When it comes to Ukrainian refugees, the Home Office can be forgiven for not predicting the latest twitch. Cruelty is a feature of Britain’s asylum system, not a bug. Welcoming refugees is a reversal of previous policy. Indeed, the department has spent the past year coming up with schemes of near comic-book villainy to deter migrants from crossing the Channel. These plans have ranged from wave machines to processing arrivals on St Helena, an island in the South Atlantic. (A deal to process asylum-seekers in Rwanda is now being mooted.) An engine built to reject people has suddenly been told to accept people, akin to slamming a car into reverse while speeding along a motorway.
Cruelty is not a bug
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