Host: Jen Ang

Andy Sirel

“Access to education for migrants in Scotland has been something that was sort of on my casework radar for a very long time. And obviously for those eligible, we’re lucky enough in Scotland to have a situation where tuition fees are paid for by the government if you’re eligible, but access to that, to further and higher education is not equal.“

Jen Ang 

Welcome to the Lawmanity Podcast where we explore the complex relationship between law and activism and discuss the different ways that law can oppress people but can also lead to real social change. 

Jen Ang

Welcome everyone to the Lawmanity podcast. This week we’re speaking to legend, human rights lawyer and one of my very favourite people, Andy Sirel. Andy is a co-founding partner and legal director for the legal charity JustRight Scotland. He’s responsible for supervision of legal casework across a number of different areas of the charity’s work. In 2023 he was named Solicitor of the Year by the Herald Scotland Law Awards in recognition of his dedication throughout his legal career to using the law and human rights to achieve justice for people facing disadvantage, exclusion and discrimination. And for his groundbreaking work in challenging the exclusion of migrant young people in Scotland from tuition fee support in a case we will be discussing in today’s podcast. Welcome to the show, Andy.

Andy Sirel

Thank you very much for having me, you and looking forward to it.

Jen Ang

Great. So it’s lovely to see you and as I said at the start, this is such a great excuse to catch up as well because I can never have too much time with you, but you’re a very busy person.

Ah, as a kind of opener for this set of podcasts, I have been thinking about, a question that just gets us settled, and also helps us to learn a little bit about the person behind the legal legend we’re interviewing. A good friend of mine pointed out to me that our sense of smell is one of our oldest senses and observed that we can hold deep connections between our sense of smell and our memories. So if you don’t mind, can you tell me about a smell that’s meaningful to you?

Andy Sirel

That is a good question. I’d probably have a couple. the first one would be sun lotion because it reminds me frankly of being on holiday, in a sunny place that’s not Scotland. It’s not very often you apply it in Scotland. In fact, I don’t think I sell it here. but the second one would definitely be a freshly cut grass. Cause it just reminds me of like walking my dog in the evenings, sort of long, sunny, Scottish evenings. but the downside is that I have really bad hay fever, so I’m actually allergic to it. but nonetheless, nonetheless it does, it does give me good memories.

Jen Ang

Oh, the irony. And I love that. I love that both of those things are places and times that are far from your working desk. So holiday and after tools are down. I think that’s both relatable and also probably really healthy.

Andy Sirel

I think so.

Jen Ang

Cool. Well, thank you for indulging, my silly surprise question. so now we’ll kind of turn to, the topic of the podcast proper.

So, as I said before, we’re here to help listeners understand how the law can be used to achieve really significant change. and I’ve asked today that we look at your groundbreaking legal challenge in the Ola Jasim case against Scottish Ministers, which was a case where you established that the Scottish tuition fee regulations were in breach of the human right to education for some migrant people living in Scotland. And I wanted to see if we could talk to you about your role in that case, a little bit about your relationship with the wider Our Grades, Not Visas campaign. 

And also your reflections. now, believe it or not, two and a half years on from, that case being hurt, that’s gone very quickly, those two years. So, to start with, for our listeners, can you just explain to us how you got involved with this case and actually what was at stake? So why was it that when you heard about this case, you thought that something had to be done and that it was actually litigation that was going to have to be the answer?

Andy Sirel

Yeah. Okay. So access to education for, for migrants in Scotland has been something that was sort of on my, casework radar for a very long time, probably dating back to about 2015, I would say. I mean, the issue is this. So everybody technically has a right to education in Scotland. They can access school, further higher education. And obviously for those eligible who’re lucky enough in Scotland to have a situation where tuition fees are paid for by the government if you’re eligible, but access to that, to, further and higher education is not equal. 

The barrier is funding. Can you get the funding to go? And folks with some types of immigration status did not qualify for, Scottish government funding and did not qualify for what we call home fees status. They were treated essentially as international students. And of course, without funding or with a really high amount of tuition to pay, then you’re not going to be able to go. So, like I say, this was, an issue that was really prevalent in our work for a long time. 

In 2015, there was a Supreme Court case about it that affected my casework. it was a case called Tigere or Tigere And, it introduced a criteria that said if you have a visa in the UK and you’ve lived here for a long time, then on the basis of your long residence you can get access to education. And so that changed the picture in Scotland a little bit. It allowed some people to have access to education, who are migrants, are from a migrant background, but really not everybody. 

And so what we were seeing in our work was the community groups that we were working with and some of our clients actually at the time were very involved in activism and advocacy and they were raising the issue with the government. Time, time again, you know, directly to the Cabinet Secretary for Education, for example. And nothing was being done. Perhaps there was piecemeal progress, you would say. So the rules are being changed in reaction to world events like, you know, the Ukraine war, so Ukrainians were given access to education. Afghan resettlement schemes, Afghans were given access. But there was no broader recognition that, everybody else was basically being blocked out. 

So we’re in a situation where it was very clearly an issue. The community groups were and the folks affected were deeply impacted by it and were trying their very best to sway the government but it just wasn’t working. So the reality is then that one of the, you know, you need to recognise one of the best tools in the shed, so to speak, is litigation, particularly litigation using the Human Rights Act, because that is a way in Scotland where you can challenge a lot and if you’re successful the law gets like ripped up and the government have to start again. 

So, you know, we, I took the view, we took the view that we needed an individual in order to be the sort of standard bearer to take this case. And that’s not always the easiest thing because when you’re taking a case like this you need an individual, or with a really strong case. You know, to term it’s sometimes called as a good facts case. I don’t like that term particularly because anybody who’s affected by this should be able to have their day in court. 

But we needed a really strong case to demonstrate like significant harm that this, that the education laws were causing. Because if we didn’t and we lose, then actually we’re back to square one and the government probably are unlikely to do anything. 

And so we found a wonderful young person, who was referred to as by an MSP Her name is Ola and she was a straight A student out of school. She born in Iraq, lived here since she was just turned 11 years old so she moved just after she was 11. Educated here, you know obviously a very very clever person and got an unconditional offer to go and study at Dundee University to study medicine which is good because we need more medicine people, we need more medics, we need more doctors. And yeah she was told that she couldn’t study and couldn’t. 

Well she was told that she couldn’t get student funding because in the first day of her course she was 17 years old and she needed to live in the UK for seven years and she’d lived in the UK for 58 days short of that. So she was so close and if she applied when she turned 18 she would have needed nine years. So actually the distance between her being able to access funding was just going tp grow and grow. So she didn’t apply for funding in the first year she went to university. 

Dundee were really good the university they said you know we’ll just treat you as a home fee students or your fees are lower. But still her family were in real financial hardship in order to try and pay her fees. And then the second year she did apply you know after she met us and the student funding body said no you were not eligible on the first day of your first year. So you will never ever be eligible on this course. Even if you became British tomorrow you will never be eligible for this course. You need to stop and start again which was obviously grossly grossly unfair. 

So you know she, she became the sort of standard bearer the public standamard be I should say through the case there was another case behind her that we had for another client of mine in slightly different circumstances. But the reason why we needed that individual is because that was the way we were re going to directly challenge the law. But you’re not going to be able to create progressive change with just a legal case. You need something else. And this is where the campaign came in. 

The Our Grades Not Visas campaign founded by a young called Ahmed Al Hindi who was a six year pupil at the time. also affected by these strict access to education regulations and together with Maryhill Integration Network JustRight Scotland we set up this campaign which started raising the profile of the issue. It started directly engaging the Scottish government. It was doing media but really importantly it did a survey asking folks in Scotland you know are you affected by this? Tell us your story. And that gave us lots and lots of rich data and it told us that these rules were actually impacting hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people in Scotland. So, you know, the idea was that we took the individual legal case, we took the campaign, we put them together and we see where things go from there.

BBC Anchor

Let’s talk about another issue involving refugees living here. Scottish Ministers are being forced to change the law on tuition fees for hundreds of migrant students after a landmark court case.Lawyers successfully argued that Ola Jasim from Iraq who’d lived in Scotland for more than nine years did have her human rights breached. The straight A pupil was told she couldn’t access tuition fees because she missed out on the time threshold by just 56 days. The Scottish government says it is committed to a fair funding system.

Ola Jasim

This is what like I call my home. So to me I’m a Scottish citizen and so to be told that no you’re not and like I’m not getting the treatment as all my friends who I want to primary like since primary school with until high school we graduated together just to be discriminated against like that, that kind of just made me feel, kind of like, feel like unwelcome. My sisters for example, for their birthday, they just didn’t want to celebrate it because they’re like o, you know, like we don’t need to buy a cake even like for me, myself I just felt like all of these things were just extra things and like we need to save money on those things. But it’s like these are little things that kind of give you joy in life and like just keep you going. Now that I know that it’s like if the law is changing and hopefully there will be compensation for people who are affected. Hopefully like a lot of people’s lives will be changed because this isn’t just me that’s gotten really badly affected. There’s so many people out there.

Jen Ang

And I mean, that is so interesting actually both, you know, how you outline for listeners, you know, the thinking that goes into, you know, working out what a strategic case looks like and when it is appropriate to take one, but also that relationship between the legal work and the campaign, which has been really visible actually throughout, not just the case, but what has happened afterwards.

So I guess my question is, were there challenges in, in preparing the case or in coordinating with the campaign?

Andy Sirel

Yeah, that’s a good question. So I think that the campaign and the litigation were complementary to each other and there was a lot of cross coordination, but they were also separate. So for example, the founder of the campaign, Ahmed, was not a litigant in the case. we aren’t talking about his situation at all in the court action. Ah. And you know, we need, we always need these situations to be careful and make sure that the campaign see themselves as distinct from the litigation. we need the litigation to remain, own, its own thing and focusing on the strengths of the particular person that we had. the campaign was also slightly broader.

It was looking not just at, ah, migrants with leave to remain, which is what the case was about, but it was also looking at asylum seekers. And so, you know, we needed also to make sure that there was some distinction there. Because I think if we were in court arguing, you know, fundamentally a human rights case for asylum seekers to get access to student funding, then that would change the nature of the case entirely. It would possibly have resulted in a different outcome. So again, we needed to keep the two things, separate there. I think the final challenge would be, you know, finding the time to sort of input the technical information to allow the campaign to do its thing. You know, this is what the law says, this is what it doesn’t say, et cetera, but. And also actually run the legal case at the same time.

But as you say, we have very dedicated staff and yeah, we had, you know, our participation manager was the person that was running point for JustRight Scotland on the campaign. And that allowed me to sort of get my head down with my colleague Maisie and and our advocate in order to follow through the case. The last thing I’d say is that the case attracted a lot of media attention. and you know, as a lawyer, you’re. I’m typically cautious around media attention because you just don’t know how it’s going to be spun. we turned down a lot of media requests from outlets that we know go just been in certain things in a certain way.

But yeah, we were able to form a really good relationship with a particular journalist, who you know, told it like it is. That’s all we asked, just to tell it like it is. And you. We wanted also to be very careful and, and very, very protective of my clients in general. But I was very protective to this particular client to make sure that she wasn’t subject to any unpleasantness in the public eye. And thankfully we were able to navigate that, probably all down to the fact that she’s a far better media performer than I am and and performed impeccably. So yeah, those were some of the challenges that we needed to navigate as we were going through it.

Jen Ang

So just to make sure that our listeners understand, can you kind of briefly summarise what was the outcome of the actual case and what was the significance both for your client and then for other people like her?

Andy Sirel

Sure. So the case was challenging the parts of the funding regulations that said if you’ve got leave to remain in the uk, that isn’t permanent, so limited leave to remain, then, and you’re under 18 on the first day of your course, you need to have lived in the UK for seven years and if you’re over 18 you need to live in the UK for half your life. so those were the two parts of the rules that we were challenging. We were saying, you know, this long residence is actually really exclusion rate for a lot of people who are, you know, educated and raised in Scotland.

One of the other cases that we had actually was a young guy who was in care, he was raised by the state and then when he sought to access education, the state said no, you can’t access education, which is plainly wrong. So we were arguing, you know, four fundamental questions which your listeners might really chew over, to be honest with you.

The first one is to what extent is your length of residence in a place and appropriate measure of how integrated you are into your country? So if you’ve lived in Scotland for six years, 300 days, are you less integrated than you are having lived in the UK for 366 days? Probably not.

The second question was is it fair that there’s that cliff edge, you know, 17 year old needs, 7 years and 18 year old needs many years. Is it fair that there’s that cliff edge for young people who are the same person on the 18th birthday as the bear and the last day of their 17th year? And we were asking, is that year one rule fair? You know, if you’re ineligible in day one, year one, even if you become British, you will never be eligible for student funding. Is that fair?

And then fundamentally the ultimate question to the court was, is this a violation of the right to access education guaranteed by Article 2, Protocol 1 of the European Convention, and is it discriminatory on the basis of immigration status? And the court said to those questions, yes, it is discriminatory, yes, it is a violation of the right to education. and so they struck down those elements of the law. and this was a huge, you know, this was a, a huge win and a real recognition of the toil and the harm that it had caused Ola and her family.

But, the upshot of it was that the government, Scottish government, needed to do two things really quickly. The first thing they needed to do was they needed to set up an interim scheme because you had hundreds of students in the last two academic years who had not been, who had not applied or who had applied for funding, had been refused illegally. And so they set up a scheme to basically pay them, give them the tuition that they should have got in the first place.

Second thing they need to do is think about this new law. The old law’s been struck down, we need a new one. So they needed to do an impact assessment to understand who and how people were affected. And they needed to do a public consultation to see what law would like. And this is where the campaign kicks in. Okay? This is where, this is where we need to understand the relationship in our litigation. And a campaign, the litigation opens the door, unlocks it and the campaign walks right through it. And the campaign, the campaign really stepped up here.

So we in order to reply to the impact assessment and the public consultation, so we JustRight Scotland, where, you know, we’re going to town hall events, where we’re hosting information sessions for folks affected just so they understood what the law, how the law was changing, what the court said, what the court didn’t see, and where those sort of pressure points are that they can really advance their views and express themselves about how it affects them.

And so the groups themselves, they organised, they responded to the consultation. And I have to say, when I heard some of the things they were asking for in the law, I did think that is admirable. I feel it’s unlikely because that’s not what the court said. but that just reveals my sort of ah, legal box which I view the world because I was totally wrong. And the upshot was that the Scottish Government passed a new law which came into force in August 2023.

So we’re coming up to the two year anniversary which abolished the long residence criteria altogether and just replaced it with the standard three year residence requirement that everybody has. Right. If you’re British or non British, everybody has this to access tuition in Scotland. And secondly it extended tuition fee support to asylum seeking children, both unaccompanied asylum seeking children and the kids of asylum seekers. and that was huge. That was an extension beyond which was even considered in the court case. It was just a pure result of quality and coordinated advocacy and campaigning. And that’s where we are now.

Jen Ang

That’s fantastic. And I love your kind of, your modest reflection about, your feelings about asking for more politically, than a legal case required. But it was a triumph of the campaign and also just a really wonderful result that in this particular case, and this doesn’t always happen, you know, the success in the legal case did open the door, as you said, ah, for a political decision, that was broader and that reached many, many more people, than actually the narrow holding of the judgement. So, it is a great thing to remember and reflect on, even though we are two and a half years down the line. So I’m going to kind of pull together the next two questions in a one or really.

So you have spoken a lot about the wider impact that the case has already had. and I guess I just wanted your reflections. I think people find this interesting as the person who led the case, if this came to you again today, would you run it the same? But also, do you think the outcome would be the same or different or, you know, just your thoughts on. And have things changed in the last few years? Do you think?

Andy Sirel

That is a good question. I mean, I think that there would be a temptation to gather loads and loads and loads of evidence and demonstrate, you know, in a great deal of detail, you know, then that hundreds and hundreds of 100 people are impacted because doesn’t, present that as part of the case. We didn’t actually include some of the survey stuff in the case. We really did focus down on Ola as an individual and her family. and there’s a temptation to think, well, if we are able to show the broader impact, and then that would, you know, that would be a smart thing to do in the case.

But then when I was thinking about this, you know, there’s also the chance that that gives something to the other side. They can say, well, you know, this is not a small thing we’re talking about here. This is a lot of public money we’re talking about here. you know, and the governments tend to have quite a wide discretion in the legal term we use as margin of appreciation. It just means that the courts give quite a lot of like, deference and latitude to governments about how they spend public money, especially in social, issues like education.

And so, you know, you always need to think, am I doing something? And what are the unintended consequences of it? Is that actually the right way to go about it? and so, yeah, if I’m honest with you, I would probably think that Would kind of caught the sweet spot with with the case that we brought, but that was 10 years in the making. You know, I’d worked with many, many individuals who had been blocked from education and their cases probably weren’t strong enough to get us over the line. And if you think about it in I alternate universe we had this wonderful campaign and all the media and then we lost the case. You know, there’s no guarantee at all that we would have got to where we got to. In fact probably, probably we wouldn’t have done because the government were very clearly defending it.

So yeah, it’s difficult, it’s difficult to say whether it would have been a different, a different outcome. But I mean the impact of it is beyond what I could have expected, particularly the inclusion of asylum seeking young people. And I mean I’ve seen it in m. My day to day since you know there’s a. We’ve some other clients of our organisation whose kids are now at university that you know, the mums and dads are still in the asylum system but they’re all now studying, you know, X, Y and Z, at university which they just weren’t able to do two years ago. and even myself, you know I do some teaching at different institutions from time to time and I. On two occasions in the last 18 months or so I’ve I’ve had students in the class come up to me afterwards and say, you know, I’m actually here because of that judgement, and that campaign, which is very. Which I have say is very nice if not slightly surreal.

Jen Ang

I have to say that’s. No, that’s amazing and well deserved. and just underscore what you said, you know, I agree. what’s not visible to the public is actually how long you can be thinking about working up a case or how long you can be aware of an issue before the right case actually comes. And because obviously it’s only when the case hits the press and you know most of the work is done. The rest of the world is alive to the idea unfortunately, sometimes to our opponents as well. It’s only when the case, it’s depressed that they’re fully paying attention.

So onto my last question, which is what more needs to be done to secure justice for people like Ola and the other young people that you’ve worked with.

Andy Sirel

Yeah, I mean there’s a very clear one for me. So there is some unfinished business that one of the things we attempted to argue in the case or we argued in the case, but it didn’t, it didn’t come through in the final judgement, was that there needs to be an our view anyway, some form of discretion. You know, remember, Ola was only 58 days short. You know, the other young person we’re working for was about 65 days short. And know, okay, there needs to be a line in the sand because you need to determine, you need to draw the line somewhere.

But for exceptional cases, not having any discretion at all, is I, think unfair. And I’ll give you an example. We’re working with an individual right now who is a British citizen, and also a Sudanese citizen. And he and his family were evacuated from Sudan because of the outbreak of the war. And he arrived in the, in Scotland, in 2023, sought to access, ah, an education course here, and was told, oh, you’ve not lived here for three years. you know, you’re a British citizen, but you’ve not lived here for three years, so you’re an international student. And he said, well know I’m a British citizen and you know, the only reason that I’m not, I, wasn’t here for three years is because I was in Sudan. And you know, you’ve evacuated me and the rules say, well no, now here’s the thing. If he was not British, he could go through the asylum process and become a refugee and I get access to education straight away. if he had fled Ukraine, in the rules, there’s something for British nationals. You know, if you were British and you were in Ukraine, you can now access education. If he was from Afghanistan, if you lived in Afghanistan, it would be the same thing, but there’s nothing for Sudan. and you know,

I’m probably not in favour of just the government bolting on new exceptions to the regulations. I’m in favour of somebody looking at his case and saying, yeah, you’re a de facto refugee, and it’s not fair and you should be able to access education here. So there’s still some stuff left and we’re gonna have a go at his case and see where it gets to. But yeah, I think that I suppose the last thing I’d say is that the law is really complicated in this area. It’s hard for people to manage it. It’s hard for me to wade through all the regulations. I don’t know how people do it by themselves. the colleges find it difficult. So the Government finds it difficult, and we need to have something that’s a bit more consolidated. So, you know, as ever, as ever, we’re not quite at the end of the road, yet. But that doesn’t mean to say we shouldn’t m. be grateful for the wins that have come so forth

Jen Ang

Absolutely. Well, I mean, I’m told on the idea that it would be useful for the decision maker to have discretion, but it would also be. It would be ironic if, after the intervention of a lawyer, the law was actually simplified. but I have no doubt that if anyone can do it, you can fire Bas. So good luck for that case, and, you know, and thank you so much for your time. You’ve been super generous.

I just have one final question for you, and that’s this. So there will be listeners, who tune into this podcast because, you know, they admire the work that, legal legends like you do. and so the question for them and for me is, what advice might you have for someone out there who could be a younger version of you or who’s looking at what you’ve accomplished today and wants to be you, basically, what would you say to them, at an earlier stage in their career about what they should be doing?

Andy Sirel

Oh, that’s a very embarrassing question. I would say, you need to be positive. You need to look for opportunities where other people see negatives. and I think that is something that, not everyone’s able to do, but, you know, we can if we try. and if I’m honest with you, you need to treat everybody, regardless of who they are, regardless of status or position or seniority or age or anything. You need to treat everybody the same with dignity, courtesy, interest. And only by doing that, do you learn a lot. You, are. You obtain people’s trust, and you’re honest, and then doors open and opportunities present themselves, but only by doing that and do you get their trust. And that is actually, you know, things go from there. So that those are the sort of very simple pieces of advice I would give.

Jen Ang

Amazing. I mean, thank you for that wise counsel. And having known you for a long time, I know that you absolutely live those values. and. And I think. I think. I think they do. I think they do work. So I’m one of those lucky people, who’s had the opportunity to know you, and also to have called on, ah, that relationship to ask you to spend this time with us. But I think it’s been really interesting and and’positive that people will find lots of bits to take away from this. So thanks again for your time today. and yeah, I hope you have a great afternoon. Maybe get to enjoy that freshly caught grass smell before the rain comes again. yeah. And I look forward to catching up with you again soon.

Andy Sirel

Thanks very much, Jen Take care.

Jen Ang

Thanks so much to you, the listener, for tuning in to the Lawmanity Podcast.

In our next episode we’ll be speaking to Maria McCloskey, former director solicitor at the Public Interest Litigation Support Unit in Northern Ireland, about litigation she led to support a community opposing the building of a major terminal on the shores of a peaceful rural coastal area of the Belfast Lough. The Stop Whitehead Oil Terminal case. If you loved this podcast, please do hit the subscribe button and also like and share our episodes with friends and colleagues who might enjoy learning a little bit more about how the law really works in practise and how it can be used to make the world a better, brighter place.

Our podcast has been generously supported by a grant from the Clark Foundation for Legal Education. The Lawmanity Podcast is co produced by me, your host Jen Ang and by the brilliant and talented Natalia Uribe. And the music you’ve been listening to is Always on the Move by Musicians in Exile, a Glasgow based music project led by people seeking refuge in Scotland.

Recorded 23 May 2025

Host: Jen Ang

Alison Pickup

“And I think for the clients that one of the hardest things about that initial attempt to remove was that they had, as I say, mostly literally just arrived in the country after a very traumatic and a distressing journey, and they were given so little time that even to sort of get their heads around the idea of being sent to Rwanda..”

Carla Denyer MP

“Nobody is choosing to cross the channel on small boats because they think it will be a laugh. They’re doing it in desperation.”
 

Jen Ang

Welcome to the Lawmanity Podcast, where we explore the complex relationship between law and activism and discuss the different ways that law can oppress people but can also lead to real social change. 

I’m Jen Ang, a human rights lawyer based in Scotland, and your host on the Lawmanity Podcast. Every episode we will bring you legal summaries of interesting cases and one-to-one interviews with activists and lawyers across the UK who are using the law in creative ways to challenge unfairness and secure justice for people and communities who are excluded, discriminated against and overlooked. 

This week we’re speaking to human rights lawyer and legend, Alison Pickup. 

Alison is a barrister and Executive Director of Asylum Aid where she leads an expert team providing legal representation to asylum seekers and refugees. Before joining Asylum Aid, she was Legal Director of the Public Law Project. a national legal charity which promotes access to public law remedies for those who are disadvantaged by poverty and other barriers. 

Alison has won multiple awards for her work, including Outstanding Employed Barrister in an NGO Award by the Bar Council. And, in August 2025, Alison will be taking up the post of CEO at the Helen Bamber Foundation Group, a pioneering group of human rights charities which includes the Helen Bamber Foundation, Asylum Aid and the Migrants Law Project. Together the group supports survivors of trafficking, torture and other forms of human cruelty. 

Congratulations on the new role Alison and welcome to today’s show!

Alison Pickup

Thank you. 

Jen Ang

I’m so, so pleased that you’re here and I’ll be honest, you’re a total legal hero of mine, so I’m really grateful that you’ve taken the time to speak to us today as well. 

Alison Pickup

That was very kind. 

Jen Ang

Now, in this podcast as a starter, I’ve been experimenting with a surprise opening question just to get us settled and to learn a little more about the people behind the legal legends who we’re interviewing. So a good friend of mine pointed out that our sense of smell is our oldest sense and observed that sometimes we can hold deep connections between the sense of smell and our memories. 

And so if you don’t mind, please can you tell me if there is a smell that is meaningful to you or maybe one that you just really like, or that might be connected to a time and place that you like to bring to mind? 

Alison Pickup

Yeah, sure. That’s a lovely question. I don’t exactly know what the smell is, but it’s like a combination of essential oils, I think, that takes me back to a trip I made to Bangkok about ten years ago, and a friend and I were travelling, we’d been staying in fairly cheap accommodation, but in Bangkok, we’d treated ourselves to a couple of nights of slightly nicer accommodation in a hotel … …the whole hotel, just smelled beautiful. And every time I smell that combination, it takes me back to that place. 

And then a couple of years ago, a cousin of mine had these bath salts that she was using that had the same smell. So I went out and bought those bath salts, and I can take myself back to that amazing holiday to Thailand whenever I’m feeling stressed. 

So it’s the Women’s Balance bath salts from Neal’s Yard Remedies, I think. 

Jen Ang

That’s amazing. Thank you for sharing that and big up Neal’s Yard as well! 

So we’re here today to help listeners understand how you and your team at Asylum Aid led a successful campaign to challenge the Conservative-led UK Government’s Rwanda policy, and took a series of groundbreaking legal cases – starting in 2022 – that went all the way to the UK Supreme Court.

This is especially timely, as this year, in 2025, the UK Labour Government prepares to repeal the Safety of Rwanda Act in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, currently before Parliament. 

And so to start with, can I just ask you to explain to us how you got involved with this legal case and this campaign and what it was about?

Alison Pickup

So I had been, I joined Asylum Aid in late 2021, so I’d been there just under six months when the government announced its plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. And at the time we were already thinking about the need for a strategic legal working response to the legislation that was going through Parliament, the Nationality, Asylum and Borders Bill, which included plans for offshoring. 

But that legislation hadn’t even finished its passage through Parliament, when out of the blue, the government just announced this agreement with Rwanda under which anybody pretty much seeking asylum in the UK who had come through a dangerous route – which, you know, that’s basically the only way to get to the UK to seek asylum – could be sent to Rwanda.  And the plan was that this was to be a deterrent to stop other people from using dangerous routes to come here, including crossing the Channel in small boats. 

Jen Ang

Here Alison mentions that she and her colleagues were concerned about a new draft law that included plans for “offshoring.” “Offshoring” is a practice where states send people away to some other country or territory for “offshore processing” of their asylum claim. This is a controversial practice and the UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) have described the UK Rwanda Plan as “incompatible with the letter and spirit of the Refugee Convention.” 

Alison continues:

I was really shocked when I first heard about this because I knew that Rwanda didn’t have a great human rights record, wasn’t known for protecting refugees, and also that it’s thousands of miles away. And for our clients who had, you know, often paid a lot of money, spent a lot of time, gone through a lot of hardship to reach what they saw as a safe country in the UK – the idea that they would then be shipped off thousands of miles to another country where I didn’t feel they would be safe was just horrifying. 

And so I mean I remember it really clearly the announcement and the days that followed even kind of lying awake worrying about how we could stop this scheme from happening. 

I think it was really clear from the start that it was going to take litigation because the government had announced this as a flagship policy that was the key part of its asylum policy – it’s plan to “stop the boats” as that government called it, and so given the size of the majority that the government had in Parliament, it seemed extremely unlikely that there would be any other way to stop it. 

And also because they implemented it in a way that didn’t actually require any new legislation – although the Nationality and Borders Bill had those provisions – so they could they could get on with it straight away. 

So that really was kind of where it started and where it became immediately clear that we would need to be thinking about litigation. 

The other thing I think is that we were very aware that everyone in the refugee sector was kind of thinking and feeling the same, like: “we need to do something about this.” 

Jen Ang

I found it particularly interesting how certain it was for you and your legal team that litigation was the way that that we could use the law in order to challenge this policy – because it was such an important policy for the UK government at the time, it felt like the sphere for policy and influencing was really small – if not, nonexistent. 

And the other thing I wanted to reflect was that, you know, because I was also in practice and working in the migration sector at the time that you did this work, I think also seeing your team take these legal challenges did also have like a buoying, or hopeful, impact for people who were doing their day to day work. 

So my next question for you was this and what were some of the challenges and as you saw it in running the legal case or maybe in coordinating your efforts with the campaign?  

Alison Pickup

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think coordination was tricky. As I said, obviously, so many actors in the sector were trying to find ways to challenge. And so a key part at the start was kind of reaching out to those other organisations and to lawyers in private practice as well, who were acting on behalf of individual clients and on behalf of other NGOs and trying to understand what everyone else was doing and where we could add value. 

So I think that was, it was a challenge, but actually it, I think it was a start of a lot more proactive collaboration in the sector, that we were – the way we had to pull together. 

The second and related kind of biggest challenge was the speed at which things started to happen, because the announcement was like mid-April and it was in early May when the Government started detaining people on arrival and threatening them with removal to Rwanda, and we started to see how the process was playing out. And the first removals were due to take place in kind of mid-June.

So it was only really two months from even hearing for the first time that this was a possibility, to when people were supposed to be put on planes. So everything had to be done at kind of breakneck speed, on behalf of individual clients and then Asylum Aid was kind of running our own challenge, which focused on procedural fairness. 

And that was really challenging, and then you remember, I’m sure, that in the first instance, the High Court and then the Court of Appeal and then the Supreme Court in the UK all refused injunctions to prevent people being removed to Rwanda. 

And I remember the day, the flight was supposed to take off, you know, we were getting updates about what was going on in the Supreme Court, individual clients were still going to the High Court and having the individual cases heard and they might have been refused injunctions – although some were granted. And then Strasbourg kind of stepped in and said there’s a real need for this to be considered properly, so no one should be removed until the domestic courts have done so. So speed was a massive challenge, and the pace of the pace at which everything was happening. 

Jen Ang

Here Alison shares her recollection of the legal challenge to the UK Government’s first scheduled flight to remove asylum seekers to Rwanda, which took place on 13-14 June 2022. From the start of June, the UK Government had sent removal directions to a number of asylum seekers – each of whom raised individual challenges to their removal directions in the High Court by way of judicial review.  Many of those who raised judicial reviews had their removal directions cancelled, either by the Home Office or after their case had been scrutinized by the court.  

But some of those remaining applied for injunctions – an order that a court can issue to stop – or “enjoin” – the removal until such time as the court could examine the substance of the claim that the decision to remove was unlawful.  These requests for injunctions we refused by the High Court, and on appeal, by the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. 

On 13 June 2022, the day before the flight was due to depart, some of those remaining made applications to the European Court of Human Rights – which Alison refers to here as “Strasbourg,” because it sits in Straus bourg France, under its Rule 39 interim measures provision.  A Rule 39 interim measure is a power of the European Court to require parties to take an urgent measure – for example to stop a removal flight – where there is “an imminent risk of irreparable harm to a right under the European Convention on Human Rights.”  The European Court decided that an interim measure was necessary here, and the decision in one of these cases – NSK v United Kingdom was confirmed by press release on the evening of 14 June 2022 and this led to the Home Office cancelling the flight very shortly before its scheduled departure.

Alison continues:

And even after the Strasbourg Court issued a Rule 39 measure and the kind of final few people were literally taken off the plane, the Court and the Home Office were still pushing the case through at a very fast pace. They originally wanted to have the final hearing at the end of July, which just wasn’t, it was too quick. So it ended up being in September and October of that year, even that was a very fast pace for the, for the complex view of the issues that all of the legal teams have to get their heads around, get on top of, the number of different parties involved, the coordination that was required, those six months were incredibly intense and fast-paced. Yeah, 

Jen Ang

 I can actually almost like …feel, feel the tension as you describe it. 

But also I mean, it must have been, it must have been such a power of work, but also because you and your team were working across so many things, so quickly it must have felt like it went quickly as well. Do you know like in a blur almost? 

Okay, so just to make sure that our listeners understand,  what was the change in the law that ultimately your litigation across the cases is secured? 

Alison Pickup

Yeah so I think there are kind of three parts to the answer to all of those questions. 

The first: in the first round of litigation which was from sort of mid 2022 to the end of 2023, the fundamental issue that was being argued in the courts was that Rwanda was not a safe place to send people seeking asylum and refugees. Asylum Aid wasn’t spearheading that particular argument – other people were running that argument on behalf of individual clients. Our focus was on the process that was being used by the Home Office to decide who to send to Rwanda, whether it was safe to do so, which was incredibly fast. So people were given just seven days to respond to a notice of intent to send them to Rwanda when they had literally just arrived in the country, often hadn’t had access to legal advice. 

I think the change in the law that our focus on that process and the lack of fairness in that process achieved – although our case was ultimately unsuccessful – was really clear guidance from the Court of Appeal about the requirements for a fair process in this context, including the need for access to legal representation and the need for proper time to understand what is being proposed to gather evidence and make submissions and respond to that, and to secure access to justice. 

So that important change was subsequently reflected in guidance when the Home Office had another go at sending people to Rwanda, but it will apply to any similar scheme that might come in the future. So I think it’s an important change for the future. 

And I think for the clients that one of the hardest things about that initial attempt to remove was that they had, as I say, mostly literally just arrived in the country after a very traumatic and a distressing journey, and they were given so little time that even to sort of get their heads around the idea of being sent to Rwanda. So what this will do is mean that they should have proper time to get legal representation and advice to understand what is happening and to put forward their case against it. 

The second sort of part, I think, is that a lot of people ended up in that kind of limbo, because during the litigation, the Home Office continued at the start to issue these notices of intent threatening to send people to Rwanda, but no one was actually being removed. 

And so people spent, in some cases, a couple of years being told they might be sent to Rwanda, but not actually having anything happen in their cases. And we brought litigation in 2024, on behalf of a number of clients challenging those individual notices, and at those cases eventually settled, but I think that whole round of litigation helped to establish that you can’t just leave people in limbo for no reason in the hope that you might one day be able to remove them to a third country. And that is also really important, because that limbo had a really big impact on people really unable to get on with their lives. 

And then the third is obviously after the December 2023 Supreme Court judgment, which ruled that Rwanda was not a safe country to send people seeking asylum to.

Lord Reid, UK Supreme Court

The legal test, which has to be applied in this case, is whether there are substantial grounds for believing that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would be at real risk of refoulement. In the light of the evidence which I have summarised, the Court of Appeal concluded that there were such grounds. We are unanimously of the view that they were entitled to reach that conclusion. 

Jen Ang

And that was Lord Reed of the UK Supreme Court reading out the November 2023 judgment in the case just described by Alison, in which the Court finally ruled that Rwanda was not a safe country to return people to, an epic win for campaigners and long awaited for relief for the people they served.

Lord Reed refers to the “principle of non-refoulement” which is a guiding principle in international law which prohibits states from returning a person to a place where they would face a real risk of persecution, torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. In coming to this decision, the UK Supreme Court found that people seeking asylum expelled to Rwanda from the UK would be at a real risk of return, in violation of both international and UK law.

I then asked Alison: “After the Supreme Court found that Rwanda was not a safe place to return asylum seekers to, what the Government’s response to that ruling was?”

Alison Pickup

The government then introduced legislation in Parliament in the Safety of Rwanda Act, which legislated to say that yes, Rwanda is a safe place, and to try to create a framework which would allow the Home Office to go ahead and remove people to Rwanda without effective scrutiny by the courts, because Parliament had said that Rwanda was safe. 

And so Asylum Aid again kind of challenged that – both in our own name, but we also worked across the sector to make sure that any individuals who were affected had the arguments and could bring challenges too. 

And that challenge was ongoing when the [UK] General Election was called. I think as a result of that challenge, no one was removed to Rwanda before the election, and obviously then after the election and new government abandoned the plan and committed to Asylum Aid in settling the claim, they would repeal the Safety of Rwanda Act.

That second attempt, they started detaining people in May or June last year for removal to Rwanda, causing a huge amount of stress again to people, and we saw real harm done to people through that action. And I think there was something particularly cruel about the Rwanda scheme in the deterrent purpose because the Home Office was trying to use individual asylum seekers who come here seeking protection, punishing them to deter others,

But I also believe that and you know what you said earlier about how it buoyed up other colleagues and I saw that internally as well. I also think for clients, I hope, that them knowing that somebody was standing up and fighting this policy helped people to survive that really difficult period as well. 

And then ultimately of course the policy has been abandoned and they’re not being threatened with removal to Rwanda at least, now. 

Jen Ang

The Rwanda policy was so cruel and unusually I feel like the cruelty of it did cut through into mainstream media and conversations that you would have with people. 

But I also, you got the sense that people were almost incredulous and that this was the [UK] government’s policy and yet many people believed that if the government had a policy it must be lawful. 

And I think one of the things that your litigation brought to light was that there is space to challenge policies that can be unlawful. And that also allowed people to talk about it in the public space in that way. 

Humza Yousaf MSP, First Minister of Scotland

That we’ve seen this morning of those who’ve lost their life trying to cross the channel – it’s a reminder that what you need is not unworkable legislation like the Rwanda Bill. What you need to do is to create safe, legal routes for migration, and that hopefully deters the illegal migration that none of us, anybody of any political party, wants to see. 

Carla Denyer MP

Nobody is choosing to cross the channel on small boats because they think it will be a laugh. They’re doing it in desperation. 

We do need to see the government abandoning this idea with warehousing migrants on barges. That’s clearly inhumane as is deporting them rather than simply assessing their asylum applications quickly. So they’re not having to sit around waiting.

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, UK House of Lords

We are faced with a deeply broken system and layers of bad legislation which have only made things worse. I hope that the Government re-thinks this bill, this plan and this approach to migration, but I fear that we will be left without the change we need until we change the Government. 

Lord German, UK House of Lords

Clause 1(2)(b) ) is clear. It says, “This act gives effect to the judgment of Parliament that the Republic of Rwanda is a safe country.” But my Lords, this House of Parliament has not determined that this is the case.

Jen Ang

Just moving on, we’re a few years on,… Do you think the change in the law that you’ve seen, do you think that litigation has had the impact you hoped for? 

Alison Pickup

Yeah, thank you. So yes and no, is answer. Did it have the impact we wanted it to? The Rwanda scheme is dead. Like that was the that was the main objective and the main goal. And so that, you know, not just Asylum Aid, but all of the other people who were involved in the litigation and the campaigns, it was really a whole huge partnership across the sector. 

I also, as I mentioned, I think the findings that the Court of Appeal made in our case about what procedural fairness requires in this context, that was a real win, although they dismissed our case because they said that Home Office could change the policy and then it would be lawful. So it wasn’t inherently unfair. Those findings are going to be really important. Whatever scheme or plan a government may come up with for processing asylum claims, we have really clear statements from the Court of Appeal about the importance of access to legal representation. I think, a clear finding that seven days is in the majority of cases obviously not enough time to prepare a case is a really important finding going forward.

What still needs to change, you know, this government hasn’t abandoned the idea of inadmissibility. So the idea that you can say to someone who comes here and claims protection and says I am a refugee. Oh, we’re not even going to consider whether you’re a refugee. We’re going to send you to another country to consider that, that kind of shirking of responsibility under the Refugee Convention. That is still a policy of this government. 

 Asylum Aid really strongly believes in the right to territorial of the asylum. If you arrive in the UK, you should have your asylum claim considered and processed here. So that is another change we would like to see. 

And also, I think the strength of the findings from the Supreme Court on what is required for a country to be truly safe as a third country. 

The other piece that’s still in the background is although the Border, Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill is repealing most of the Illegal Migration Act. There are some parts of it that are being left on the statute books and that includes Section 59, which hasn’t been brought into  force yet. So Section 59 of the Illegal Migration Act, which basically extends the number of the countries from which asylum claims are just automatically inadmissible, beyond EU countries, to countries including India, Georgia and Albania, from which we know that there are people who are refugees. There are people who are survivors of trafficking and at risk of retrafficking. There are, you know, in the Indian and Georgian context, LGBTQ people who are refugees, and if that provision is brought into force, it will prevent those people from having their claims considered at all, and that really worries me that that’s staying.

Jen Ang

Brilliant. Thank you very much for that really clear summary. And I think that actually if you look back, that is a list of accomplishments to be proud of for you and your team. And but also exactly like the clear-sighted lawyer that you are. I appreciate that you have in your sights a number of other areas in which things need to change for people seeking asylum and safety from persecution to actually have the justice and the fair process that they deserve. 

So that just leads us on to our final question, and it’s this: 

So what advice might you have for someone who’s listening out there who might be a younger version of you, wants to be you when they grow up, who is looking at what you’ve accomplished today leading more than one public interest litigation team. And wants to know how to get there. What advice would you give them, now?

Alison Pickup

I think my number one piece of advice is: don’t hurry. 

Like I think when you’re young and enthusiastic, you can be very impatient to get on with your career and with achieving big things, but there’s plenty of time and what’s important is to really take time to know what you enjoy, what motivates you, where your skills are, and focus on that area. 

So for me, it was a very gradual path. You know, I started as a caseworker and realised that I really enjoyed being an advocate in court. And so I ended up qualifying as a barrister. And then, you know, after having practiced for kind of nearly ten years, I then decided I wanted to move more into the NGO world. And so, I just think don’t hurry and take your time and learn what’s good. 

And the other one I would say is colleagues, partnership network, is really important. 

You know, this work can be really challenging emotionally, as well as stressful, it can be very tiring. You can’t do it alone and you need to build that network in, you know, in your workplace with colleagues in the sector, with people who don’t work in this world at all, in order to have like really good support around you and people who understand what drives you, who are there for you when things get tough, is really important. 

Jen Ang

Amazing. Thank you for that outstanding advice. 

So I’m really pleased that you and your team are still on it and I look forward to what you get up to next. But for today, thank you for your generous time and for, and for answering our questions. 

Alison Pickup

Thank you so much. It was always a pleasure to talk, Jen. 

Jen Ang

And finally, thanks so much to you, the listener, for tuning into the Lawmanity podcast, and the first in our series highlighting the inspiring cases taken by activist lawyers across the UK.   

If you loved this podcast, please do hit the subscribe button, and also like and share our episodes with friends and colleagues who might enjoy learning a little bit about how the law really works in practice, and how it can be used to make the world a better, brighter place. 

Our first series of this podcast has been generously supported by a grant from the Clark Foundation for Legal Education. 

The Lawmanity podcast is co-produced by me, your host, Jen Ang, and by the brilliant and talented Natalia Uribe. And the music you’ve been listening to is “Always on the Move” by Musicians in Exile, a Glasgow-based music project led by people seeking refuge in Scotland.

Recorded 21 May 2025

The UK Home Office said in a press release that the legislation introduces counter terror-style powers to “identify, disrupt and smash people smuggling gangs” – as if this is somehow the fix that our very broken immigration system needs.

For those of you who are not UK migration policy experts – which will be most of you, because this is a very niche sort of interest – this Bill will, categorically, not fix the most pressing issues in the immigration and asylum system.

Nor will it protect people from the harm they suffer when they are trafficked or smuggled to the UK because they are fleeing persecution and criminal gangs.

Nor will it (probably) even have any significant impact on disrupting smuggling gang activity, which is its stated aim.

It definitely will not improve the lives of people already living in the UK, or fix the damage caused by UK Conservative Government immigration policies:

employers who cannot hire or retain qualified staff from abroad

universities who are facing huge deficits because of the sudden drop in overseas student enrolment

families and communities who are facing rising immigration fees and, in most part of the UK, what is described as “legal advice deserts” when it comes to accessing credible, affordable legal advice on their essential rights.

Why does migration matter to all of us?

Between 16-18% of the UK population was born abroad (ONS, 2023), and that means that a substantially greater proportion of the British public have family members – spouses, parents, children – or friends who are, in some way, directly impacted by UK immigration law and the “hostile environment”.

Even if you are British, the “hostile environment” enforcement powers exercisable by the UK Home Office, which have increased year-on-year in the last decade, affects every part of your daily life:

• When you started your job, did you have to show your passport or birth certificate to pass a ‘right to work’ check because your driver’s licence was not sufficient photographic ID? That’s immigration law.
• If you are a student at college or university, does your lecturer require you sign a register or use a QR code or “check-in” app to report to the Home Office physical attendance by students in class? That’s immigration law, too.
• When you opened a bank account, or applied for a driving licence, whether or not you realised it, your right to live in the UK was also determined as part of the application process.

Just as we all share the air we breathe, so too the hostile environment does not just affect migrants in the UK – it cannot, by definition – it affects all of us.

Why should we fix the asylum and immigration system and dismantle the hostile environment?

Quite a lot of research has been done over the past decade which has concluded:

• The Home Office has no evidence to show that hostile environment policies actually work
• Hostile environment policies were enforced illegally – in violation of the Equality Act 2010
• They foster racist practices, which is destructive for people and communities
• And – the obvious – hostile environment policies are cruel, harmful, unfair and bad for us

There are really important issues in the UK asylum and immigration that system that also need to be fixed. There is a massive backlog in deciding asylum claims, and this together with the Home Office’s decision to use hotels for asylum seekers rather than private rented flats has directly result in more than doubling the annual cost of housing a single person – from £17k to £41k, in just a couple of years.

Just to be clear, who gets paid also matters.

In this case, all that extra money – £4.3 billion annually – is going to just three private contractors, and trickling down to a small number of private hotel owners and chains. Instead, this money could go to local authorities, public housing associations and private landlords who previously supplied asylum seeker housing (and could do so again). Returning to what we did before could also expand the social housing stock and be part of the solution to the UK-wide and very real social housing crisis.

What we needed vs what we actually got

So for a brief summary of what the Bill actually says, I always turn to Colin Yeo at Free Movement for a definitive and accessible analysis of breaking legislation and case law. If you want the detail, you can read his article here.

We did get repeal of the Rwanda Act and some particularly cruel parts of the Illegal Migration Act 2023

but other harmful and irrational parts of the Illegal Migration Act 2023 have been retained

creation of new, wider enforcement powers for UK Home Office, including search and seizure of mobile phones

creation of a whole lot of new offences, with serious penalties, and not a lot of explanation for why this was necessary

So, in conclusion, we needed serious solutions to the poor functioning of the immigration and asylum system in the UK and a commitment to dismantling the UK Conservative Government’s hostile immigration policies…

…and what we got was a UK Labour Government that has kept failed policies on the books, and created new powers and offences as well.

This Bill will not have any impact on protecting people from smuggling, or making us all safer, because it was not designed to do those things – it was designed to signal that the UK Labour Government is willing to engage in the politics of fear.

The politics of fear, and how to defeat it

The politics of fear as articulated by Ruth Wodak is a tactic, usually associated with the right-wing, that distorts the political reality of a nation in order to create a disproportionate fear in the general population that is disproportionate to the actual danger posed.

Politicians and political elites can then use this fear – once it becomes an accepted mainstream belief – as a pretext to pass laws and take actions that are harmful to the general public, but somehow in the name of the common good. Or to be seen to be “doing something” about the invented (or exaggerated) harm, when avoiding accountability for larger, actual failings of governance.

We are living in a global era of elected governments that embrace the politics of fear; what can we do about it?

Don’t let other people define your fears – rely on your own wits, develop your ability to assess the credibility of others, and trust your native ability to reason through a problem. To know your own fears, the size and shape and finiteness of them, is a gift. And it’s a gift only you can give yourself.

Take actions to reduce fear in others – I’ve written before about the importance of curious and open dialogue with people who do not share your views, but I mean something different this time. The politics of fear will thrive when people feel insecure: about their financial situation, or even their place in this world – whether they belong, whether they deserve the respect of others, and so on. For me, initiatives that reduce poverty, improve access to education and employment, housing, health and social care – will increase feelings of safety and belonging, and reduce the effectiveness of politics of fear.

Call it out, and talk about the real change we need to see – the politics of fear is just a sleight of hand; it’s a particularly cruel kind of magic trick. It works because fear is a powerful motivator for people. But it also works because people don’t call it out. Try that, the next time you think people might be listening to you. And remember to be ready with your list of actual important things we should be talking about instead. Because if you do succeed, people will be listening.

Good luck everyone! Thanks for reading The Long View this week and bearing with me, whilst I worked through what I clearly felt was a really disappointing Bill from the new UK Labour Government.

As a wee treat, here’s a short, sweet book recommendation: not for the faint-hearted, but very much a rallying cry for feminist activists to call out the politics of fear that persist in how we talk about women’s bodies … and having the courage to push for something radically different, and better.

First published on LinkedIn on 31 January 2025:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/politics-fear-how-defeat-jen-ang-qopre/

This month is about East and South East Asian (ESEA) Heritage Month and picking through stories from my own and collective history, I have two stories that just might be worth passing on.

Story Time: The History of the Mooncake

I have a surplus of mooncakes because the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival fell on 17th September this year, and it is one of two Chinese festivals (the other being the Lunar New Year) that I always celebrate here in the UK.

The Moon Festival is a harvest-type festival, it is marked by the appearance of the full moon in on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month of the year and typically, families share a celebratory meal that includes mooncakes.

These are vaguely linked to a fable about a legendary archer and his wife, Chang-e, who took a magic potion and became goddess of the moon. Want visual context? Watch the 30-second Disney version here in the trailer for their 2020 film Over the Moon

The mooncake also has a brilliant subversive history. For a period of time, China was ruled by a Mongol dynasty (called the Yuan dynasty) and legend tells us that a successful rebellion was incited by Ming revolutionaries who placed subversive messages inside mooncakes distributed widely to Chinese families but not their Mongol rulers. When families cut into the cakes on the evening of the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, they read the messages, took up arms and successfully overthrew the ruling dynasty.

All good and fine, but why do I have a surplus of mooncakes?

Two reasons: (1) I love mooncakes, but none of my family here shares this passion. They consist of a sweet pastry outer shell with a dense, sweet bean paste inside – so far so good. But the deluxe versions also feature a cooked, salted duck egg at the centre. Personally, I think this is the best part, but for most people with Western palates, this is really just a step too far.

And (2) following Brexit, Asian foodstuffs have become more expensive and harder to buy in Scotland. Last year, there was a run on mooncakes, with price gouging in the last few days and a single mooncake going for eyewatering prices of £8-12 each.

So this year, I have simply bought far too many. More than anyone in my family will ever eat. Which suits me fine, because it just means – more mooncakes for me.

Story Time II: The Curious History of Opium, Rhubarb and Me

Last week, in London, studying the history of colonialism with colleagues and walking the City of London, we started to speak about the Opium Wars, which were a series of wars between China, the British Empire and France in the mid-19th Century. My own father was a historian of modern Chinese history, and when we lived in China, he made a point of taking me to museums in southern China and talking me through the exhibits.

He told me that the British Empire, facing a trade deficit in China and wanting very much to find items to trade with the Chinese for tea, silk and porcelain were looking for a product that the Chinese wanted to consume. They eventually settled on opium, cultivated and exported from India – a substance which is of course highly addictive, as well as harmful, and resulted in a permanent reversal of the balance of trade, in favour of the British Empire.

If you would like to read more, here is a version of this history from the British national archives which is quite light on taking responsibility, and which justifies Britain waging a war in order to legalise the opium trade as a reasonable defense of a global interest in free and unregulated markets. (If you live in the UK, by the way, this is definitely what your kids are learning in school.)

So Hong Kong, where my mother was born and raised, became a British colony and free trading port, ceded by China to the British following its total defeat in the Opium Wars.

My grandfather, his father and his brothers, originally farmers and small shopkeepers from Southern China, emigrated to the US in the early part of the 20th century. They opened Chinese restaurants and laundromats on the East Coast of the US, eventually however, sending my great-grandfather back to China in his later years, because it had become too expensive to support his lifelong opium habit in the US – it could more easily be serviced in China.

For both my parents, then, our family’s history of nationality, identity and migration – are linked in different ways to the British Empire’s decision, at one point in the distant past, to start trading opium from India for tea in China.

So what about the rhubarb? Hopefully having given you quite a serious schooling on opium, I can now lighten the mood.

My father also taught me that Chinese rhubarb, for a long time, was a highly sought after ingredient for Western medicines, as the root has purgative properties, and was traded on the Silk Route via Russia and also Turkey in medieval times, fetching higher prices than precious cinnamon and saffron. When Britain opened sea trade routes to China, they also traded for rhubarb, which held its price – sometimes trading at 3x the value of opium – for a long time because it could not be cultivated successfully in Europe.

There was a period, though, during or between the Opium Wars, when the Chinese proposed a blockade of rhubarb exports to Britain. The Chinese believed, in short, that if they withheld rhubarb for long enough, British people might actually build up enough internal wind to risk…exploding. Or to at least experience extreme discomfort.

They were, as we now know, mistaken. And eventually, strains of rhubarb were successfully developed to withstand cultivation here in the UK, where it now grows hardy and strong, almost weed-like, in most conditions – consigning this tactical miscalculation by the Chinese to little more than a wry footnote in history.

The stories we tell, and how we tell them

This week, I had wondered about whether to share how we celebrate traditions in Chinese culture, and why it might be worth doing so.

I’ve landed somewhere else … in telling you a story that matters, but also in pointing out the many ways a story can be told and retold: by the victor, by the defeated, by their descendents. I’d like to share these stories with my children, who hold both Chinese and British heritage, and ask them what sense they make of such things.

Like the mooncakes, I’ll expect them to know about their history, personal and collective, but will leave them to decide how to hold that history, and how and where they pass it on.

I guess I’ll finish by also reflecting that I had started with the idea of making visible our connections because I hope that I’ve demonstrated also that “other people’s” history, if you look even just a bit beyond the obvious is also your history… or maybe, all of our history.

That could be liberating if we think about it that way. It is at least the way I would like to think about it.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend, and thanks for joining me again at The Long View. I would love to hear reflections, on these stories or on how you hold traditions and pass on personal and collective histories in your families and to your friends.

First published on LinkedIn on 27 September 2024:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/making-visible-our-connections-past-each-other-jen-ang-ng2ze/

Something shifts inside me when I fly back to the US – the country of my birth, and first nationality. Despite having lived there for a minority of years, and not at all for over two decades, something loosens in my chest when I arrive.

I feel more comfortable, more confident and more like I belong.

I feel like I take up space less apologetically, and if something happens, that I have more of a call on government, the public, the police who are supposed to protect me – than I do elsewhere.

I feel that way despite not actually knowing as much about how things work in the US as I do in the UK, where I have raised my family and learned my profession.

I feel like I matter more here in the US. But why?

What makes us belong?

Have you ever stopped to think about your own nationality and the reasons why you belong in the place where you live?

If you are a migrant, whether recent or distant, or if you have suffered racial or cultural discrimination in your home, you might have asked yourself this, and you might even have an answer. Migrants and racialised people are accustomed to being told to “go back home” and if you think you are home, that is cause for reflection.

But my experience lecturing on the subject of migration and nationality for many, many years is that most people who are from groups that are racially and culturally dominant in their home area, cannot answer this question.

They enjoy a kind of privileged belonging that is most often invisible to them, until their assumptions are challenged – for example, when that sense of belonging is denied, or when someone they know is denied that privilege.

Nationality and belonging

Most people have at least one nationality, meaning they are recognised as a citizen of at least one sovereign state (or nation), although some people are born, or become, stateless.

Each country has sovereign control over the rules that they apply in order to determine citizenship of their state, and by and large, no state has the right to tell other states how these rules should work.

The (very silly) example I give here: if Scotland were a sovereign nation and the government were to determine that anyone can be a Scottish citizen if they drink a can of Irn-Bru and declare their allegiance to the hairy haggis, then this is a legitimate form of nationality law and Scotland is entitled to confer citizenship according to these rules.

More seriously, there are a few common ways in which countries normally confer nationality and they are:

• Jus soli – a right by birth on the soil: for example, I am an American citizen because I was born in the United States
• Jus sanguinis – a right by blood (or descent): for example, my children are American citizens because they are descended from me, and American citizen – despite the fact that they were not born in the US and might never travel there
• Jus matrimonii – a right by marriage: this one is uncommon in modern times, but in some places, a woman would automatically lose her nationality of birth and gain the nationality of her husband, on marriage
• Naturalisation – a privilege (not a right) conferred by states in certain circumstances, which permits people to apply for citizenship if they meet certain rules. For example, I am a naturalised British citizen.

Who decides? And what does that mean for the rest of us?

However – and this is really important – there is no fixed list of routes to nationality, and countries change these rules all the time. The decision to rule in, and rule out, citizenship for people with a connection to a country is very much a political decision, influenced by history, economics, cultural values and so on.

In a democracy, we decide. And yet most people remain unaware of the immigration and nationality rules of their country, and what that means for the people living around them, and their communities.

For example, in the UK, the government has stripped Shemima Begum, a British-born person, of her citizenship and despite the recent change in political leadership shows no signs of reversing that decision, even in the face of compelling evidence that she has been a victim of grooming and child trafficking.

Closer to home (for me), I have written previously about my own journey as a migrant to the UK, including the painful reality that despite being “good migrant,” I am not able to apply for my aging mother to live with us in the UK – despite the fact that she was once a British citizen herself, having been born in Macau (a Portuguese colony) and raised in Hong Kong (a British colony).

Her citizenship was stripped by a political act, the Commonwealth Immigrants Acts 1962 and 1968 – these acts were passed to prevent migration of black and brown people from the former colonies in Asia and Africa, following decolonisation in the 1960s.

Home is a feeling: belonging

Over the years, people have asked me “where is home?” and they mean very different things by that question, when they ask it.

Because I am a racialised person, people who do not know me well usually want to know what Asian country my ancestors might be from. I’m still a bit sensitive about being asked this, but I’m getting over it.

People who know me better, or who have had an opportunity to take in my accent – which is a sort of transatlantic Scottish/American twang – might recognise that I sit between countries, and nationalities, and could be asking a deeply coded question about belonging.

I usually say: home is where you feel you belong. Home is the people I love. Home can be more than one place.

Reflecting on what I’ve written above, the truth is that I don’t have a definitive answer myself. Just a hope that by educating each other, and talking about the harm that barriers, borders and exclusion cause people – we can do better.

If, in a democracy, we decide, then perhaps there is a piece of work for us to do: rethinking our nationality rules so they truly reflect that kind of belonging that we feel people in our communities deserve.

Need some inspiration?

Jackie Kay was the Makar (national poet) of Scotland from 2016 to 2021.

Read Threshold a wonderful poem about belonging and Scottishness, which reminds us:

Our strength is our difference. Dinny fear it. Dinny caw canny.

You can also listen to her read it here.

First published on LinkedIn on 9 August 2024:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/migration-belonging-finding-home-jen-ang-ho18e/

We’ve also had sight of the Labour Party Manifesto (Scottish version here), which is significant for politics in the UK because it is widely accepted that the Labour Party will win the majority of seats in the upcoming UK General Election on 4th July 2024.

Therefore, the manifesto is a reliable indication of what we can expect to see around migration policy from the next government.

Where we are today: Hopes and fears

For me, the Labour manifesto articulates a vision for migration that gives cause for hope, but also uncritically embraces language and champions policies that are rooted more in fear, than logic.

For example, we can expect a new Labour government to bin the Conservative government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, and to swiftly pass legislation to unwind the Illegal Migration Act 2023, the draconian law that underpinned that project.

This is hope, not least for the 43k asylum applicants who were part of the nearly 100k backlogged asylum cases at the end of 2023, who would have been at risk of being forcibly removed to Rwanda or to another country, without any UK agency even agreeing to hear the reasons why they deserve asylum in the UK.

Some of the savings will be spent on clearing the backlog, and given a lot of those people are actually refugees just waiting to be recognised as refugees – this is a good thing for everyone.

However, the Labour Party also proposes to spend some of the savings on a Border Security Command to tackle organised gangs who run the small boats that carry people seeking asylum across the English Channel.

This is fear based policymaking, and little else.

Despite what the Conservative government and mainstream UK media has been telling us for some time, objectively, small boat crossings are not a major issue for the UK government.

The only explanation that migration experts have is that this part of the manifesto is more about politics than good governance.

And it is disappointing that the incoming Labour government has chosen to adopt a position on future migration policy that remains unnecessary, unlawful, and most importantly… unkind.

Curious for an alternative view on what the Labour government ought to focus on? I can’t say it better than migration expert Zoe Gardner already said it here in 2023: “Three steps to solving the small boat crisis that might actually work“

Changing perspective: Migration as history, hope and belonging

There is an alternative, and I can describe it – although I can’t make other people believe in it; that will be up to each of us, including you.

History

Sometimes we need to start with the long view: migration is nothing more than the unhindered movement of animals, including people, from one place to another.

Until the early part of the 20th century, most countries did not make any serious effort to pass or enforce immigration laws – people were largely left to enter and leave countries, as they wished.

Our common history of migration in the preceding three centuries included significant migration of Europeans to colonise and settle other parts of the globe, and forced migration of Africans by Europeans, across some of these colonies and settlements. Those early immigration laws, further, were then largely about preventing the migration of people from other parts of the globe into Europe, or European-held colonies and settlements.

This is what academics, activists and campaigners mean when they say that migration laws are racist, and rooted in colonialism. It doesn’t mean that we don’t need any laws at all, but it does mean that we need to keep thinking critically about where these laws came from and why they are structured how they are.

Hope

There are some great example of migration policy grounded in hope, not fear. This includes the European Union’s free movement laws.

EU free movement has allowed the millions of citizens of the EU member states practically feel and act as though they belong to something greater. Millions of young people, in particular, have seen greater economic opportunity, and enjoyed greater physical freedom, than previous generations, making connections to others and creating businesses, art and music, families and friendships that would not have existed, but for this (relatively technical) set of immigration laws.

Laws are transformative for our societies; those impacts can be profoundly positive, especially when they are grounded in hope and allowed to flourish at scale.

Belonging

A different way to talk to people about migration is to ask people who belongs in our communities.

Some people believe that to belong in a place, you must be from that place. Sometimes there is a race for authenticity; the longer one’s ancestors have been of that place, the greater claim you have of belonging.

Others believe that if you have chosen to make a place your home, you belong there.

Still others say that you must make a positive contribution to a place (pay taxes, join the military, do something heroic) in order to belong. And that you renounce a right to belong if certain negative things befall you (suffering injury, getting fired from your job, breaking up with your partner).

The problem with most of the above, is that our belonging is mostly conditioned on factors we personally have no control over.

We cannot control where we are born, or who are ancestors were.

We cannot control our race or the religious and cultural traditions we are born into.

We cannot control major factors that affect our safety or wellbeing. For example, whether we live in a peaceful country, or a war-torn one. Whether we are born poor in a wealthy country, or wealthy in a poor one.

For the most part, the global system of immigration laws grants advantages to the few, excludes and restricts freedom for the many, divides families and prevents creativity and progress… largely on the basis of parts of our identity that we personally have no control over.

Thinking differently about migration

Last night, at a brilliant Refugee Festival Scotland event at Eden Court Theatre in Inverness, Scotland I was asked: how would I create a fair, just system of immigration law?

I think the answer is the same as it is, for all laws.

A just law is one that would treat you fairly, no matter who you are, and where you come from

This is not my idea, and it is not new. This way of thinking about fair and just laws is most closely associated with the American philosopher, John Rawls.

Here is a hilariously simple (and brief) video illustrating this principle, which also features a more positive spin on small boats:

John Rawls says that laws should be made from behind a veil of ignorance, meaning you should write laws imagining that you have no idea what position you would hold in society – whether, for example, you will be a victim of violence or a perpetrator, whether you will be wealthy or poor, whether you will be educated or illiterate, whether you will be a coloniser, or colonised.

This is the same thought exercise that you’ve previewed in the post-it note at the start of this article: who would you be under apartheid?

(A smaller scale version of this principle in practice, levering basic self interest: if we have to divide a coveted good (chocolate, for example) between our three children, one child makes the division and the other two children choose their portion first.)

Change is coming, but through hope, or fear?

Time to wrap this up, thanks for sticking it out if you are still reading!

This week, I also had the great privilege to listen to Nicholas Lowles the inspirational CEO of HOPE not hate.

When asked about how he and his team face up to the challenges ahead, he reflected: “Most people, given the choice, choose hope.”

So, in closing, this Refugee Week 2024, asking all of you out there to keep thinking critically about how we got to here, and celebrating those of you who – every day – choose hope, and choose love

First published on LinkedIn on 21 June 2024
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-think-differently-migration-jen-ang-oejee/