The British Rwanda Act is a grotesque monument to the administrative panic raging in the West about migration

The eventual passage of the famous Rwanda Bill in the British Parliament could well have been a historic moment. But not in the way the conservative Sunak government hopes. The law will be historic, just as in some countries large, expensive, useless airport or station buildings remain as historical memorials to the administrative madness of the era in which they were built.

With the Rwanda Act, the British government wants to be able to forward to Rwanda prospective asylum seekers who came to the United Kingdom illegally via a ‘safe country’ such as France or Belgium. Reception centers there will check whether the asylum application is valid, after which asylum in Africa can be granted.

The British law is a grotesque monument to the desperation and administrative panic raging in Western welfare states over migration. Anyone who thinks about the law for more than five seconds realizes that he cannot work decently. Yet the Sunak government, which may be convincingly voted out of office this year, is celebrating this as a great success and proof of decisiveness and control. Everything to confirm the obsession with migration among part of the politicians and the population.

It becomes a painful and extremely expensive illusion. The Rwanda law cannot work. There is the moral argument. It requires a great deal of ethical and legal flexibility to label Rwanda as a safe destination. The African country has a bad reputation for dealing with migrants. That will be an argument for some to certainly send them there, because we have come so far in this debate, but in practice it will lead to legal challenges and procedural battles.

It is certain that this bitter joke will cost a lot of money. The UK is already paying Rwanda at least 570 million euros, even before the first asylum seeker has flown. Another 200,000 euros per person will be added once the system is up and running. The total bill could run into the billions.

The British government says that the benefit lies in the deterrent effect: if they see that they end up in Rwanda, migrants will automatically stay away. Just about every migration expert highly doubts this. As long as the UK remains a country of arrival with great job opportunities and prosperity, mass migration will continue. British migration criticism remains hypocritical as long as it is combined with a blind eye to the massive and often precarious and illegal employment of migrants in the engine rooms of its own economy.

The same criticism also applies to the rest of Europe. The growing resistance to mass migration among a large part of the population is a political fact. But good governance also requires cool-headedness and effectiveness when it comes to migration. In Flanders, Vlaams Belang and N-VA support the British Rwanda policy. They wander.

Better, faster procedures to prevent congestion in reception and illegal residence and a clear European vision on labor migration will help more than expensive symbolic politics. A cynic would say: fortunately there is now the Rwanda law to prove that.