Gaza and Rwanda highlight continuing failure of British democracy

Nor is it just Labour’s credibility that was shot last night when its “progressive” MPs helped defeat the SNP’s Gaza ceasefire call.

Amazing isn’t it that humanitarian Stephen Flynn who wrote to all MPs begging them to save children’s lives is “hard man of the year” at Westminster, simply because he’s a working-class Scot, tall, unflinching and able to speak without notes or hesitation.

In fact, the real hard man in the Commons is suave Sir Keir Starmer – a man who insists Israel has the right to starve Gaza citizens and will bend his party completely out of shape to support this morally bankrupt line.

No, beyond this twin party-political failure by the Big Two yesterday, British democracy itself roundly failed.

READ MORE: Palestinians deserve answers as to their future beyond a ceasefire

Consider. Some 70% of the public back a ceasefire in Gaza.

In what way did the UK Government or His Majesty’s Opposition speak for them? In fact, the only party that chimes with British public opinion on Gaza (and indeed Brexit) is the party that wants to quit the UK. How does that work? Where is the maturity on these massive issues from a single unionist party at Westminster?

It’s worse than a total mismatch between the government and the governed.

British democracy is now so hopelessly mired in pseudo politics and culture wars it would be laughable if it weren’t so damned serious.

Look first at the Tories.

In response to the Supreme Court veto, the Prime Minister says he will tear up international conventions, overhaul domestic laws and pass “emergency laws” – whatever objections are generated by “foreign courts” – to make Rwanda fit for purpose.

He’ll simply add Rwanda to the “safe-list”, asserting what his government could not prove, and placing Britain back into the category of dodgy international law-breaker first “achieved” by Boris Johnson when he threatened to dump the Northern Ireland protocol.

Passing new laws will take time and encounter massive opposition in civic society and the lawyer-stacked Lords. But hey, who cares? It’ll all be worth it, because… Well why? Why soldier on with this discredited, failed policy?

READ MORE: No excuse for turning our eyes away from atrocities

Is it to enable the wet dream of a disgraced Home Secretary who fantasised about shipping terrified people on to planes – and remember all asylum seekers would be on board, not just those whose applications had failed?

Hardly. Suella Braverman ain’t as popular in the country as she is in the looney tunes department of the Tory Party. Some 71% of those polled by You Gov supported her sacking (with don’t knows removed).

Nope. Rwanda deportations are far more than a revolting preoccupation of a disgraced politician.

Rwanda is all about tokenism – and tokenism is the meat and drink of the Mother of Parliaments.

Never mind that trying to make Rwanda acceptable to Tories will waste yet more government effort, parliamentary time and taxpayer cash. The deportation policy work would only ever deal with around 1% of Europe’s largest processing backlog.

The same empty but politically useful tokenism surrounds the accursed Bibby Stockholm barge, which could only ever house 1% of the 51,000 people stuck in hotels, awaiting decisions which take far longer than in France or Germany.

But hey. This debate isn’t about sorting the asylum-seeking problem. Nor is it about putting the situation into any perspective.

Some 70% of applications for refugee status in 2022 were successful and a third of those rejected were overturned on appeal. The vast majority of asylum seekers are totally genuine claimants.

And there’s more.

Britain has only a fraction of the European asylum seeking total with 89,398 applicants in 2022, compared to Germany (243,835), France (156,455) and Spain (117,945). So, Rwanda isn’t about protecting Britain against a “tsunami” of migrants.

It’s about tokenism, bluster, exaggeration, distraction and incitement. You know – what Westminster really does best.

MPs and voters should now be debating a workable asylum policy that tackles the real drivers of global displacement – war, persecution, hunger and drought. Instead, the Mother of Parliaments and the British airwaves are stuck in childish, petty debate provoked by total outliers. As usual.

An hour after the Supreme Court verdict, Tory MP Brendan Clarke Smith (I’ve no idea either) retweeted the outrageous 2016 Daily Mail headline “Enemies of the People”, published after three judges insisted MPs had to have a say before Brexit was triggered. Democracy – you know. That old one.

Within minutes, Lee Anderson, the bam who is deputy chairman of the Tory Party, called for Sunak to “ignore the law” and deport asylum seekers the same day they arrive.

Yip, the bidding war had well and truly begun and no self-respecting swivelled-eyed right-wing loon will now be left out.

READ MORE: Tories claim public wants to 'ignore' Supreme Court Rwanda ruling

Give it a day and the Daily Mail will launch a campaign to quit the ECHR and “take back control of our borders” in a Brexit 2.0 act of pointless self-harm dressed up as strength.

Yes – it is ridiculous. The pro Rwanda lobby is a motley crew few Scots would imagine capable of inciting anything. But look at their impact, skewing “normal” debate to the far right and you can see what’s happening. The next government of the UK – the Labour Party – is leaning rightward just to enter the argument and try to win votes. It’s depressing and scary.

Rwanda was just a fig leaf, designed to distract public opinion from the Tories non-existent policy on asylum seeking. Now that fig-leaf has fallen off. And no amount of treaty-writing or beefed-up training for Rwandan officials will pin it back on.

A leaked September 2020 telegram from the British embassy in Rwanda stated that opposition activists had been disappeared or killed and advised “not to pursue Rwanda as an option”.

The UNHCR confirmed Rwanda clandestinely sent Afghan asylum seekers back to Afghanistan. Hundreds, if not thousands, of asylum seekers, deported from Israel to Rwanda, were quietly expelled to a neighbouring country without being allowed to claim asylum.

Rwanda is not safe for asylum seekers. Full stop.

And yet the policy limps on.

All to prop up a plan Sunak “may have privately called batshit” – according to Labour’s Yvette Cooper A gimmick, magical thinking and nonsense combined.

But attractive in a simplistic way to MPs who favour the crash bang wallop school of governance and voters schooled into believing might is right and understanding asylum seeking drivers is hopelessly soppy and weak. You reap what you sow.

And the main parties at Westminster have sown suspicion, hysteria and half solutions.

One minute Rishi Sunak is promising to tear up laws and international conventions that block Rwanda deportations. The next minute he insists Israel will be made to abide by international law.

Does no-one see the problem? Does no-one care?

Last night, as hundreds and maybe thousands of pro-ceasefire protesters gathered outside Westminster, Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy stood at the despatch box posturing, hair-splitting but failing to answer a series of questions from members of every party. It was an excruciating prelude to the vote on Labour’s hastily cobbled together amendment on Gaza, which matched the Tories by calling for a pause not a “ceasefire”.

This was defeated after speculation Tories might support it to stop the SNP’s ceasefire motion being put. But that didn’t happen.

Flynn’s motion was also defeated.

But within that vote a rare, genuine, Commons upset took place. With only 43 SNP MPs, the amendment attracted 82 supporters from other parties.

Starmer may think he has survived a difficult day. But with leading members of his shadow cabinet backing the SNP’s ceasefire, he must now sack MPs who broke ranks and stumble on as if nothing’s happened. That will prove impossible. Violence in Gaza continues unabated.

Meanwhile in Scottish Labour, ceasefire-supporting MSPs like Richard Leonard, Monica Lennon, Katy Clark, Carol Mochan, Alex Rowley, Paul Sweeney, Foysol Choudhury, and Mercedes Villalba must cosy up to two Scottish Labour MPs who stepped into line with Starmer and out of line with Anas Sarwar.

Flynn and the SNP stood by their convictions. The Westminster parties did not.

The reverberations of yesterday at Westminster will take a very long time to subside.