{"id":280274,"date":"2025-11-24T08:09:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T08:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/280274\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T08:09:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T08:09:07","slug":"we-thought-the-rwanda-scheme-was-the-worst-of-it-enver-solomon-on-leading-and-leaving-the-refugee-council-life-and-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/280274\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We thought the Rwanda scheme was the worst of it\u2019: Enver Solomon on leading \u2013 and leaving \u2013 the Refugee Council | Life and style"},"content":{"rendered":"

Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, is at his home in London when I meet him. It\u2019s the start of a gruesome week. The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood<\/a>, has just announced that refugees could have their status revoked at any time if the country from which they fled is deemed safe; the pathway from being granted asylum to getting citizenship would increase to 20 years; AI would be used to establish a refugee\u2019s age; and \u2013 a strikingly nasty idea \u2013 the jewellery of those arriving in the UK could be seized.<\/p>\n

While media commentators puzzled over whether this would be enough red meat for Labour<\/a> to see off Reform, this must surely have been a new low for Solomon? \u201cThere\u2019s been lots of terrible weeks,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I\u2019m used to it.\u201d He looks neat, open and determined, and his kitchen is incredibly yellow and cheerful, which I put down to sheer effort of will to look on the bright side.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought Rwanda was the worst it had ever been,\u201d he says. You remember Rwanda \u2013 former Conservative home secretary Priti Patel\u2019s wheeze<\/a>, where no one arriving on a small boat would ever get the right to settle in the UK, a scheme which cost \u00a3700m and deported four people to east Africa, all of them voluntarily. Then Solomon and his team worked in the Rotherham hotel where people were almost burned alive by a far-right mob in 2024. \u201cPeople inside were livestreaming it to our staff \u2026 so there have been some pretty low points. It\u2019s difficult to say this is the worst it\u2019s ever been.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anti-migration protesters outside the Holiday Inn Express in Rotherham, August 2024. Photograph: Christopher Furlong\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, he concedes that to hear this week\u2019s plans from a Labour government, which people working in the refugee and asylum sector had hopes for, makes it \u201cmore of a letdown, more of a disappointment\u201d. He mentions Alf Dubs<\/a>\u2019 radio appearance earlier this morning \u2013 the Labour peer who himself ran the Refugee Council in the early 90s, and came to Britain thanks to the Kindertransport, the series of rescue operations between 1938 and 1940 which brought mostly Jewish children to the UK to flee the Nazis. \u201cHe said this was grubby. And that\u2019s what it is \u2013 grubby.\u201d Especially so when Tommy Robinson applauded Mahmood\u2019s plans. He also doesn\u2019t believe it\u2019s politically astute on Labour\u2019s part. \u201cI don\u2019t think, from talking to pollsters and political scientists, that the \u2018Nigel Farage is right, don\u2019t vote for Nigel Farage\u2019 strategy is going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Solomon is a pluralist by instinct, never asking you to take his word for anything, always drawing in other voices, colleagues, friends, experts. He takes optimism as a professional duty. \u201cOne thing I say to staff is that you\u2019ve got to remain hopeful. Otherwise, what\u2019s the point? And you see hope in small ways. I was with a group of teenage boys last week \u2013 all have come here unaccompanied \u2013 and you just look at their faces and you see the bloodshot eyes, but they are desperately trying to learn English, they want to get on, and they\u2019re still able to laugh. It\u2019s moments like that you see the human hope that keeps you going, despite all the forces that are ranged against you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he reaches for the Martin Luther King quote \u2013 that the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice \u2013 and I say, you cannot seriously still think this? The moral universe doesn\u2019t look like an arc, it looks like the electrocardiograph of a person having a heart attack, but Solomon absolutely will not budge on this point. \u201cUltimately, you\u2019ve got to believe that things are not fixed for ever. Everyone who\u2019s fought against any injustice will have faced huge adversity, moments of deep despondency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Priti Patel in Kigali in April 2022, addressing the media after signing an \u2018economic development partnership\u2019 between the UK and Rwanda. Photograph: Muhizi Olivier\/AP<\/p>\n

Refusal to be discouraged is Solomon\u2019s origin story, as it is the story of every one who has ever been, or was born to, a refugee. His mother grew up in apartheid South Africa. \u201cThe politics of apartheid were grim,\u201d he says, briskly. She was a Muslim, the only woman in her family to go to university, and she worked as a social worker with Winnie Mandela in Soweto before her family decided life was fundamentally degraded by the \u201cpecking order in South Africa. It went: white, Indian, coloured and then black African. It was a tricameral legislature. So they had the white legislature, they then had the Indian legislature, and then coloured representatives, and the blacks got nothing, completely disenfranchised.\u201d So she came to the UK with her brother in the 60s, and met David Solomon, Enver\u2019s dad, while they were both working for Camden social services. \u201cMy dad was born in Merseyside, on the Wirral. Jewish family, his forefathers had come at the turn of the previous century, fleeing the pogroms in eastern Europe.\u201d Solomon grew up steeped in Judaism and Islam, celebrating the festivals of both, going to synagogue and to mosques.<\/p>\n

It was also a leftwing household. His dad stood as a Labour candidate in Stockport, where the family lived, in the 80s, where he got absolutely hammered by the Conservative candidate. \u201cI remember knocking on doors for him when I was at primary school, I\u2019ve got his old leaflet somewhere. It says: \u2018David Solomon is a lecturer in social work at Manchester University and a proud member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.\u2019\u201d Solomon himself was a Labour party member for about a year when he went to university. He left in protest at its support for the Gulf war in 1991 and hasn\u2019t been a member of a political party since (it sounds a little niche, given that Labour of course weren\u2019t the party of government at the time, but it saved him having to leave a decade later, when so many others left).<\/p>\n

People thought to be migrants on board a small boat in Gravelines, France, earlier this month. Photograph: Gareth Fuller\/PA<\/p>\n

Anyway, Solomon\u2019s point is that there are values deeper than party affiliation. \u201cMy wife says that when she first met me, I was a leftwing international socialist firebrand, and now I\u2019m more of a social democrat than she is.\u201d His wife, who is Swedish, also works in the charity sector. \u201cI say positive things about the royal family, the union jack \u2013 I\u2019ve definitely travelled, politically. What does left and right mean any more? It\u2019s about core values; I have a deep commitment to social justice.\u201d It is something he believes he shares with a \u201cdecent majority\u201d of the country, who he says believe \u201cin multiculturalism and that it\u2019s right to treat people with decency, humanity and dignity\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is why people were appalled by the Windrush scandal. That is why people were appalled when \u2013 in a unit where our staff work down in Dover for unaccompanied children and families \u2013 Robert Jenrick ordered the cartoons to be painted over<\/a>. Everyone was appalled by that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He recalls how the Refugee Council did some focus groups around the time the Rwanda<\/a> policy was proposed. Some of the Tory voters, he says, \u201chadn\u2019t quite understood how it was supposed to work \u2013 they thought people would have their asylum claim heard here, and then if it was unsuccessful, be sent to Rwanda. When you explained to them, no, they\u2019re not going to have their claim heard, they\u2019re not going to get a fair hearing, these Tory voters went, \u2018No, that\u2019s not right\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is the way mainstream politicians talk about refugees and asylum seekers \u2013 Keir Starmer\u2019s \u201cisland of strangers\u201d speech, for example, springs to mind (although Starmer has now said he regrets it<\/a>). \u201cSome of the language you hear now about refugees, the BNP would have used a few decades ago, and everyone was aghast at it then. And this is where mainstream politics now is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood. Photograph: House of Commons\/PA<\/p>\n

Solomon is clear on the potential problems of Labour\u2019s new suite of policies<\/a> \u2013 in particular reviewing a person\u2019s refugee status every 30 months to determine if their home country is safe to return to, which will cost, estimates the Refugee Council, \u00a3872m over a decade<\/a>. \u201cThey\u2019re going to have to create a new bureaucracy to do this, at enormous cost,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

And how would it work, practically? For instance, \u201cunder the proposals, say I\u2019ve got a daughter who\u2019s studying for their GCSEs. They\u2019ve settled in school, they\u2019ve been here for 60 months, they\u2019re a star student. They\u2019re hoping to go and do A-levels, they want to become a teacher or a scientist. Then, they get a knock on the door, they\u2019re told their home country is safe, and they have to go now. But all they want to do is get on with their life and contribute, have a good job and become a proud Briton. Are we going to say to them, \u2018Sorry, we\u2019ve decided you\u2019re out. And even worse, we\u2019re going to forcibly remove you, because if you say no, we\u2019ll put you in detention, because we don\u2019t want you to abscond.\u2019 Is that who we are as a country? Is that what the majority of Britons want?\u201d<\/p>\n

There is also the question of what happens to children who are born in the UK while their parents are in Mahmood\u2019s 20-year limbo \u2013 will they be subject to immediate deportations to countries they\u2019ve never been to? \u201cWhat kind of system is this, where we have two categories of people?\u201d Solomon asks.<\/p>\n

People don\u2019t realise that refugees come from countries where the idea that you would sit at home and receive benefits off the state is deeply humiliating. It\u2019s anathema to their upbringing<\/p>\n

Instead, Solomon says, the government should be focused on dealing with the huge backlog of asylum cases that has led to tens of thousands of people being forced to live in hotels while they await a decision. These hotels are astronomically expensive<\/a>, with insultingly poor living standards<\/a>, and have become a focus for local anger and legal challenge<\/a>. \u201cIf there\u2019s one thing this government could do to demonstrate competence and win the confidence of the electorate, it would be to stop talking about how illegal migration is dividing communities, and close hotels. There is still not a credible plan to do that.\u201d The Refugee Council proposes granting limited leave to remain \u2013 subject to security checks \u2013 to people from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Sudan and Syria (nationalities that have a very high rate of being granted asylum), which would allow them to work until they are granted permanent leave to remain.<\/p>\n

The assumption that migrants are looking to claim benefits (created dually by Tony Blair\u2019s decision<\/a> that asylum seekers shouldn\u2019t be allowed to work, and subsequent tabloid castigation of refugees as workshy) has been a gross mischaracterisation for years<\/a>, and has become foundational to anti-immigrant narrative-building. \u201cPeople don\u2019t realise that refugees come from countries where the idea that you would sit at home and receive benefits off the state is deeply humiliating,\u201d says Solomon. \u201cIt\u2019s anathema to their upbringing, to their culture, to everything they\u2019ve been told. They believe you go out, you graft, and you stand on your own two feet, and it\u2019s deeply embarrassing for them to not be able to do that. Migrants come and they work hard. You can see that, the world over.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018They\u2019re just people, like you and me\u2019 \u2026 Solomon at home. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

More recently, a fundamentally racist narrative linking refugees with criminality, particularly sex crimes, has taken hold. \u201cThe asylum seekers and refugees who we work with and the refugees who work at the Refugee Council all feel othered, they feel they\u2019ve been tarnished with this language: suggesting that they\u2019re these terrible people, doing these terrible crimes. They\u2019re just people, like you and me. They\u2019re men, they\u2019re women, they\u2019re children, they just want to get on with their lives. If they\u2019re young, they want to get an education; if they\u2019re older, they just want to get a job.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tinderbox atmosphere has flared up in dismaying events, Solomon says. \u201cI heard an extraordinary story a few weeks ago from a councillor down in the south-west. A group of non-white men were gathering outside a building, and some local people assumed it was an asylum hotel and started protesting. It was student accommodation. The men were British students that just happened to be brown, like me. This is the consequence of political rhetoric.\u201d<\/p>\n

The politics is now so dangerous that the Refugee Council has had to take security measures at its offices and at Solomon\u2019s home \u2013 something the charity wouldn\u2019t even have considered two years ago. Solomon is moving to another job in January, to Nacro, a criminal justice charity. Amid some neutral, commonsense thoughts about five years being long enough in any organisation \u2013 he took up this role in 2020 \u2013 is a palpable exhaustion. \u201cIt\u2019s not just a tough job because of the issue: human beings who have had an incredibly tough time, in a hostile environment that has got more hostile. But it\u2019s the intensity of it: it\u2019s always in the headlines, it\u2019s always coming at you. It\u2019s always impacting on our staff, on our organisation. I don\u2019t want to do the job feeling that I\u2019m worn out and I\u2019m just about hanging on.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hardly Solomon\u2019s first rodeo: he has been in the charity sector since the early 2000s. Before that, he worked as a journalist at the BBC for 10 years but switched careers after becoming disenchanted with the era of 24-hour, bite-size news. He was heading a children\u2019s charity just as the coalition government came in and brushed aside the state\u2019s commitment to ending child poverty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis really matters. It\u2019s about who we are. It\u2019s about how we interact with people on a daily basis. It\u2019s about whether we\u2019re prepared to see people as aliens, second-class citizens, or whether we\u2019re people with a sense of shared humanity. Part of me does feel that it\u2019s walking away from a cause which is so pivotal and matters so much to so many people\u2019s lives. But lots of others will fight the good fight, and I\u2019m going on to fight the good fight in another area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, is at his home in London when I meet him.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-280274","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}