The British government on Wednesday defended its controversial illegal immigration bill in the face of widespread criticism, including from former footballer Gary Lineker, the BBC’s broadcaster, who likened the chief executive’s rhetoric on refugees to that of the Nazi regime.
With the new legislation, Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government is seeking to combat a sharp increase in migrants arriving illegally in small boats crossing the English Channel from the French coast.
Stopping the arrival of illegal immigrants by sea is the “priority of the people”, the prime minister said at the House of Commons’ weekly questions session, before pledging to “end the criminal groups” responsible for smuggling migrants.
The provision prohibits people who arrive in the country in this way from applying for asylum and thus settling in the UK or applying for British citizenship. It also facilitates the detention of immigrants until they are expelled to a third country deemed safe.
“It is not racist to say we have too many illegal immigrants abusing our asylum system,” Soella Braverman, the home secretary, defended Wednesday in an op-ed published in the Daily Mail.
The bill has been strongly criticized by refugee aid organizations, which consider it contrary to international law.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Wednesday he was “deeply concerned” by the British bill.
“This general ban preventing people from applying for asylum and other forms of international protection in the UK runs counter to commitments made in the area of human rights and refugee law,” Turk said in a statement.
“The legislation also raises a series of specific human rights problems, such as the violation of the right to individual analysis, the prohibition of return and collective expulsion, as well as the arbitrary detention of migrants,” he added.
But football legend Lineker’s words made headlines in several conservative newspapers on Wednesday.
“My God, this is appalling. There is no great influx… It is just immeasurably cruel policy directed against the most vulnerable people in language not unlike that used by Germany in the 1930s,” the BBC presenter now says.
Conservative MPs have asked the BBC to punish Lineker, who is accused of going too far.
In an interview with the BBC, Braverman, who has been criticized in the past for her comments about immigrants, said she was “obviously disappointed by the comparison of our measures to those of Germany in the 1930s”.
“I don’t think it’s an appropriate way to conduct the discussion,” he added.
“We are not breaking the law. We are certain that the measures we announced yesterday (Tuesday) comply with our international legal obligations,” the minister told Sky News.
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