UK Joins Rush of European States Suspending Syrian Refugee Claims After Damascus Falls to Islamists

Governments across Europe are stopping Syrian refugee applications, but whether a fresh migrant wave or a period of repatriation now follows is unclear.

European governments are now embodying what was considered by the political and media establishment as unacceptably racist in 2015 when Donald Trump said to shut down immigration “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on”. Nations across the continent have now enacted a hard stop on Syrian refugee applications and are remarkably blunt in explaining this is because they don’t know exactly what the collapse of the Syrian regime will mean, and what will happen next.

Germany and Austria were the first to move on Monday, but since the United Kingdom, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Greece, Finland and Norway have joined them in suspending new Syrian refugee claims, a decade after the Europe migrant crisis began and four million Syrians filed for protection in Europe.

The ‘wait and see’ approach underlines somewhat the idea the collapse of the Syrian regime appears to have caught the UK government off guard and with no coherent messaging prepared. Senior Labour figures repeatedly contradicted each other this week, with Foreign Minister David Lammy refused to be drawn on whether the UK would be suspending Syrian asylum claims even as his colleague the Home Secretary was announcing just that within minutes.

Meanwhile, influential Westminster gossip blog Guido Fawkes notes, Minister for the Cabinet Office Pat McFadden’s claim the UK would be-de listing the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that overthrew the Assad regime would be de-listed as a banned terror organisation had to be slapped down.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said it was “far too early” to discuss declassifying the Syrian Al-Qaeda analogue and that there is no decision pending at all.

In the United Kingdom, several factors have been cited for the decision, including Assad no longer being a valid reason to want refugee status, to concerns about the type of people who would now be fleeing post-Assad Syria. British newspaper of record cited their government source who said: “Most of the applications in the system are on the basis of fleeing Assad… We need to pause while we make an assessment of the safety of the country as it is now.”

In short, trying to process any further applications until a clear picture of what happens next is basically pointless.

British state broadcaster the BBC noted asserted the UK government is also concerned that Syrians from the fallen regime may now try to come to the UK to claim asylum as the wheel turns and the old persecutors they become the persecuted. Broadsheet The Daily Telegraph quotes unnamed Whitehall sources who state their concern the collapse of the Assad regime may have a rapid knock-on effect on British-born Islamist terrorists with “direct operational experience” who had been imprisoned or detained in camps in Syria, and who seen may find themselves free and trying to return to the UK.

Indeed, the British government appears to be softening expectations in case the end of the Assad dictatorship means yet another massive wave of Syrian refugees to Europe as, free from the Al-Assad family or not, the country is not in stable condition and presently being taken over by a group which can at best be said to have sworn off its Al-Qaeda-linked past. British Foreign Minister David Lammy had said: “Assad’s demise brings no guarantee of peace. This is a moment of danger as well as opportunity for Syrians and for the region. The humanitarian situation in Syria is dire, with almost 17 million people in need. Millions are refugees, largely still in neighbouring Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.”

Others, however, are looking to these developments as being an opportunity to see the millions of Syrians in Europe start to go home. Robert Jenrick, who doesn’t lead the UK’s opposition Conservative Party but has made a habit of acting like he does, said on Tuesday: “Many of the asylum claims of Syrian nationals will now be baseless… The Government should be immediately facilitating the returns of Syrians here whose asylum claims are now groundless”.

Brexit leader and border control campaigner Nigel Farage said: “With Assad gone the basis for those claims has been removed and if the door stays open we allow murderous members of the fallen regime to come.”

The United Kingdom has received 27,000 Syrian asylum applications since 2011 and the vast majority have been approved, with the approval rate as high as 99 per cent in recent years. Yet these arrivals are scraps compared to some European states, like Germany, which is now home to very nearly one million Syrian refugees, who were the kernel of the Europe Migrant Crisis last decade. But now pro-border-control politicians in Germany say it is time to start looking at sending Syrians home, even if the German government has stated they won’t change the status of those already granted refugee status yet.

One of Germany’s top conservative lawmakers Jens Spahn — who is trying to put distance between himself and his former boss, migration queen Angela Merkel — said on Monday assisted, voluntary remigration should be considered. Neue Zürcher Zeitung reports him as having said: “as a first step, I would say we are making an offer. How about if the federal government says: we will charter planes for anyone who wants to go back to Syria, and they will receive a [cash incentive to leave] of €1,000.”

Also riding high in German polling is the Alternative for Germany (AfD), who take a strong line on border control and migration, and who indicated their view the time for Syrians to go home is now. Party leader Alice Weidel said those Syrians in Germany celebrating the fall of Assad clearly had no reason not to pack their bags. She said: “Anyone in Germany who celebrates ‘free Syria’ obviously no longer has any reason to flee. They should return to Syria immediately”.

In many cases the presence of Syrians in such numbers has become a major political issue in Germany, particularly when Syrian guests have been proven to have murdered or otherwise molested their German hosts. Germany’s left-wing coalition government has not long ago collapsed and the country is rapidly heading for a snap election, so expect questions over what happens to the near-million Syrians in the country now to feature in the campaign.

While nations may be moving to protect their interests as developments in Syria come thick and fast the European Union itself, naturally, has other ideas. The Commission has made clear its position that migrants should only be returning in a “safe and dignified” manner which, given the state Syria is in and will likely be for a long time to come, may practically mean never.