With a disregard for people’s lives, countries from the UK to Poland are toughening up, as if in preparation for climate displacement
It is bad enough when states break their own rules and mistreat people – but it’s when they start to change the rules that we really need to worry. Three recent stories, from three different corners of Europe, suggest that governments are crossing a new threshold of violence in terms of how they police their borders. These developments are harmful in their own right, but they also set a disturbing precedent for how countries in rich parts of the world might deal with future displacements of people – not just from war and persecution, but from the climate crisis as well.
In the UK, the Home Office has quietly tried to amend its draconian nationality and borders bill, currently at committee stage, by introducing a provision that gives Border Force staff immunity from prosecution if they fail to save lives at sea. Priti Patel, the home secretary, claims this is an essentially benevolent measure: if boats in the Channel are turned around, it will eventually stop people attempting the dangerous trip in the first place. In fact, it undermines a key principle of international maritime law that makes it a duty to rescue people in distress.