily a result of growing instability and conflict in the Middle East, and European politics became deeply divided over how to best accommodate the growing number of refugees inside Europe’s borders. This hysteria around rising numbers of asylum seekers and refugees saw debates around immigration in the UK become recentred specifically on asylum policy.
Indeed, the 2016 Brexit Referendum, in which the UK narrowly voted to withdraw from the European Union, was partially motivated by concerns over immigration and asylum in particular. The Brexit campaign, supported primarily by the Conservative Party and UKIP, framed Brexit as a means of “taking back control”[11] of UK border security and preventing a high number of refugees and asylum seekers from reaching British shores. In other words, the Brexit Campaign portrayed asylum not as a humanitarian matter but rather as a problem of national security, for which leaving the European Union would provide the answer.
Despite leaving the EU, though, overall net migration and the number of asylum claims continued to rise in the UK. By 2018, there was a sharp increase in small boats carrying asylum seekers across the English Channel in order to enter the UK. The Oxford University Migration Observatory estimates that in, 2018, 299 people crossed the English Channel in small boats[12], compared to just nine documented cases between July 2014 and May 2016[13]. By 2022, this number had reached 45,774[14], with overall asylum applications this year being 81,130 - the highest rate in the UK since 2002[15]. These circumstances created a political challenge for the Conservative Government, who pledged in repeated elections to reduce net migration[16] (for which asylum applications make up only a small fraction) and promised that Brexit would give the UK the power to control the number of asylum seekers reaching British shores.
It is in this context of growing anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment and having increasingly tied their political future to reducing both net migration and total asylum claims that the Conservative Government opted for a hardline, security-focused approach to the matter of small boats in the Channel. The 2022 Nationality and Borders Act and the Rwanda Scheme would become the central tenets of this approach. As will be discussed in the following sections, the entire rationale that underpinned these policies relied upon securitizing asylum seekers as dangerous threats to national security and British identity, in order to justify dispossessing asylum seekers of their rights under International and UK law.
Section 3: The Nationality and Borders Act and Rwanda Scheme
The 2022 Nationality and Borders Act, which is the necessary corollary to the Rwanda Plan, has two core aims: the establishment of a two-tiered asylum system and the externalisation of the UK’s asylum responsibilities[17]. The Act distinguishes between asylum seekers based upon two categories. Group one asylum seekers are considered to be those who have ‘come directly’ to the UK from a dangerous or life-threatening country[18]. This definition includes, for example, Ukrainian refugees who were resettled in the UK under the Government’s Ukraine Family Scheme. Group two asylum seekers, on the other hand, are defined as those who have transited through a ‘safe third country’ before arriving in the UK[19]. This definition applies to all asylum seekers who have crossed the English Channel on a small boat, as they embarked on the boat crossing from France.
This distinction between asylum seekers under the Nationality and Borders Act underpins the externalisation of the UK’s asylum policy. The externalisation of asylum policies refers to the practice of governments outsourcing their responsibilities under refugee law to third-party states or organisations[20]. Indeed, the Nationality and Borders Act grants the UK Government the legal power to remove group two asylum seekers to “safe third countries” for processing and resettlement. Thus, the Nationality and Borders Act provides the legal foundation for the UK Government to implement the Rwanda Scheme. Under the UK-Rwanda Memorandum of Understanding[21], the UK Government agreed to pay the Rwandan state hundreds of millions[22] in return for permanently relocating (group two) asylum seekers who had been forcibly deported by the UK. In short, the Nationality and Borders Act and Rwanda Plan established a two-tiered system of asylum that delegated the UK’s human rights obligations to other states, specifically Rwanda.
Both the Nationality and Borders Act and Rwanda Scheme are in clear contravention of the UK’s human rights responsibilities. Importantly, the 1951 Refugee Convention[23] does not distinguish or discriminate between asylum seekers based upon their country of origin or their means of arriving in a safe country. All asylum seekers are entitled to the full array of rights as outlined under the Refugee Convention and these rights cannot be selectively granted or withheld based upon whether a refugee has transited through a “safe third country” or not[24]. Through establishing a two-tiered system in which an individual’s ability to claim asylum depends upon the category they fall into, the UK Government’s asylum policy clearly does not meet this requirement to treat all asylum seekers equally.
Additionally, the UK Government’s asylum policy in effect criminalises the claiming of asylum. Under the Refugee Convention, asylum seekers are legally permitted to enter a country through irregular means in order to claim asylum, and refugees cannot be persecuted or denied asylum based upon the fact that they entered irregularly[25]. Any asylum seeker who enters the UK irregularly (such as through small boats) under Conservative Government policy could be legally detained and deported to Rwanda. Given that a significant portion of asylum seekers in the UK must enter irregularly due to a lack of safe and legal routes into the country[26], the Nationality and Borders Act and Rwanda Plan in effect outlaws and punishes the mere act of claiming asylum. Again, this is in clear violation of legal and domestic international human rights standards.
The final way in which the Nationality and Borders Act and Rwanda Scheme fail to satisfy the UK’s human rights obligations is through violating the principle of non-refoulement. As specified in the 1951 Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights, the principle of non-refoulement prohibits forcing a refugee to return to their country of origin if their life or human rights may be threatened in doing so. On the 15th of November 2023, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the Rwanda Scheme was unlawful on the grounds that it risked violating this principle of non-refoulement[27]. Citing previous cases whereby the Rwandan Government had denied asylum to those fleeing conflict zones and failed to apply the principle of non-refoulement in a similar asylum externalisation agreement with Israel between 2013-2018, the Supreme Court ruled that UK asylum seekers removed to Rwanda were at plausible risk of being returned to their home country. In the words of the UK Supreme Court themselves:
“There are substantial grounds for believing that asylum seekers would face a real risk of ill-treatment by reason of refoulement to their country of origin if they were removed to Rwanda.”[28]
Despite the UK Supreme Court ruling unequivocally that the Rwanda Scheme did in fact violate the human rights of asylum seekers, the UK Government dismissed this through issuing the Safety of Rwanda Bill[29], which required all decision-makers (including courts) to treat Rwanda as a safe, third country.
Overall, the Nationality and Borders Act and Rwanda Scheme was an attempt to create a two-tier system that would facilitate the removal of any asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK irregularly to Rwanda. This violated human rights in several ways, including through discriminating against certain refugees based upon their means of entry into the UK and subjecting them to the risk of refoulement.
Section 4: Securitization and UK Asylum Policy
Given that the Nationality and Borders Act and Rwanda Plan violated fundamental human rights laws and norms, one question remains: how could the UK Government persist with a policy that they knew denigrated human rights? The answer to this question lies within the concept of securitization. In applying a securitized framework, the UK Government crafted a narrative that posited the denial of human rights as necessary and dutiful in protecting British security.
A key rhetorical justification for these twin policies was that they targeted organised crime and prevented lives being lost in the Channel. Both the preamble to the Nationality and Borders Act and numerous high-profile government ministers associated with the policies insisted that the deportation of asylum seekers was necessary to “break”[30] the business model of people smugglers operating in the Channel through deterring asylum seekers from coming to the UK. Put in simple terms, the argument goes that if asylum seekers, fearing deportation to Rwanda, no longer want to come to the UK, the organised crime gangs that traffick them on small boats will have no customers. If the people smuggling gangs have no more customers, then they will cease operating.
A state attempting to prevent organised transnational crime is, of course, legitimate. However, the policies outlined in the Nationality and Borders Act and Rwanda Scheme do not meet these stated intentions. Importantly, numerous human rights groups and lawyers have noted that asylum seekers only resort to people smugglers and making dangerous Channel crossings because they have no other means of claiming asylum[31][32]. As such, if the UK Government offered safe and legal routes to obtaining refugee status, then asylum seekers would not have to rely on violent human traffickers to reach safety in the UK. Rather than going after the perpetrators of human trafficking directly though, the UK Government instead resorted to punitive measures against the very victims of human trafficking[33], through threatening to detain them and deport them to Rwanda as soon as they arrive in the UK.
The notion that the Rwanda Scheme is necessary to prevent organised crime is, thus, clearly simply an attempt to securitize the issue of asylum. This framing draws attention away from the humanitarian crisis that is occurring in the Channel and instead refocuses on a discussion of transnational organised crime groups who jeopardise the physical security of the UK’s borders as well as asylum seekers’ lives through exploiting their plight for profit. Under this logic, the human rights of asylum seekers are, paradoxically, an unfortunate casualty of the imperative to secure the UK’s borders and prevent violence against the lives of asylum seekers.
The Conservative Government’s stated aim of wanting to destroy the people smuggling gangs through their asylum policies is further betrayed by the racist, dehumanising discourse that often accompanied their description of refugees and asylum seekers. For example, a key architect of the Rwanda Plan, former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, described small boats crossing the Channel as “an invasion on our Southern Coast.”[34] The imagery of an invasion was a purposeful attempt to establish a link between asylum seekers and their supposed propensity towards violence and barbarism, with the implication being that the lives of British citizens may be at risk if they are allowed to claim refuge in the UK. Additionally, in a speech on the global asylum system, Braverman stated that illegal migration posed an “existential challenge to the political and cultural institutions of the West.”[35] She also remarked that “inadequate integration” by immigrants had led to “undermining the stability and threatening the security of society.”[36]
Braverman’s justification for the Nationality and Borders Act and Rwanda Scheme rests upon a form of racialised securitization. The racist dehumanisation of asylum seekers is well established in UK political discourse. For example, a study by Cooper et al[37] of over 2000 news articles from 2017 found that news sources were statistically more likely to associate asylum seekers who originate from the Middle East and North Africa with terrorism. Braverman herself is capitalising on the racist and xenophobic prejudices that are attached to asylum seekers. In arguing that predominantly non-white asylum seekers are inherently violent, intolerant and incompatible with British ways of life, Braverman’s rhetoric deprives asylum seekers of their basic humanity. Such dehumanisation[38] makes it easy to restrict the human rights of asylum seekers in the name of protecting British security, identity and culture.
The securitizing logic that animated the Conservative Government’s approach to asylum can be seen even more starkly in the words of former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. When asked last month if he would consider withdrawing from the European Convention of Human Rights if the European Court of Human Rights blocked the implementation of the UK’s Rwanda Plan, Sunak’s response was as follows:
“If a foreign court, including the European Court, forces me to choose between our country’s national security and membership of that court, I’m going to choose this country’s national security every single time.”[39]
This quote exemplifies the Conservative Government’s rationale behind the Nationality and Borders Act and Rwanda Plan. These policies were never seriously about stopping organised crime or protecting asylum seekers from human trafficking and dangerous maritime journeys. Rather, the UK Government created a choice between supposed national security or human rights, in which national security must always take priority over human rights norms and laws. This logic of securitization results in an escalatory spiral of anti-human rights measures, as governments must disregard more and more human rights principles in their pursuit of security. After all, by the end of the Conservative’s tenure in office, they were publicly contemplating joining Russia and Belarus[40] as the only European countries to have disavowed the European Convention on Human Rights.
Section 5: What comes next?
Following the July 4th, 2024 General Election, Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party were replaced in government by Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. The election result has many implications for the future of asylum policy, although there is no reason to believe that the logic of securitization will disappear from British political discourse any time soon.
On coming to office, the Labour Government immediately scrapped the Rwanda Plan[41], putting an end, for now, to the externalisation of the UK’s asylum program. The future of the Nationality and Borders Act remains uncertain, with the Labour Party yet to announce whether they plan to keep, amend, or scrap the Act. In place of the Rwanda Plan, the Labour Government’s approach to asylum policy revolves around the establishment of a UK Border Security Command[42]. The goal of the Command is to use counter-terrorism style techniques to dismantle people smuggling gangs, in turn preventing small boats from crossing the Channel. Even with a change in government, then, the crisis in the Channel is still predominantly seen through the lens of security, not humanitarianism.
Securitization and the racism that underpins it also remains a fixture in the broader British political climate in regards to asylum policy. This is perhaps best evidenced by the recent surge in electoral popularity of the far-right, anti-immigration Reform Party[43]. The Reform Party have too perpetuated the securitization of asylum seekers, including a high-profile incident where a Reform party activist[44] advocated for the use of military force against asylum seekers crossing the Channel.
Furthermore, with a Conservative Party leadership election on the horizon, securitization may remain a cornerstone of Conservative political strategy. Indeed, both Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick are predicted to run for leadership, and both have attributed the failure to promptly implement the Rwanda Plan as a key cause to the Party’s dramatic election defeat[45][46]. Therefore, the rationale that underpinned the Rwanda Scheme and Nationality and Borders Act looks set to persist in UK politics for the foreseeable future.
Conclusion
This article has argued that securitization, the process in which an issue or actor is discursively constructed as a threat to the physical security or identity and values of a specific group, is a critical device to eroding human rights today.
The United Kingdom’s Nationality and Borders Act and Rwanda Scheme can be explained through this framework of securitization. In positioning the creation of a two-tiered asylum system that deports vulnerable asylum seekers to Rwanda as necessary to maintain the security of Britain’s borders, national identity and values, the Conservative Government was able to create an either/or choice between national security and fundamental human rights. In practice, this provided the political pretext for dehumanising and dispossessing asylum seekers. Such a process of securitization also resulted in an escalatory spiral, whereby the Conservative Government contemplated more and more drastic attacks on human rights in order to uphold their supposed security objectives.
Whilst the Rwanda Scheme as of this month has been scrapped, the Conservative Government’s asylum policy remains a highly pertinent case study into the securitization of human rights. For one, the logic that underpinned the Rwanda Scheme and Nationality and Borders Act remains present in UK politics. But, more broadly, the example of the Rwanda Plan should serve as a guide and cautionary tale to the dangers of securitization, as other countries, contexts and human rights principles are also vulnerable to being subsumed under the pretense of security.
Glossary
1951 Refugee Convention: A legal agreement between states that specifies the rights of asylum seekers and refugees and states’ obligations towards them. It has become the foundational pillar in modern International Asylum Law.
Asylum seeker: A person who has fled human rights violations and persecution in their country of origin and is currently awaiting a legal decision on their status as a refugee.
Coerce: To achieve by force or threat.
Corollary: Something that incidentally or naturally accompanies or parallels.
Dehumanise: To deprive (someone or something) of human qualities, personality, or dignity.
Demarcate: To set apart.
Discursive Construction: The act of framing an issue or actor in a certain way through the use of language and rhetoric.
Eschew: To avoid deliberately and especially habitually.
European Refugee Crisis: The name given to the events of 2015, whereby 1 million asylum seekers entered the European Continent. This led to political disputes at the European and national level over how to respond to the large increase in asylum seekers.
Externalisation: In the context of asylum policy, externalisation refers to the practice of governments seeking to offshore their asylum programs to third-party states.
Human Trafficking: The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them for profit.
Hysteria: Behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess.
Immigration: A blanket term that refers to the act of voluntarily moving from one place to another, for whatever purpose. Unlike asylum seekers and refugees, those who have immigrated can freely return to their country of origin.
Irregular Migration: The act of entering a country without official government authorization. Irregular migration is different to illegal migration as asylum seekers are legally permitted to enter a country without official authorization.
Net Migration: The numerical difference between the total number of people who enter a territory and the total number of people who leave a territory in a given year.
Non-refoulement: The principle in international human rights law that prohibits countries from returning people to places where their lives or human rights are threatened.
Norms: A widespread or usual practice, procedure, or custom.
People Smuggler: The facilitation of a person’s illegal entry into a country, for a financial or other material benefit.
Pertinent: Having a clear decisive relevance to the matter in hand.
Prejudice: Preconceived judgment or opinion; an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics.
Racialised Securitization: A form of securitization that relies upon racist stereotypes and prejudices to frame a particular issue or group as a security threat.
Referendum: The principle or practice of submitting to popular vote a measure passed on or proposed by a legislative body or by popular initiative.
Refugee: A person who has fled human rights violations and persecution in their country of origin and has been granted the legal right to protection in another country due to their refugee status.
Repression: To prevent the natural or normal expression, activity, or development of; to put down by force.
Securitization: The process in which an issue or group is discursively constructed as a security threat, in order to legitimise coercive or emergency measures that would otherwise be considered disproportionate or illegitimate.
Subordinate: To treat as of less value or importance.
Transnational: Extending or going beyond national boundaries.
Xenophobia: Fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign.
Footnotes/References
[1] Buzan, B, Wæver, O, de Wilder, J. 1998. Security: A New Framework for Analysis. Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
[2] Cloquell-Lozano, A, Novella-Garcia, C. 2022. The Adiaphorization and Dehumanization of Migrations from the Ethical and Moral Approach of Public Policies. Social Sciences 11: 89.
[3] Nuñez-Mietz, F.G. 2019. Resisting human rights through securitisation: Russia and Hungary against LGBT rights. Journal of Human Rights 18: 543-564
[4] Lazarus, L. 2012. The right to security - securing rights or securitising rights? In Dickinson, R, Katselli, E, Murray, C, Pedersen, O.W (eds) Examining Critical Perspectives on Human Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[5] Lazarus, L. 2012. The right to security - securing rights or securitising rights? In Dickinson, R, Katselli, E, Murray, C, Pedersen, O.W (eds) Examining Critical Perspectives on Human Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[6] Nuñez-Mietz, F.G. 2019. Resisting human rights through securitisation: Russia and Hungary against LGBT rights. Journal of Human Rights 18: 543-564
[7] House of Commons Library. 2009. Electoral performance of the British National Party in the UK. May 15th, p.1-19.
[10] Downes, J.F, Loveless, M, Lam, Andrew. The Looming Refugee Crisis in the EU: Right-Wing Party Competition and Strategic Positioning. Journal of Common Market Studies 59: 1103-1123.
[12] Oxford University Migration Observatory. 2024. Briefing: People crossing the English Channel in small boats. July 1st, p.5.
[13] UK Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights. 2021. Legislative Scrutiny: Nationality and Borders Bill (Part 3) - Immigration offences and enforcement. December 1st, p.10-11.
[14] Oxford University Migration Observatory. 2024. Briefing: People crossing the English Channel in small boats. July 1st, p.5.
[17] Saenz Perez, C. 2023. The Securitization of Asylum: A Review of UK Asylum Laws Post-Brexit. International Journal of Refugee Law 35: 304-321.
[20] Saenz Perez, C. 2023. The Securitization of Asylum: A Review of UK Asylum Laws Post-Brexit. International Journal of Refugee Law 35: 304-321.
[21] UK Government. 2022. Memorandum of Understanding between the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the government of the Republic of Rwanda for the provision of an asylum partnership arrangement. April 13th.
[22] House of Commons Library. 2024. The UK-Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership Research Briefing. May 29th, p.4.
[23] United Nations High Commission of Refugees. Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.
[24]Saenz Perez, C. 2023. The Securitization of Asylum: A Review of UK Asylum Laws Post-Brexit. International Journal of Refugee Law 35: 304-321.
[25]United Nations High Commission of Refugees. Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.
[33] Saenz Perez, C. 2023. The Securitization of Asylum: A Review of UK Asylum Laws Post-Brexit. International Journal of Refugee Law 35: 304-321.
[34] The Guardian. 2022. Wednesday briefing: The reality behind Suella Braverman’s claims of an asylum seeker ‘invasion’. November 2nd.
[35] Sky News. 2023. Home Secretary Suella Braverman claims legal migration is ‘existential challenge’ and hits out at ‘dogma of multiculturalism’. September 26th.
[36] Sky News. 2023. Home Secretary Suella Braverman claims legal migration is ‘existential challenge’ and hits out at ‘dogma of multiculturalism’. September 26th.
[37] Cooper, G, Blumell, L, Bunce, M. 2021. Beyond the ‘refugee crisis’: How the UK news media represent asylum seekers across national boundaries. International Communication Gazette 83: 195-216.
[38] Cloquell-Lozano, A, Novella-Garcia, C. 2022. The Adiaphorization and Dehumanization of Migrations from the Ethical and Moral Approach of Public Policies. Social Sciences 11: 89.
[39] Huff Post UK. 2024. 'Shame On You': Question Time Audience Members Slam Rishi Sunak For Refusing To Rule Out Leaving ECHR. June 6th.
[41] UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. 2024. Experts welcome announcement to end UK-Rwanda asylum partnership. July 10th.
[44] The Guardian. 2024. Reform UK activist filmed making racist comments about Rishi Sunak. June 27th. Content Warning: examples of racism and homophobia