Airline refuses to fly out forced deportees

The Independent reports that XL Airways are now refusing requests by the government to fly out those being forcibly deported from the country. The final straw was taking out people to Congo:

Now it has emerged that the airline has written to the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns confirming its decision to pull out of any further flights. The XL email, sent on 12 September, said: "We had a contract with the Government along with other carriers, for a range of flying. Under this contract we operated one flight in February to DR Congo as part of this contract, without full understanding of the political dimensions involved.

"Our chief executive [Phillip Wyatt] had made it quite clear to all concerned that we will not be operating any further flights of this nature ... We are not neutral on the issue and have sympathy for all dispossessed persons in the world, hence our stance."

This is a very important step and one possibility for action hitherto ignored among the various outrages that have taken place at the behest of the Home Office over the years.

XL should be applauded and hopefully other airlines will follow suit. In the Independent article, BA and Virgin said they had no choice in the matter, only for the Home Office to flatly contradict that. Even if it were the case, that's not good enough from these airlines. Turning a blind eye is complicity.

If the government are so keen for these removals to happen, especially in the manner that they do, then they should do it themselves. Let the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary fly in the plane. Let them look into the eyes of those this is being carried out against. If these places are so safe and hospitable, they wouldn't mind sampling some of the air outside either then.

But we know that will never happen. The UK has pushed through the forced deportation of Iraqis at a time when hundreds of thousands are fleeing Iraq, and when the Prime Minister himself would never step out of army barracks or the Green Zone on a supposed trip there.

Comments

[Ted]

" Let the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary fly in the plane."

Sorry, Osama, but this is simply childish. For the system to work (and I assume you believe that we should at least have a system) it requires many people to do many jobs effectively.

The Government has a right to manage the population and to decide who it lets into its borders - in fact, some would say it's one of the few duties governments should have.

XL Airways has the right to refuse any business - though I wonder why they accepted the contract in the first place. What did they think it would entail? Anyway, they're free to withdraw from the deal at any time and refuse any further business.

I wouldn't swap the mockingly named Democratic Republic of Congo for the UK but that doesn't mean I think *everyone* in the DRC should live in the UK. The system for citizenship in the UK has to be more than 'how quickly can you get here?' If you accept that it does then you accept that some people will be unsuccessful. If you accept that some people will be unsuccessful then someone has to arrange for them to go back home.

[Osama]

Ted, obviously we're not going to agree on the politics of this. I believe you should do as much good as you can. If you can't help all the people of Congo, at least deal well with what's in front of you.

On the point of the PM being on the plane, it is somewhat facetious but with a serious element. If he's ok with other civilian passengers being on the plane, then why not him? I think it's essential he knows what's going on if he's going to be sanctioning these life and death decisions.

It's not good enough to say that people are allotted different jobs, and the PM never needs to see this unsavoury side of his operations. If he's managing to get about schools and hospitals for photoshoots, then he can cast better oversight on this.

There is a real problem when our leaders divorce themselves from what goes on under their watch - and unfortunately views like yours support them. There was a time that when a leader wanted to go to war, he was on a front line. Now such characters have never experienced any military action, never mind the ones they themselves bloodthirst over and initiate. This is an appalling form of hypocrisy, and one that allows inhumanity to take place.

[jungle]

"The system for citizenship in the UK has to be more than 'how quickly can you get here?'"

That is why the asylum system was put in place - in order to make a distinction between someone just wanting to come here and someone fleeing violent persecution.

Unfortunately, in order to minimise tabloid 'outrage', the system has been utterly corrupted in order to force the figures down. The practical effect is to deny the maximum number of cases on technicalities irrespective of their merits.

"If you accept that it does then you accept that some people will be unsuccessful. If you accept that some people will be unsuccessful then someone has to arrange for them to go back home."

What you appear to be claiming (although in the most antiseptic manner possible) is that if we have anything other than total open door policies, we have to be prepared not only to deport economic migrants, but to send the genuinely persecuted 'home' to be tortured or killed by the waiting thugs outside the airport. That really is what refusing a genuine claim on a technicality means, and what the British Government is already doing, time after time.

The tragedy is that it is a completely false choice, forced on this country largely by irresponsible scaremongering. There are many, many, many middle ways between deporting the persecuted to their torturers and having "open doors".