By Nuno Ferreira
Sitting at a cinema theatre watching ‘Wicked: For good’, I couldn’t help watching the last scene between Glinda and Elphaba and thinking how much it resembled current UK politics. Elphaba explains to Glinda that Glinda shouldn’t try to set the record straight and clear Elphaba’s name, because ‘I need to be wicked, so that you can be good’. Ozians need to have someone they consider to be wicked, so that they can appreciate goodness, as impersonated by Glinda. There is nothing new in the value of opposites to help define them and reach balance in the universe, as Greek philosophers like Heraclitus taught many centuries ago.
The resemblance with current UK politics relates to the latest Government’s proposals to reform the asylum system. Shabana Mahmood – in a style close to that of Madame Morrible, the headmistress and sorceress in Wicked – put forward a range of proposals that further restrict the rights of those seeking protection in the UK, in a package entitled – in true fascist language – ‘Restoring Order and Control’. Proposed measures include, among many others, requiring 20 years of residence in order to be able to apply to indefinite leave to remain, limiting the possibility of family reunion, making support for destitute asylum claimants discretionary, and moving accommodation to large sites. Furthermore, the package proposes using ‘safe third countries’ as return hubs, limiting the right to appeal against negative decisions, reducing the scope of application of human rights protections, and moving to community sponsorship as the main framework for refugee resettlement (instead of the state taking responsibility for resettlement).
The pitfalls of ‘Restoring Order and Control’
Although most details of these measures are yet to be defined, it is clear that we should all be very worried about this policy paper, both for undermining the international protection the UK is obliged to offer under international and domestic legal standards, but also because it again threatens human rights standards that anyone in the UK – national or non-national – is entitled to. More worryingly, the proposals run against all evidence and research in this field (even that produced by the Home Office), as explained in a statement of consensus signed by more than 500 practitioners and researchers working in UK migration and asylum law. In fact, these measures are argued on the basis of patently false arguments and deceiving statements.
Then why did Madame Morrible… I mean, Shabana Mahmood put forward this policy paper? Because it is important to keep demonising those seeking protection in the UK and undermining human rights standards, for the sake of helping the Government look good as the ‘defender of the nation’ and valiant protector of ‘our borders’. Usefully, this distracts voters from the policy failures of the Labour government across other sectors and aims to gain votes from the right-wing (although that strategy risks backlashing), just as Elphaba’s fabricated wickedness is used to hide from ‘fellow Ozians’ the lies and deceit of the Wizard of Oz. Elphaba fights to expose those lies and deceit orchestrated by the Wizard of Oz, just as refugees (with the support of so many charities, activists, and Green and Lib Dem politicians) try to fight for a more humane asylum system based on reliable evidence. Glinda, instead, is – almost until the end of the story – more worried about her popularity and looks than with helping fellow Ozians liberate themselves from the shackles of the Wizard of Oz, the same way Labour, Conservative and Reform leaders try to look good as ‘saviours of the nation’ by feeding voters distorted visions of what is wrong with the current policy. That’s why we see Starmer, as well as Badenoch and Farage, offering illusionary and hateful ‘solutions’ rather than freeing voters from the web of misinformation nurtured by political parties and social media.
Hope for better
But there is hope at the end. The shallow and popularity-obsessed Glinda realises that it’s more important to tell the truth to fellow Ozians about the lies of the Wizard of Oz, than to maintain popularity at the cost of deceit. When will all political party leaders come clean on the need to have a humane asylum system compliant with human rights standards? When will the Labour party accept that the only way to ‘stop the boats’ is to offer people safe paths of protection, as the UNHCR rightly defends? When will the government understand the need to introduce humanitarian visas? When will politicians recognise that the best way for those claiming asylum to contribute to the country is to allow them to work legally? Above all, when will the government stop using refugees and human rights as scapegoats and distraction mechanisms, and focus squarely on the real problems affecting the country like under resourced hospitals and schools?
The characters in Wicked are more complex and nuanced that the simplified version used here, and this analogy is admittedly not ideal, as the events and character development in Wicked doesn’t map neatly onto UK’s current politics. But the main point of this exercise remains valid: Elphaba shouldn’t have to leave with Fiyero to the Land Beyond Oz. They should be able to live safely in Oz. All those reaching the UK have the right to see their claims for international protection assessed individually and fairly, and should be treated humanely and with dignity. Let’s stop the lies and deceit, and start working seriously on a humane and efficient asylum system.
Nuno Ferreira is a Professor of Law at the University of Sussex, UK. Nuno’s teaching and research focuses on refugee law, European law, and human rights – especially LGBTIQ+ and children’s rights. Nuno has been a Horizon 2020 ERC Starting Grant recipient, leading the SOGICA project (2016-2020, www.sogica.org), as well as a co-investigator in the Horizon 2020-funded TRAFIG project (2019-2022, www.trafig.org) and Principal Investigator in the ESRC-funded project ‘Negotiating Queer Identities Following Forced Migration’ (2022-2024, https://iranqueerefugee.net/). More information available on https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p396218-nuno-ferreira.
The author thanks Dr Moira Dustin, Dr Sarah Scuzzarello, Gavin Desborough for their comments on earlier drafts of the text.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author/s and do not necessarily reflect those of the Refugee Law Initiative. We welcome comments and contributions to this blog – please comment below and see here for contribution guidelines.