[A-List] UK state: the moral maze

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Iraq And A Hard Place

Britain's moral case for war is to liberate the Iraqi people from a brutal
regime. But where is the morality in David Blunkett's inhuman attitude to
those same people when they seek asylum in this country?
Ian Bell
The Sunday Herald, 23 February 2003

WHAT is the blood price at the moment? Without having checked the Footsie
lately, I am sincerely curious. What should intermittent liberals in search
of a moral case, who understand these things better than the survivors
might, put the Iraqis down for? Thirty thousand? Forty thousand? Can I get a
quote, do we think, on the ethical futures market?

While we're at it, can someone give me odds on the bonus bomb, the one that
might, as a wholly unintended consequence of American actions, liberate a
nation, build it a democracy, spare it military government and a new set of
ominous moustaches, stabilise the entire Middle East, put Arab oligarchs to
flight, bring justice to Palestine and the Kurds, cause the Republican right
to renounce its every conviction, and allow all the refugees to go home?

Fantasy geopolitics is childish stuff, I realise. I thought as much last
weekend while ambling up the slope of Glasgow's St Vincent Street, handily
outpaced by platoons of senior citizens and squadrons of infants in
pushchairs.

We knew by then that Tony Blair would not be waiting to greet us at the end
of our ramble. Reports were coming in that he had already been fully briefed
by Dr John -- the Night Tripper -- Reid.

'Aye, Tony, it's true. Those anti-war fiends have resorted to moral
arguments. There's only one thing for it: we'll just have to use one, too.'

Dr John knew as well as we did that marching was more or less a waste of
time. The first drafts of history were already being composed, after all, by
colleagues in the commentating game. Forgetting everything they had ever
written about apathy, impotence and voting habits, they would advise that
strong prime ministers should not be swayed by the multitudes. They would
note that people -- even 'the people' -- can be dangerously naive at times.
And then they would helpfully echo this week's argument for
war-in-the-name-of-peace: innocent blood will be on the hands of those who
would rather not have innocent blood on their hands.

It is not known whether David Blunkett was consulted on this strategy, but
his support can be taken for granted. In a tight race, the Home Secretary is
now possibly the most repellent minister in the Blair cabinet. This is less
because of the policies he espouses -- they are all in this together, after
all -- than because of the evident relish with which he espouses those
policies and the furious contempt he showers on anyone who happens to
disagree with them. Thus, no sooner had Blunkett's boss put forward the
moral case for Iraq's speedy return to the stone age last week than the
minister in charge of England's civil liberties was back behind the
microphone.

The high court in London had decided that new rules introduced in January
under section 55 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 were a
violation of the European convention on human rights, now incorporated into
British law. According to Mr Justice Collins, offering genuine refugees the
choice between destitution and a return to persecution, with no right of
appeal, because they failed to apply for asylum at the port of their arrival
was not the behaviour of a civilised country. Depriving them of all
benefits -- the stratagem favoured by Blunkett and Blair in their efforts to
halve the number of asylum-seekers -- was simply inhuman.

The Home Secretary was not best pleased by this piece of judicial
effrontery. 'Frankly,' he said, 'I am personally fed up with having to deal
with a situation where parliament debates issues and the judges then
overturn them. We were aware of the circumstances, we did mean what we said
and, on behalf of the British people we are going to implement it.'
Apparently forgetting that his new rules had been declared illegal, Blunkett
added that the government intended to reverse the judge's decision.

So far, so despicably populist. There were, nevertheless, nuances to this
affair that the government did not care to advertise. The judge was ruling
on test cases involving six asylum-seekers, each of whom had experienced
rape, violence or threats to their lives in their own countries.

Perhaps this was none of Britain's affair -- though it ought to be, under
international treaty -- but that wasn't the half of it. One of the six,
shoved out onto the streets by Blunkett's minions, denied food, clothing and
shelter, his plea for asylum rejected, just happens to be a young Iraqi
Kurd.

Think about it. His people might be the beneficiary of Blair's 'moral
argument.' Their desperation might form the ethical justification for acts
of war. But if desperation brought one 20-year-old to these shores he could
starve for all official Britain cared. And how dare any judge say that this
might just be wrong?

When you dig a little deeper, the Prime Minister's burning compassion for
the fate of Iraqis, in or out of the firing line, becomes still harder to
quantify. In the third quarter of 2002, the authorities received 22,560
applications for asylum. Of these, for the third consecutive quarter, Iraqis
formed the 'highest applicant nationality.' In three months, 4300
applications were received from people fleeing Iraq, more than twice the
number from the second-largest group, Zimbabweans.

Given the nature of Saddam's regime, this might make Britain sound rather
noble. Who could doubt that we are doing our bit? But remember, first, that
only 10% of asylum applications were accepted in the period in question.

A further 22% may have been granted 'exceptional leave to remain' but 68%
were refused point blank. Indeed, in 2001 some 21,220 applicants were
refused on simple non-compliance grounds, mainly because they failed to
complete a 'statement of evidence' form, on time and in English. In other
words, no one even bothered to find out if those people were in need of
refuge.

And what, in any case, of the largesse denied to our 20-year-old before the
high court stepped in? Under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 asylum
seekers were removed from the welfare system. Their care was handed over to
the National Asylum Support Service and it, in turn, established a system
whereby refugees would be entitled to vouchers, exchangeable for cash, worth
70% of basic income support if they could prove they had no other means.
This was the system Blunkett was attempting to undermine.

And what a system. You can be the sponger made legendary by the tabloids or
the wretched supplicant fleeing terror; it makes no odds. NASS grants a
single adult capable of fighting through the bureaucracy and winning an
appeal on his application (79% are dismissed) the sum of £37.77 a week. A
couple will get £59.26. And our young Iraqi Kurd, part of the 18-24 age
group, will now receive £29.89, much to Blunkett's evident disgust.

The youth may have voted with his feet against Saddam; he may be one of the
refugees demanding that Blair press on quickly with his moral war. But
because he didn't get his form in on time -- and because he wasn't supposed
to get his form in on time -- the Home Secretary is spitting blood over
£29.89.

Why starve in Kurdistan when you can starve on the streets of London? And
why look for moral arguments in the Middle East when you can find them on
your own doorstep?

In the third quarter of 2002, some 19,470 applications for NASS support were
received. Nineteen per cent of these -- 3665 -- were made by people who had
come from Iraq. In July of last year a joint report by Oxfam and the Refugee
Council argued that such people were living with poverty levels and
hardships unacceptable in any civilised society.

Yet even as Blair picks his way through his tortuous argument for
liberation-through-incineration, here is Blunkett fuming because some judge
is applying the law and preventing him from piling on more poverty and still
more hardships.

Compassion? Not by any definition I can discover. Sincerity? Blair's
constipated efforts before a captive audience in Glasgow betrayed only a
sincere desperation.

But he has one consolation. The chances are that a majority of the Iraqi
refugees in this country really do want Saddam overthrown by force as soon
as possible. It is, after all, the best hope they have of getting out of
Britain.