PRITI PATEL’S plan to deny asylum to people who arrive in Britain illegally is “unlawful” and risks “breaking international law,” lawyers and human rights groups said today.

In a speech to the Conservative Party’s virtual conference today, the Home Secretary announced plans for the biggest overhaul of the asylum system in decades.

The current system is “fundamentally broken,” she said, as she launched plans to replace it with a “fair and firm” one.

But her proposals drew immediate criticism from immigration lawyers, who claimed that certain details risk breaching international law.

Concerns were raised in particular about proposals to introduce a legal assumption that people who use illegal routes to come to Britain would not be granted asylum. 

“The way people arrive in our country makes no difference to how their asylum is treated,” Ms Patel said. 

“We will make more immediate returns of those who come here illegally and break our rules every single week.” 

But Duncan Lewis Solicitors stressed that asylum-seekers could not be penalised for their manner of entry into a state. 

“In terms of changing the process for asylum-seekers who’ve arrived irregularly, the 1951 Refugee Convention says that people have a right to seek asylum and should not be penalised for the route used to do this,” the lawyers told the Morning Star.

“Failing to recognise that is a failure to recognise refugee law at its most basic and its most elemental.

“So this could risk breaching domestic human rights law and going against the UK’s obligations under international law.”

Detention Action director Bella Sankey said that the proposals would “turn the clock back on over 50 years of progress on refugee protection.

“They are neither lawful, operationally workable, fair or compassionate,” she said. 

“We will defeat them in court, but in the meantime lives will likely be lost.” 

Plans to tighten laws which ensure that asylum claimants cannot launch “endless claims to remain in the country” also raised alarm. 

Refugees often rely on the courts to give them protection from hostile Home Office decision-making. This year the proportion of asylum appeals granted was 45 per cent — the highest it has been in a decade — according to the Refugee Council. 

Human rights groups have long called for an overhaul of the asylum system, which is notoriously bureaucratic and slow.

Asylum-seekers can be stuck in limbo for years while waiting for a decision on their claim despite the government’s six-month target. 

Ms Patel said that she wanted to fix the backlog in cases — the Home Office is currently processing 40,000 claims — and ensure that asylum-seekers were given swift decisions. 

Refugee Action chief executive Stephen Hale said: “After years of hostile and uncompassionate policymaking, it’s a positive step forward that the Home Secretary has realised what we’ve been trying to tell her: the asylum system is not fair or effective.

“And the Home Secretary is right, the logjam which means that some decisions are taking years is having an appalling effect on people and costing the taxpayer a fortune. 

“She could fix these by giving people seeking the asylum the right to work, along with quicker decisions and better support for people navigating this complex system.” 

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But human rights groups also fear that moves to speed up the process could come at the expense of asylum-seekers’ ability to have their claim fairly heard, and warned against the toughening of policy when just 53 per cent of initial decisions result in the granting of asylum or another form of protection. 

Minnie Rahman, public affairs and campaigns officer for the Joint Council for Welfare Of Immigrants, said: “Patel’s speech shows scant understanding of the proven inefficiency and inhumanity of the Home Office decision-making process. 

“It shows little care for the suffering caused by the political imperative to accept as few asylum-seekers as possible.”

Ms Rahman said the Home Secretary must “implement workable solutions” to overhaul the asylum system, including “more safe and legal routes to claim asylum so that people do not risk death in their quest to reach safety.” 
 
Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said that the Tories had recently showed that they not “learned any lessons at all, with unconscionable, absurd proposals about floating walls and creating waves in the English Channel to push back boats … 

“The truth is that the Tories are devoid of compassion and competence.”