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Keir Starmer to curb judges’ power in asylum cases

The main tribunal courts used by failed refugees to challenge Home Office decisions are to be phased out and replaced by a fast-track system under plans to be announced by ministers within weeks.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/asylum-seekers-migrants-appeal-system-overhaul-hotels-keir-starmer-chdvn8sxh

My god. An actual Good Decision.... apparently

Let's hope they do this. It's a crucial first step. The public have lost all confidence in this system

Lets wait and see. Is a good decision if magically this fast track system starts to have a much higher rate of acceptance of asylum claims? Some will say yes its clearing the backlog, some will be suspicious.

And of course, there will be seemingly infinite legal challenges at every stage.

Yes, I've just read the actual article and... hmmmmm

I reckon the mess will simply be shifted to more approvals and more use of houses rather than hotels, and blah blah blah. Labour are emotionally and constitutionally incapable of really addressing this crisis

The answer is to end the right of asylum as we know it. Simple. Only Reform will do that

Look at this: it all ends at 'upper tribunal hearing' or 'possibility to apply for a judicial review.'

Maybe it's me but it seems to be missing an "immediately fuck off" outcome:

None of the appeals are automatic. You have to make a case to be allowed to appeal. Just saying you don't like the decision doesn't count. With no case, you won't even be appealing the first decision.

Except you get to appeal the refusal to hear and appeal and then to judicially review that decision.

That’s two more delays and utilisation of court resources. I think it should be simply one appeal if there is an error in law and you’re done

"Approval rates were updated this week: 98 per cent for Sudanese and Syrians, 87 per cent for Eritreans. Such figures serve as adverts, saying that an Eritrean who finds £10,000 to pay the gangs has a nine-in-ten chance of success — probably higher when you factor in appeals and the chance to disappear if it goes wrong. By no coincidence, Eritreans have now risen to the top of small-boat arrivals. Bad laws are driving desperate people straight into traffickers’ hands."

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/tories-are-the-insurgents-after-hotel-judgment-vx0xbb568

And what happens here is that Eritreans club together in their village to fund one fit and healthy young one, who has the best chance to make it. When they do they succeed because, lol, they're from Eritrea, and they remit back their earnings to repay their investment (and more) and use the Right to Family Life to bring over their families as well.

The whole thing is bollocks. Utter utter bollocks.

Not entirely bollocks, sounds like a pretty logical and sensible investment from their perspective.

Going back to my prior post, there's no realistic way to "smash" that since they're acting in a productive manner for their own interests. Smash one gang and another will rapidly take their place.

We need to either decide to accept whoever wants to come, change the rules, or find somewhere else to send them instead. Pick your poison.

You summarise it well. Maybe we should have a three way plebiscite

Pretty sure the voters won’t choose option 1

The thing is that those in power have a mentality that "international law" is a real thing and that any agreements need to be agreed multilaterally. When nations like Italy, or Turkey, or wherever can have very different goals to us.

We are an independent, sovereign democracy that can set our own laws unilaterally. The question is are we willing to do so and discard the shibboleth of "international law"?

Keir Starmer to curb judges’ power in asylum cases

The main tribunal courts used by failed refugees to challenge Home Office decisions are to be phased out and replaced by a fast-track system under plans to be announced by ministers within weeks.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/asylum-seekers-migrants-appeal-system-overhaul-hotels-keir-starmer-chdvn8sxh

My god. An actual Good Decision.... apparently

Let's hope they do this. It's a crucial first step. The public have lost all confidence in this system

Lets wait and see. Is a good decision if magically this fast track system starts to have a much higher rate of acceptance of asylum claims? Some will say yes its clearing the backlog, some will be suspicious.

And of course, there will be seemingly infinite legal challenges at every stage.

Yes, I've just read the actual article and... hmmmmm

I reckon the mess will simply be shifted to more approvals and more use of houses rather than hotels, and blah blah blah. Labour are emotionally and constitutionally incapable of really addressing this crisis

The answer is to end the right of asylum as we know it. Simple. Only Reform will do that

Look at this: it all ends at 'upper tribunal hearing' or 'possibility to apply for a judicial review.'

Maybe it's me but it seems to be missing an "immediately fuck off" outcome:

None of the appeals are automatic. You have to make a case to be allowed to appeal. Just saying you don't like the decision doesn't count. With no case, you won't even be appealing the first decision.

You don’t understand. We’re done

We just want them all to go home, and if you enter illegally, we kick you out instantly

He does understand. He just thinks all this stuff is axiomatic and rejects the notion that it should even be the subject of debate.

Those who do are either idiots or malignants guilty of moral turpitude who can be best dealt with by technocratic pedantry and demanding they provide "examples" to hopefully expose their 'ignorance'.

Fine. He will be ignored.

I've just re-read the ECHR. The principle of non-refoulement is absolute: "they do not allow for any derogation, exception or limitation. The prohibition of refoulement applies both at the border and within the territory of a state"

Which of course means the mid-point of the channel where British and French waters meet. There is no "international" zone and the French will always escort out migrants until they've hit British waters.

Snookered.

Under the European Convention of Human Rights don't see any way out of this. Unless the ECHR is fundamentally reformed, we will have to opt out, modify the 1998 Human Rights Act and derogate from the 1951 Refugee Convention.

I don't see any alternative.

https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/fra-coe-2020-european-law-land-borders_en.pdf

Non-refoulement applies to sending people back to their own state where they'll face abuse, it does not apply to them being sent to third party states.

There are to my eyes three possible solutions.

1: Accept everyone who wants to come.
2: Change the rules.
3: Find a third party (like Rwanda) happy to accept people and send them there instead.

That's it as far I can see. Pick your poison.

'Smashing the gangs' etc will be as plausible as winning the war on drugs.

Agree with the last bit.

Here's the thing: everyone thinks it's all bollocks now. Because it is.

So many people can fabricate a case that they will "face abuse" on going back to their own state - the criteria being so absurdly generous and wide-ranging, and open to multiple appeals - that no-one believes its sincere any more. And, even if they did, they don't believe its our problem- especially if they spent £8k paying people smugglers to get here over many months over multiple safe countries.

Everyone knows they're playing the game. And, sure, their countries are pretty shit - I wouldn't fancy Pakistan either - but that's not our problem.

I want everyone who comes over on a boat back on a plane (I don't care where) within 72 hours, even if they're Mother Theresa or have a cure for cancer.

The Overton Window is moving so fast on this issue that Starmer is several streets away from it.

Top comment on The Times: "Deport immediately with no right to appeal. Enter the UK illegally from a safe country and never be allowed asylum."

Starmer has to find a workable way to stop the boats or Farage will become PM. My weekend article for @Independent

https://x.com/johnrentoul/status/1959279084204126315?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

He won't. It'd also mean a fight with the EU over the TCA and he'd then lose his throne because there would be a fear that would risk an even harder Brexit than Boris, and the hordes of muppets on his backbenches would rebel.

He will tinker pointlessly around the edges and then go down with the ship.

Best thing he could do is call an early election on the issue for a mandate, but the guy is a coward so we will have 3 years 11 months of the country going up in smoke instead.

I've just re-read the ECHR. The principle of non-refoulement is absolute: "they do not allow for any derogation, exception or limitation. The prohibition of refoulement applies both at the border and within the territory of a state"

Which of course means the mid-point of the channel where British and French waters meet. There is no "international" zone and the French will always escort out migrants until they've hit British waters.

Snookered.

Under the European Convention of Human Rights don't see any way out of this. Unless the ECHR is fundamentally reformed, we will have to opt out, modify the 1998 Human Rights Act and derogate from the 1951 Refugee Convention.

I don't see any alternative.

https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/fra-coe-2020-european-law-land-borders_en.pdf