Britain's new refugee policy shows human rights are just a ruse

On March 7, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak revealed a new policy line titled "Stop the Boats" ― a hardline anti-refugee policy which seeks to curb illegal crossings of the English Channel, a longstanding controversy in British politics whereby migrants have sought to enter the UK via France using small rafts, a process which has often proven fatal. The new policy poses to render all such entries into the UK as illegal and seek to deport those who are court.

On a chilling graphic uploaded to Twitter, Sunak stated those entering the UK illegally "can't benefit from our modern slavery protections" and "can't make spurious human rights claims." The announcement was widely criticized, including by United Nations officials, and comes amidst the prime minister's party facing record unpopularity for a series of scandals which brought down his predecessors, leading to him playing the "anti-immigrant card" to drum up populist support, a tactic which has been characteristic of the Conservative Party since Boris Johnson's rule.

The explicit comments on human slavery and human rights demonstrate the innate hypocrisy in Britain's policies both at home and abroad, given that in both circumstances the UK has vitriolically criticized China on behalf of the United States, particularly in respect to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. In making these comments, Sunak explicitly affirms that "forced labor" or "human slavery" practices are fair game to happen in his own country to those who are entering illegally, irrespective if they have been trafficked or not, yet has been willing to use the human rights card to push an agenda against China. This illustrates a shocking set of double standards.

It has long been the case, for both the United Kingdom and of course, the United States, the moral rhetoric of "protecting human rights" is merely a means to an end to advance given geopolitical objectives, and is applied in terms of geopolitical opportunism as opposed to moral absolutism. In particular, the United States seen the accusations of "genocide" pertaining to Xinjiang as a means of "manufacturing consent" for turning public opinion against China in Western countries, in order to create political justification for containment foreign policies, as well as technological sanctions.

In conjunction with this, claims of forced labor were used to push "protectionist"-based policies to push critical supply chains from China in order to force preferential decoupling in America's favor, this was most clear in the example of solar panels, where the US used forced labor as a ruse to ban imports from China while aiming to subsidize their own industry. The United Kingdom has been quick to echo these policies, in particular by following US sanctions against Chinese entities in Xinjiang and rolling out "anti forced labor" measures in late 2020 which implicitly targeted China. Right-wing MPs in the Conservative Party have also put pressure on the government over the issue.

However, it is clear that when it comes to British "domestic" politics, the topic of human rights is suddenly rendered as a negative topic for the government which is ironically framed as contravening national sovereignty. Since the reign of Boris Johnson, the Conservative Party has taken a hard-right turn which sees it espouse populism and nationalism, shifting away from its focus on liberal pro-market economics, this has combined itself with a hyper-nationalist foreign policy which draws upon the rhetoric of "British exceptionalism" and frames China in increasingly antagonistic terms, despite the fact that in light of Brexit, China is needed an economic partner.

In light of this, the same preaching against China the US pushed issues of "forced labor" or "human slavery" suddenly have no application whatsoever, and the British government utilizes hardline rhetoric against rhetoric about migrants even to the extent of openly flouting their respective human rights. This only shows that when British politicians are "concerned" about the human rights situation in China, it is little more than a ruse in order to placate the geopolitical objectives of the United States, and ultimately the British state has little actual interest in human rights as a moral end in itself, as well as clear-cut double standards.

Ultimately, while every nation has the right to protect their own borders and emphasize their own national sovereignty, the British government is making a mockery out of human rights standards and policies by making it crystal-cut clear that they will violate such things as they please in the pursuit of national interest, but still reserve the right to frame themselves as "exceptional" in using the rhetoric of human rights to attack others.

(The author, a postgraduate student of Chinese studies at Oxford University, is an English analyst on international relations. The views are his own.)