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Islands of deterrence: Britain’s long history of banishing ‘undesirables’
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The UK home secretary, Priti Patel, last week promised “the biggest overhaul of the UK’s asylum system in decades”, boasting of a “step change in our approach as we toughen our stance to deter illegal entry”.

The proposals include a consultation on changing the law to “keep the option open, if required in the future, to develop the capacity for offshore asylum processing”. Gibraltar and the Isle of Man have been suggested as suitable island locations, following controversy last year when it emerged that the Home Office were considering processing asylum seekers on Ascension Island and St Helena – some of the most remote islands in the world.

The idea was dismissed at the time by the shadow home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, as “inhumane, completely impractical and wildly expensive”.

An idea with a long history and a plot twist

Yet the idea of a deterrent island to which ‘undesirable’ people can be sent recurs throughout Britain’s history. Far from originating with current Tory policy, it is a consistent part of Britain’s colonial history and its continued colonial attitudes and practice.

In 2003, Labour prime minister Tony Blair and his home secretary David Blunkett proposed using overseas immigration processing centres close to conflict zones.

In the same year, the then shadow home secretary Oliver Letwin went a step further, setting out plans at the Conservative Party conference to immediately deport asylum seekers to a “far offshore processing” island, based on the Australian practice, saying these would create a “big disincentive effect”.

And the idea of a deterrent island goes back much further. The Transportation Act of 1717 was created to “deter prospective vagrants” and “prevent professional vagabonds from exploiting public assistance to the ‘deserving’”. It transported paupers and criminals to the British penal colonies including those in the now-named Australia.

Now, in a perfect plot twist, it is this same ex-penal colony of Australia, with its vast off-shore detention estate, that the UK sees as a model for its own approach to immigration.

[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/islands-of-deterrence-britains-long-history-of-banishing-undesirables/