scholarly journals Framing Community Sponsorship in the context of the UK’s hostile environment

2021 ◽  
pp. 026101832110238
Author(s):  
Gabriella D’avino
Keyword(s):  
Frame Analysis ◽  
Refugee Resettlement ◽  
Hostile Environment ◽  
International Protection ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
Environment Policy ◽  
Migration Management ◽  
Private Sponsorship ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk

The launch of the private sponsorship scheme, Community Sponsorship (CS), allowing individuals to resettle refugees in the UK, seems to be in contrast with the government’s approach towards immigration aimed to implement the hostile environment policy. Using frame analysis, this research looks at the diagnostic, prognostic and motivational framings used by policymakers in parliamentary debates related to CS to understand how the scheme and the hostile environment coexist. The findings show how the used frames allow the government to manage refugee resettlement more as a tool of migration management rather than exclusively as a tool of international protection, and how this strategy implements the UK’s hostile environment.

scholarly journals A Hostile Environment for Children? The Rights and Best Interests of the Refugee Child in the United Kingdom’s Asylum Law

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 753-785
Author(s):  
Ruth Brittle
Keyword(s):  
Best Interests ◽  
Hostile Environment ◽  
International Protection ◽  
Refugee Child ◽  
Environment Policy ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
Asylum Law ◽  
The Status ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
The Uk

Abstract Children experiencing persecution, torture, ill-treatment, exploitation and violence are compelled to flee across international borders to seek protection in another state. When a child seeks international protection, the framework of rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees should guide a state to determine the child’s status and protection needs. However, a child’s best interests and right to protection may clash with a state’s interest in immigration control. Increasingly, states are implementing strict laws to discourage irregular migration and to encourage those without leave to remain to return to their countries of origin. Such laws or policies have an impact on people seeking international protection, including children. The UK government’s ‘hostile environment’ policy is an example of this and applies to all adults and children who enter the UK irregularly and have no right to remain. I argue that the UK’s approach violates its international obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This article analyses how the children’s rights framework, in particular the ‘best interests’ principle, is able to challenge the UK’s ‘hostile environment’ policy.

Talking security and rights

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 658-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ipek Demirsu
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Frame Analysis ◽  
Hard Core ◽  
Security Policies ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
Moral Power ◽  
Liberal Rights ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Established Democracies

Abstract This article addresses the question of how draconian counter-terrorism policies are legitimized in long-established democracies. Being the heartland of liberal rights, the UK comes to the fore as a striking case where some of the most controversial security policies have been enacted. The study undertakes a systematic frame analysis of UK parliamentary debates with the help of ATLAS.ti, which allows the analyst to trace and map out recurrent concepts, themes, and arguments as well as their overall distribution. While demonstrating the workings of securitization in the formulation of key counter-terrorism legislation, the study unearths how the security narrative in the UK context evidently relies on the language of rights in invoking legitimacy. The study suggests that far from negating the indispensable status of human rights, security narrative resorts to the latter’s moral power and mimics rights language, heralding the weight of these international norms even in hard-core security matters.

scholarly journals UK Government Web Continuity: Persisting Access through Aligning Infrastructures

2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Spencer ◽  
John Sheridan ◽  
David Thomas ◽  
David Pullinger
Keyword(s):  
Building Blocks ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
Long Term Storage ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Term Storage ◽  
The Web

Government's use of the Web in the UK is prolific and a wide range of services are now available though this channel. The government set out to address the problem that links from Hansard (the transcripts of Parliamentary debates) were not maintained over time and that therefore there was need for some long-term storage and stewardship of information, including maintaining access. Further investigation revealed that linking was key, not only in maintaining access to information, but also to the discovery of information. This resulted in a project that affects the entire  government Web estate, with a solution leveraging the basic building blocks of the Internet (DNS) and the Web (HTTP and URIs) in a pragmatic way, to ensure that an infrastructure is in place to provide access to important information both now and in the future.

scholarly journals The negative health effects of hostile environment policies on migrants: A cross-sectional service evaluation of humanitarian healthcare provision in the UK

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie J. Weller ◽  
Liam J. Crosby ◽  
Eleanor R. Turnbull ◽  
Rachel Burns ◽  
Anna Miller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Service Evaluation ◽  
Population Characteristics ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Undocumented Migrants ◽  
Hostile Environment ◽  
Healthcare Provision ◽  
Home Office ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk

Background: Recent UK ‘hostile environment’ immigration policies, including obligatory charging and sharing of confidential data between NHS Digital and the Home Office, have created an atmosphere of fear and exposed already highly marginalised and vulnerable groups to significant health risks by increasing barriers to accessing NHS care.  Methods:  This is a cross-sectional observational study of patients accessing healthcare at Doctors of the World (DOTW) in the UK. DOTW is a humanitarian organisation, providing care to those excluded from NHS healthcare. We aimed to describe population characteristics of individuals using DOTW services and identify groups at greatest risk of facing ‘hostile environment’-related barriers to NHS care, specifically being denied healthcare or fear of arrest. Results: A total of 1474 adults were seen in 2016. Nearly all were non-EU/EEA nationals (97.8%; 1441/1474), living in poverty (68.6%; 1011/1474). DOTW saw a large number of undocumented migrants (57.1%; 841/1474) and asylum seekers (18.2%; 268/1474). 10.2% (151/1474) of adults seen had been denied NHS healthcare and 7.7% (114/1474) were afraid to access NHS services. Asylum seeker status was associated with the highest risk (adjusted odds ratio (OR): 2.48; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.48-4.14) of being denied NHS healthcare and being undocumented was associated with the highest risk of fearing arrest (adjusted OR: 3.03; 95% CI: 1.70-5.40). Conclusions: Our findings make visible the multiple and intersecting vulnerabilities of individuals forced to seek care outside of the NHS, underlining the public health imperative for the government to urgently withdraw its ‘hostile environment’ policies and address their negative health impacts.

In the wake of the hostile environment: migration, reproduction and the Windrush scandal

2022 ◽  
pp. 146470012110467
Author(s):  
Irene Gedalof
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Hostile Environment ◽  
White People ◽  
Environment Policy ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Uk

This article examines the place of reproduction in the UK migration policy popularly known as ‘the hostile environment’, introduced in 2012 by the Conservative–Lib Dem Coalition government, and the ‘Windrush scandal’ that followed. In order to think through how the reproductive sphere comes in to play in this policy and its consequences, I draw on theoretical insights from the work of Christina Sharpe and Saidiya Hartman, both of whom invite us to reflect on the ways in which the afterlife of enslavement and empire continues to impinge on the status of Black subjects, and the ways in which our notions of the maternal, reproduction, kinship and belonging are entangled in this process. I begin by examining the place of the reproductive sphere in the hostile environment policy itself, before moving on to discuss the Windrush scandal and the ways in which it can be seen as an attack on the reproductive needs of its victims. I then consider these findings further through an engagement with the work of Sharpe and Hartman, arguing that the scandal reveals ways in which we continue to live ‘in the wake’ of racialised understandings of the reproductive that mean that some people are refused the possibilities of attachment and affiliation, so that, in Hartman's words, theirs is ‘the perilous condition of existing in a world in which you have no investment’. In the final section, I respond to Sharpe's call for white people to ‘rend the fabric of the kinship narrative’ that produces these exclusionary terms of belonging and permits the repetition of such brutalities as the hostile environment.

scholarly journals Creating a ‘hostile environment for migrants’: the British government’s use of health service data to restrict immigration is a very bad idea

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucinda Hiam ◽  
Sarah Steele ◽  
Martin McKee
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Service ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Health Impact ◽  
Hostile Environment ◽  
Home Office ◽  
Department Of Health ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Service Data

AbstractIn January 2017, the UK Government made public a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Department of Health, National Health Service (NHS) Digital and the Home Office. This Memorandum allows for the more expedited sharing of a patient’s non-clinical data, specifically from the NHS England to the Home Office. The Government justified the MoU as in the ‘public interest to support effective immigration enforcement’. In this review, we seek to unpack this justification by providing, first, a background to the MoU, placing it in the context of creating a ‘hostile environment’ for migrants – a project initially sought by Theresa May in her time as Home Secretary. We then explore the potential impact of data sharing on individual health, public health and on health professionals. We conclude that the MoU could threaten both individual and public health, while placing health professionals in an unworkable position both practically and in terms of their duties to patients around confidentiality. As such, we agree with colleagues’ position that it should be suspended, at least until a full consultation and health impact assessment can be carried out.

scholarly journals The hostile environment and crimmigration: blurring the lines between civil and criminal law

Soundings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 76 (76) ◽  
pp. 26-36
Author(s):  
Jennifer Hendry
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Immigration Law ◽  
Hostile Environment ◽  
Environment Policy ◽  
Immigration Laws ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Political Expediency ◽  
The Uk

The recent media furore surrounding the UK government's hostile environment policy and the treatment of the Windrush generation drew attention to the use of criminal law for regulatory purposes within the context of immigration. The proliferation of immigration offences, and the reproduction of criminal provisions in immigration laws, signals a blurring of the lines between the civil and criminal legal realms: while immigration law purports to be administrative in character it is often effected through criminal law, which is used against citizens and non-citizens in breach of immigration rules when immigration measures alone are ineffective. These 'crimmigration' measures can be understood as examples of hybrid proceduralism. The civil/criminal procedural hybrids used in 'crimmigration' processes are borne of ideologically motivated political expediency, and disproportionately disadvantage vulnerable populations, who are frequently portrayed as deviant. They privilege specific policy goals over considerations of human rights, civil liberties, and due process.

scholarly journals Public governance, agility and pandemics: a case study of the UK response to COVID-19

2021 ◽  
pp. 002085232098340
Author(s):  
Paul Joyce
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Role ◽  
Public Confidence ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
Public Governance ◽  
Local Initiative ◽  
Government Response ◽  
Local Resources ◽  
The Government ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk

The UK government’s leaders initially believed that it was among the best-prepared governments for a pandemic. By June 2020, the outcome of the collision between the government’s initial confidence, on the one hand, and the aggressiveness and virulence of COVID-19, on the other, was evident. The UK had one of the worst COVID-19 mortality rates in the world. This article explores the UK government’s response to COVID-19 from a public administration and governance perspective. Using factual information and statistical data, it considers the government’s preparedness and strategic decisions, the delivery of the government response, and public confidence in the government. Points for practitioners Possible lessons for testing through application include: Use the precautionary principle to set planning assumptions in government strategies to create the possibility of government agility during a pandemic. Use central government’s leadership role to facilitate and enable local initiative and operational responses, as well as to take advantage of local resources and assets. Choose smart government responses that address tensions between the goal of saving lives and other government goals, and beware choices that are unsatisfactory compromises.

scholarly journals Rhetorical uses of precise numbers and semi-magical round numbers in political discourse about COVID-19: Examples from the government of the United Kingdom

2021 ◽  
pp. 095792652110131
Author(s):  
Michael Billig
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
British Government ◽  
Political Incentives ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Round Numbers ◽  
Magical Power ◽  
Uk Government ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The 19Th Century

This paper examines how the British government has used statistics about COVID-19 for political ends. A distinction is made between precise and round numbers. Historically, using round numbers to estimate the spread of disease gave way in the 19th century to the sort precise, but not necessarily accurate, statistics that are now being used to record COVID-19. However, round numbers have continued to exert rhetorical, ‘semi-magical’ power by simultaneously conveying both quantity and quality. This is demonstrated in examples from the British government’s claims about COVID-19. The paper illustrates how senior members of the UK government use ‘good’ round numbers to frame their COVID-19 goals and to announce apparent achievements. These round numbers can provide political incentives to manipulate the production of precise number; again examples from the UK government are given.

The RUMA Alliance targets: an overview

Livestock ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 176-179
Author(s):  
Chris Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
Task Force ◽  
Animal Health ◽  
Antibiotic Use ◽  
Codes Of Practice ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Ongoing Support ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Roll Out

The Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture Alliance (RUMA) was established to promote the highest standards of food safety, animal health and animal welfare in the British livestock industry. It has a current focus to deliver on the Government objective of identifying sector-specific targets for the reduction, refinement or replacement of antibiotics in animal agriculture. The creation and roll out of sector specific targets in 2017 through the RUMA Targets Task Force, has helped focus activity across the UK livestock sectors to achieve a 50% reduction in antibiotic use since 2014. This has been realised principally through voluntary multi-sector collaboration, cross sector initiatives, codes of practice, industry body support and farm assurance schemes. This article provides an overview of RUMA's work to date providing insight into the methods used to create the targets, why they are so important, the impact they are having and how ongoing support and robust data are vital components in achieving the latest set of targets.

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