Across the globe, compassion for migrants has given way to cruel, performative politics | Kenan Malik

From Britain and Italy to Tunisia and Pakistan, our leaders crave being seen to be tough as a distraction from their failures at home

On Wednesday, the UK supreme court will give its verdict on the Rwanda deportation scheme. The decision will clearly have a major impact on those who face deportation. It will have an impact, too, on the political debate about immigration, with government supporters either hailing a victory or bemoaning the treachery of the liberal elite.

But, whatever the decision, it will have little bearing on the immigration crisis". The government itself has acknowledged that, even were the court to deem the scheme legal, and deportation flights to Kigali take off, Rwanda could take only small numbers" of deportees, possibly 300 a year across the four years of the trial period. Given that there were almost 46,000 people crossing the Channel on small boats last year, and that by August this year the asylum backlog stood at 175,000, the deportation scheme amounts to little more than performative policy - the desire to be seen doing something and doing something cruel - rather than a serious attempt to tackle a problem.

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