Civil Servants Threaten to Strike Over Rwanda Policy

An inflatable craft carrying illegal immigrants crosses the shipping lane in the English Channel off the coast of Dover, England, on Aug. 4, 2022. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

A union representing Home Office workers has threatened to strike over the government’s plan to send illegal immigrants to Rwanda.

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union has already been involved in a legal challenge against the policy.

The union’s head of bargaining Paul O’Connor said some civil servants fear they would be forced to carry out a policy that may be proved unlawful, and that the union won’t rule anything out in terms of its responses.

The threat has triggered a furious backlash from senior conservative politicians, with former minister Jacob Rees-Mogg saying whoever strikes over the policy should quit or be fired.

Under the government’s plan, anyone who enters the UK via illegal means, expect unaccompanied children, can be detained and relocated to a “safe third country like Rwanda” for processing and potential settlement unless they are unfit to fly or at a real risk of serious and irreversible harm in that country. They will also be banned from re-entering the UK.

No one has been removed to Rwanda so far after the first deportation flight was emptied by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), but home secretaries will be given the option to ignore future ECHR injunctions if the government’s Illegal Migration Bill is passed into law in its current form.

Police officers stand near a plane reported by British media to be first to transport illegal immigrants to Rwanda at MoD Boscombe Down base in Wiltshire, Britain, on June 14, 2022. Hannah McKay /Reuters

In a victory for the government, the High Court in London has ruled that its Rwanda policy is lawful (pdf). The Claimants, including the PCS union, charities Care4Calais and Detention Action, and several individuals, have brought the case to the Court of Appeal.

The Independent on Wednesday quoted O’Connor as saying the PCS union, whose members include Border Force staff and other Home Office workers, is “ruling absolutely nothing out in terms of responses.”

He told the publication that the government’s policy is harming the mental health of some civil servants, who “feel if they were put in a position where they had to carry out an act that was subsequently proved to be unlawful, they themselves might be open to prosecution.”

“If any litigation fails, they will want to explore with us whether there’s an industrial solution,” O’Connor said.

Rees-Mogg: Civil Servants Can’t Strike Over Policy

Rees-Mogg, a Conservative former minister who also has a show on GBNews, told the broadcaster that civil servants who go on strike over a government policy instead of quitting should be fired.

“It’s a fundamental opposition to the whole basis of our Constitution that has an apolitical civil service that carries out the lawful instructions of the elected government. Any Home Office civil servant who fails to do that should be fired,” he said.

He also agreed with the suggestion that civils servants who go on strike over government policies should lose their pensions.

Rees-Mogg noted that it remains to been seen whether members of the union will “actually vote for a strike” and that he hopes that “civil servants will disassociate themselves with this hard left union.”

Former minister David Jones, deputy chair of the European Research Group, told The Independent civil servants “can’t pick and choose between policies” and those who do are ”in the wrong job.”

The Hope Hostel, where migrants were meant to stay after arriving from the UK on a deportation flight, in Kigali, Rwanda, on June 16, 2022. Victoria Jones/PA Media

A Home Office spokesperson said civil servants in the department “work tirelessly to deliver ground-breaking policies, such as the Illegal Migration Bill.”

“We have always maintained that the UK and Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership is lawful, including complying with the Refugee Convention, and last year the High Court upheld this. We stand ready to continue to defend the policy against legal challenge,” the statement reads.

The government has argued that the Rwanda policy is needed to deter dangerous people smuggling across the English Channel on small boats and that it’s unnecessary for asylum seekers to leave France for the UK.

Critics of the policy argue there are not enough “safe and legal routes” for asylum seekers to enter the island country and disputed Rwanda’s human rights record.

The PCS union’s threat to strike came as an audit report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said the UK’s asylum registration and screening systems “expect staff to do too much, too quickly, and with inadequate training, facilities, guidance and oversight.”

The report said the system resulted in wasted work, unreliable records, and risks to the welfare of asylum seekers.

A Home Office spokesperson said in a statement that “significant improvements” have been made to the processing of small boats arrivals since the UNHCR audit took place in 2021 and early 2022.