Compared with most other countries in Europe and indeed globally, the UK receives a low proportion of the number of people seeking asylum.1 This is in part because the means of safely entering the UK through routes authorised by the government are available to a relatively meagre number of refugees and people seeking asylum.2 For those who do have their claim determined in the UK, the grant rate i. [...] Harms endured by clients and which drove them onwards to the UK included violence, exploitation, and detention; stigma and racism; destitution and the lack of access to medical and legal services; asylum denial or the inability to access asylum procedures; and the need to create distance from the torture they fled – including torture experienced en route. [...] ■ Recognising that pressures on the UK asylum system are the result of mismanagement and a lack of political will, and that the UK has the capacity and public support to meet its obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention and the UN Convention against Torture. [...] A partnership approach, built on principles of international solidarity and the autonomy of the individual, and in respect of all necessary procedural safeguards, would establish safe channels for the managed movement of some refugees between the EU and the UK, build protection capacity in Europe, and facilitate more effective and coordinated life-saving rescue operations in the Channel. [...] The United Nations refugee agency has condemned the policy as violating both the letter and the spirit of the Refugee Convention, demonstrating the extraordinary efforts the UK is undertaking to take an exceptional position in regard to international refugee law.24 According to the UN refugee agency, the inadmissibility clauses codified in the Act ‘impermissibly externalise the UK’s obligations to.
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