IT IS a terrible irony that this government’s two highest office-holders have been found to have broken the law after a prolonged Tory campaign against “illegal asylum-seekers.” 

That campaign has reached a new and frankly despicable turn with the announcement that the government intends to set up an offshore refugee-processing centre.

Of course, it may be a long time before anyone is ever processed there. If the Home Office immigration division operates with its usual efficiency it could be a very long time.

But the announcement is a blatant attempt to deflect attention away from the scandals surrounding the Prime Minister after he has been fined for breaking the rules under lockdown laws. 

It was only eight days ago when junior Home Office minister Richard Harrington was telling listeners to a radio show that there were no plans for any such centre. So the announcement has clearly been rushed out as a distraction.

This type of politics is bad enough, when a Prime Minister approved an announcement of far-reaching consequences for people’s lives simply to save his own neck. But we should probably have become used to this by now.

It is worse when we consider that it has been rushed out because ministers believe it will be popular with voters, or at least a certain fraction of them. 

It certainly got approving headlines from some of the Tory press, who seem as anxious to move on from the cost of living crisis and “partygate” as the Prime Minister.

However, insiders suggest that Boris Johnson will personally be facing three more fines for separate breaches of the law. Heaven knows what outrage he will announce to get himself out of each successive hole.

It is clear that this policy is an outrage because it is a breach of international law on the rights of refugees and the duties of a responsible government. 

Because there can be no such thing as an “illegal asylum-seeker.” Under international law, everyone can to seek asylum as a right, and their claims must be treated impartially by the host country.

The Rwanda plan fails on both these counts. People will effectively be deported to a third country, in breach of their rights and without proper consideration of their actual case. 

Tory ministers have run a despicable campaign against migrants in general and refugees in particular for several years. The fact that that two-thirds of all asylum applications are granted makes no impact on the volume or intensity of their campaign.

There is even a report in the Daily Mirror that Channel migrants removed under this policy will be detained and sent on a one-way flight to Rwanda by force with just five days’ notice, and that there will be no option to claim British asylum once they’re gone. This is most definitely not the offshore processing of British claims. It is illegal removal.

It is falsely claimed that refugees put an undue strain on public services and public funds. As we have seen in the mismanagement and corruption throughout the pandemic, this government clearly believes that these are its own jobs. 

A cross-party committee of MPs has been told that the costs of the scheme will be astronomical. Australia already operates a similar scheme, in which asylum-seekers are held in on the island of Nauru. 

The cost including the construction of facilities has been around 3.39 million Australian dollars, or £1.9m, per person annually.

The fact that this policy was announced less than three weeks before an election is itself another breach of rules, the period of “purdah” before polling day when governments cannot announce new policies or commit new public funds.

But this clearly shows the level of Tory desperation, and how there are few limits on how far they will stoop and new depths they will not plumb. It is even being sold as a “Brexit dividend.”

Of course, the system is open to even further abuses. In the Australian example only 3,500 asylum-seekers have been detained offshore. But there have been 2,000 complaints of physical and sexual abuses, half of them against children.  

Rwanda itself is ruled by an autocrat, Paul Kagame. His own disturbing history of human rights abuses prompted the Foreign Office last year to demand an investigation into allegations of “deaths in custody, enforced disappearances and torture” which have been overseen by his government.

It should be clear why the Tory government is in the gutter once more, using asylum and immigration to whip up racism and win votes. 

Despite many Tory MPs claiming “Boris is having a good war,” this country is not supposed to be officially at war with anyone. Tellingly, his expected bounce in the polls has failed to materialise.

The government remains mired in a series of corruption scandals, of which “partygate” is only the latest. A broad swathe of the population has begun to note too the renewed upsurge in Covid deaths and the pressures on the NHS, contrary to all ministerial claims about the pandemic being over. 

There is also no escaping the sharp fall in living standards now being faced by literally tens of millions of people. Pensioners, public-sector workers and everyone receiving benefits have all just taken a big real-terms cut in their incomes. 

Some have also experienced tax increases, including millions burdened with a student loan.

Much of this is caused directly by government policy. The government has also decided to help no-one except Tory donors and bankers. 

This degree of misery being inflicted on the mass of the population is sometimes enough to topple governments, at least when they face serious opposition.

To head off this possibility, Johnson is turning to draconian legislation, authoritarian measures and racism. 

He and the Tories as a whole must be opposed on every front, as these are the cutting edge of his entire reactionary agenda. Opposing them on this issue is an essential part of the entire fightback.

Diane Abbott is Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. She served as shadow home secretary from 2016 to 2020.