Operation Sophia: A Failed Mission (EUC Report)

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, for her leadership. It was a privilege to serve under her and to be on this committee.

Many years ago, before I became a Member of this House, I worked in the refugee NGO field. I was a member of an NGO delegation that went round the Caribbean looking at the situation of Haitian refugees, who at that time were fleeing from a very tyrannical regime in Haiti. I remember going to one Caribbean country where the Minister of the Interior said to us with glee, “One more Haitian on this island and this island will sink in the sea. I am determined not to let that happen”. He then went on to say that a sinking boat of Haitian refugees had tried to approach the harbour. He told us, “I ordered that boat to be pushed away because I was determined not to have any more Haitians here”. The only country in the Caribbean which at that time seemed to welcome Haitians was the United States. It did not turn boats away; it accepted them and showed humanity. Maybe Americans are different now but certainly at that time it was remarkable that the whole Caribbean seemed to hate the Haitians and it was only America which provided them with safety and accepted any boats that arrived.

I tell that story because the history of inhumanity is not new; sadly, it has been there for quite some time. So perhaps we are not shocked, even if we are dismayed, at what happened to the boat in the Mediterranean that the Italians would not take and that went to Spain. I was shocked that this should happen and that, if the Spaniards had not said they would take them, those people might have drowned, as so many already have.

In a wider sense, I like to feel that Europe could move towards a Europe-wide policy on migration and refugees. I am bound to say that the need for that is clear but the likelihood of it happening at this point in time is very small. I believe that, unless all European countries share responsibility, there will always be some buck-passing, and the unfortunate victims of that buck-passing will drown in the Mediterranean.

We have to look at this under a number of headings: first, Europe’s response; secondly, the situation in Libya, which is one of the key areas from which people are coming; and, thirdly, the situation in the source countries. As has been said already, Operation Sophia may have saved lives but, paradoxically, it has also made the task of the smugglers easier. All they have to do now is have an even less seaworthy boat, push it 12 miles offshore, and then get someone to phone up and say, “Help, these people are drowning”. We have saved a lot of lives but, alas, we have made the situation for the smugglers somewhat easier. Of course, the report says that a naval mission may not be the right and most suitable way of dealing with this, so maybe we have to look at other methods of going forward. But let us be clear: the naval mission has saved lives, even if the smugglers have also benefited.

We learned a lot about the abuses of human rights in Libya itself and by the Libyan coastguard. We also learned that people smugglers are operating in Libya—they keep migrants in conditions of servitude and make money out of that as well. It is a very depressing and miserable situation. It is important that all western Governments, Britain included, do all we can to try to generate a bit of stability in Libya. There are wars and different regimes in Libya, and if we could only get a bit more stability, maybe the situation could be significantly improved. I know we are trying to do that—the British Government have said so—but we need to put more effort into it.

I turn now briefly to the source countries. I have heard from the NGOs that most of the women who have fled across the Sahara have been raped on that journey. It is a terrible journey and by the time they get to Libya they face even more appalling situations. Last year, I was at a conference in Malta which looked at the movement of people across the Mediterranean. At that conference were representatives not just from European countries but from some of what we call the source countries in Africa. The source countries pleaded for economic help so that their young people would have an economic future in their own countries and would not be forced to make that dangerous journey in the hope of trying to find some way of sustaining themselves.

There is nothing unworthy about being an economic migrant, but there has to be a higher level of human rights support for people who are fleeing from persecution. We have to somehow manage that duality. At the moment, the two seem to be somewhat confused. I wonder what the Spanish Government are doing with the boat load that has arrived and whether they will try to separate those who have a claim to refugee status under the Geneva convention and those who are simply migrants trying to better themselves. It is no good telling the economic migrants that they have to go back, unless we do more to ensure that the economics of the source countries are such that people have a decent future. It is quite a challenge to us all to look at people and decide whether they are refugees or not. In theory, we do that, and it is quite difficult—but maybe it is the way forward.

I also believe that we have to look at public support for what happens. I have felt all along that, on issues to do with refugees, it is important that the public understand what we are seeking to do and why, rather than us imposing policies on ordinary people in the street without that understanding. I have already said that the aim should be for a Europe-wide policy on refugees, even if we are a long way from getting agreement for that. Before the recent Italian elections, I was talking to an Italian Member of Parliament who said that, if nothing was done, the hard-line right-wing parties would win the next election—and that is exactly what happened. She was saying not that she wanted to turn the boats away but that more help was needed from other European countries. That is why I have been shocked by the attitude of the Visegrád countries—Hungary in particular, and Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Their policy seems to be: refugees are not our problem and we are interested only in white Christians. What sort of Europe is that? Maybe we do not have much standing to criticise other European countries if we are leaving the EU, but it is pretty depressing to look at the effect of the movement of people on the politics of various European countries. We have seen it in Germany, Austria, the Visegrád countries and elsewhere, and perhaps even in France. It is rather depressing that extreme right-wing parties are capitalising on this. We have to be much more skilful and clever at getting public opinion on our side so as not to allow the extreme right-wing parties to capitalise.

Migration pressure will continue, whether it is for economic reasons or because of climate change or the need to flee persecution or the threat of torture and death, and if we do not all get together and decide how we are going to deal with the issue, it will become more and more difficult. We have a responsibility to look after our fellow human beings, and we are not doing that very well at the moment.