The process of
auto-beatification among the educated in the West seems more prevalent than
ever. Possessed, as they believe, of knowledge, wisdom, and generosity, they
believe also that they are the conscience of society who therefore ought
rightly play a directing role in it. They have what Thomas Sowell, the great
American economist and social theorist, calls “the vision of the anointed,”
derogation from which would be a sign of moral and intellectual weakness. For
them, all desiderata are reconcilable, and the world can be made not only just,
but fair. Perhaps not coincidentally, the cost of all this will be borne by
others.
The British Supreme
Court has just ruled that the government’s plan to deport people to Rwanda who
arrive illegally in the country in boats across the English Channel, with the
intention of claiming asylum, is illegal. I never thought much of the plan from
the practical point of view; like most attempts by the British government to
deal with any problem, in this case that of the large number of unauthorized
immigrants arriving in the country each year, it was destined to fail.
But the Supreme
Court’s decision is instructive of the state of mind of the ruling elite, not
only in Britain but in much of the Western world. The reason given for its
ruling was that the safety of the deportees to Rwanda could not be guaranteed,
in the sense that they might be returned from the country from which they had
fled, or at least from which they had emigrated. It is illegal under
international law to return asylum-seekers to their countries of origin before
their claims to asylum have been properly heard and investigated, or even to
put them at risk of such return. No doubt in some narrow sense, then, the
judges were right: They have to interpret the law as it is, not as it ought to
be, and (from experience of giving testimony in British courts) I have a high
regard for the intellectual ability of British judges.
“Their lives would
not be put at risk through political persecution in France, and in essence they
arrive in Britain not through necessity, but by choice.”
Yet the judgment is
completely disconnected from social reality in a wider sense. The first and
most important disconnection is that the vast majority of the alleged
asylum-seekers are in no sense refugees at all when they arrive. They arrive
from countries such as France, and it is an insult to such countries to suggest
that they would not be safe to remain in them.
A friend of mine
who works as a translator during the investigations of claimants to asylum
tells me that, apart from the fact that almost all of the asylum-seekers lie
about their histories in the most evident way, they reply to the question, “Why
did you not claim asylum in France?” by saying that there was no accommodation
for them there, that they would have had to sleep under bridges, and that
Britain was the only country in which human rights were truly respected. This,
of course, is nonsense; their lives would not be put at risk through political
persecution in France, and in essence they arrive in Britain not through
necessity, but by choice. This is not asylum; it is migration. Of course, they
have their reasons for wishing to migrate, and it must be conceded that those
who undertake the hazardous journey are strongly motivated, often by
unfortunate past circumstances. This is not the same as fleeing persecution,
however, for which the institution of asylum is intended.
In practice, the
judges’ ruling meant that vanishingly few illegal immigrants claiming asylum
can be removed from the country, for the proper investigation of their claims
is time-consuming when possible, and is often impossible; moreover, it is
subject to lengthy appeal procedures once an initial decision has been reached.
The countries to which failed asylum-seekers ought to be returned might refuse
to accept them because they, the asylum-seekers, have taken great care to
destroy any documentary evidence proving their citizenship of that country. If
the onus is on the authorities to disprove a claim, then, in effect it means
that the vast majority of claims will have to be accepted, virtually sight
unseen. All attempts at control numbers will be nugatory and might as well be
abandoned, for all their statistical effect.
The judges’ ruling
would apply no matter how many asylum-seekers there were: If 10 million were to
arrive in a year, or even in a day, their principle would apply as much as if
there were only one. With net migration into the country running at between 1
and 2 percent of the total population a year, if this were to continue (though
let it be remembered that a projection is not a prediction), nearly half of the
population in 25 years would consist of migrants. The national interest, or
even survival, does not enter into the judges’ opinion, and in normal
circumstances it should not, for it is for the government rather than for the
courts to defend the national interest; but now the law in effect prevents the
government from doing so.
I cannot be
certain, but I surmise that the judges felt pretty pleased with themselves
after they passed their judgment. They had protected the weak and vulnerable
from the privileged and the strong, or so they probably believed (among other
things by imposing on the latter obligations, such as the provision of food and
shelter); and who does not feel pleased with himself after he has performed an
act of gallantry, or after giving succor to an underdog?
If an article
in The Daily Telegraph written anonymously by a civil servant
working in the department of state concerned with immigration is to be
believed, the vast majority working in that department rejoiced at the judges’
ruling, not because they thought it just, but because they are opposed
ideologically to the very idea of controlling immigration. They do not consider
themselves citizens of any particular country, least of all their own, but of
the world, and their moral duty is to the whole of humanity, not to any
particular group of people. There is obviously a certain grandiosity in this.
Their view is that of someone I know in France who says in defense of mass
immigration that no one is an immigrant to Earth.
I used to feel
contempt for Freud’s concept of the death instinct, but now I see it at work,
disguised as a certain moral pride, in whole countries and societies.
Theodore
Dalrymple’s latest book is Ramses: A Memoir, published by New
English Review.
Migration,
Not Asylum - Taki's Magazine (takimag.com)
