(LONDON) The spiritual leader of the Anglican Church Justin Welby strongly criticized the British government’s controversial illegal immigration bill on Wednesday, calling it “morally unacceptable”.
Before the House of Lords, which is studying the text and of which he is a member, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, called on the Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to reconsider this bill.
It aims to drastically restrict the right to asylum in order to put an end to illegal crossings of the Channel. It effectively makes asylum inaccessible to migrants who have arrived illegally, most often crossing the Channel in an inflatable boat.
It provides for the rapid deportation of illegally arrived migrants and prohibits them from seeking asylum and subsequently settling in the UK or applying for British nationality. It also facilitates the detention of migrants until their deportation to a third country deemed safe, such as Rwanda.
I urge the government to reconsider a large part of the bill, which does not live up to our history, our moral responsibility and our political and international interests.
the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby
“It is morally unacceptable and politically impractical to leave the poorest countries to deal with the crisis alone,” said Justin Welby, the most senior Anglican Church official in the UK since 2013.
The project “risks serious damage to the interests and reputation of the United Kingdom […]not to mention the interests of those in need of protection”.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, who crowned Charles III and his wife Camilla on May 6, accused the government of “cruelty”.
In everyday life The Times, Interior Minister Suella Braverman defended her “robust measures”. “We urge the House of Lords […] to remember that the Bill is designed to respond to the will of the British people in a humane and fair way and to support the Bill,” she wrote, in a text co-signed with the Minister for Justice Alex Chalk.
Rishi Sunak has made the fight against illegal immigration a priority after a year 2022 when arrivals of migrants on small boats via the Channel exceeded 45,000, a record.
His bill was criticized by many international organizations.
The Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, Dunja Mijatovic, called on British parliamentarians to oppose it, denouncing its “incompatibility” with the United Kingdom’s international obligations.