Labor minister flays Britain’s asylum laws

Trouble with human rights law, cont’d: Phil Woolas, immigration minister in Gordon Brown’s Labor government, has won attention for his sharp criticisms of U.K. asylum law.

In an interview with the Guardian, Woolas described the legal professionals and NGO [non-governmental organization] workers as “an industry”, and said most asylum seekers were not fleeing persecution but were economic migrants.

“The system is played by migration lawyers and NGOs to the nth degree,” Woolas said. “By giving false hope and by undermining the legal system, [they] actually cause more harm than they do good.”

(Patrick Barkham, “Asylum-seeker charities are just playing the system, says Woolas”, Guardian, Nov. 18). We’ve added a tag on asylum law.

Comments are closed.