Not all human lives hold equal value for this government

It’s not clear what Priti Patel, the home secretary, must have been thinking when she allowed Yvette Cooper, Labour MP and chair of the Home Affairs Committee, to visit the places used to hold asylum seekers in Kent.

Conditions were found to be “shocking”, according to the stiff subsequent letter from Ms Cooper to Ms Patel.

In any case, it is no way to treat human beings. The descriptions of overcrowded, unsuitable and inadequate facilities ring all too true because of what is already known about the various ex-army barracks used to house asylum seekers and the notorious Yarl’s Wood detention centre.

Even if every single one of the asylum seekers has their application denied after due process, there is still no excuse for keeping them in conditions that would shame a prison.

It is doubly alarming that little effort seems to have been made to make the premises Covid secure, given the paranoia about variants being imported (and the reality is that asylum seekers are probably more likely to pick up Covid-19 in Britain).

Women and children are often kept in close company with young single men they do not know, there are generally few places to sleep and little privacy. If the old, and useful, maxim of “do as you would be done by” is applied, then it is unlikely that Ms Patel would consider such facilities suitable for herself and her family.

The “hostile environment” approach seems to be being applied in as vicious, almost vindictive a manner as ever. Report after report, investigations by MPs and the media, complaints from human rights groups and charities… none seem to have had the slightest impact on Ms Patel, who has cheerfully taken on hardline policies.

In a rational, fair, world it is difficult to see why she should avoid at least some harsh words from a judicial review. She claims consistently to have improved the facilities; but they remain unsatisfactory.

That may come, though, from local authorities such as Kent County Council and Brighton and Hove Council, who have protested that they cannot honour their statutory obligations to protect the welfare and education of refugee children.

The Home Office and the Department for Education cannot escape their responsibilities indefinitely simply because they don’t happen to like the way people arrived and they have decided, with no official assessment or court hearing, that they must all be “illegal” and therefore not entitled to their human rights.

In reality, many of the people arriving are escaping terror and persecution, while others are fleeing their homelands because nearby wars and chaos leave them with no alternative – technically economic migrants, but in reality, refugees just the same. Perhaps some could stay in France or Italy, but if they make it to Britain then they are legal asylum seekers until judged otherwise, and, either way, they have an equal claim to universal human rights.

The pity of it is that Ms Patel and her colleagues understand that perfectly well, but choose not to care, because to them, not all lives are equal.