Back in March I sent an open email to Theresa May questioning the legality of her proposal to set a quota on the number of asylum seekers in the UK.
In my view, that approach could violate international law.
In response, I received an evasive, generic letter that manages to ignore all the main points and conveniently avoids any discussion of whether a quota would be illegal.
The letter aims to clarify the UK’s position and suggests that the government may have abandoned quotas (a key feature of Theresa May’s new policy as announced at the Tory party conference in 2015). It now seems to favour targeted resettlement of vulnerable persons who are based in regions of conflict.
Potentially, this looks like a significant policy wobble and casts doubt over the new Prime Minister’s willingness to draw up sensible and lawful plans for asylum seekers.
Read it in full below.
To put some of the figures mentioned below in context, the UK hosts under 1% of the world’s refugees.
