The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill: Policy and agenda setting in the UK, does it truly represent the electorate?
–Introduction
Policy and agenda setting in the uk uses the Westminster module to create a legislative cycle, to formulate and implement policy which is supposed to represent the United Kingdom’s voter base. The question this article will aim to answer is if policy making within the UK faithfully reflects the electorate’s broader opinion on policy by examining the public’s opinion on the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) bill. This bill being highly controversial within the British political atmosphere with this bill stirring the partisan waters in Westminster and highlights flaws in the Westminster system.
–Westminsters policy cycle: is it efficient?
The policy system in the Uk follows a unique structure that makes up the majoritarian Westminster agenda cycle which follows the UK’s legislative process . This system is broke down into 6 different steps, starting off with agenda setting, to policy formulation, policy legitimation, policy implementation, policy evaluation and policy maintenance or termination. This system does have multiple flaws, with the 3 most prominent being Short-termism, lack of policy knowledge and poor implementation. This is because of fundamental flaws that are attributed to the formulation of government with short-termism being contributed to constant shifts of ministers and officials moving between departments which result in them focusing on immediate results, this constant shifting can also explain a lack of policy knowledge and poor implementation of policy.( ‘Better Policy Making’, Tom Sasse)
We can highlight this by looking at the safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) bill, which resulted in minster Robert Jenerick’s resignation, he quoted “Begin to deliver on the mainstream concerns of ordinary people when it comes to immigration, or face their red-hot fury at the ballot box”( BBC News, Emergency Rwanda Legislation is Doomed to Fail). This highlights the issues with the Westminster system and it’s policy cycle.
–The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill: does it represent the electorate?
This bill responds to Supreme Court’s concerns around the status of the Republic of Rwanda being viewed as a safe third country , and will enable Parliament to be able to approve this status and remove persons who arrive in the United Kingdom to Rwanda. This piece of policy will build off of the illegal Migration Act 2023, Nationality and Borders act 2022 and measures set out in the new immigration plan to tackle illegal immigration in the UK, with in 2023 29,000 people arriving to the country by small boat , as well as 44,600 in 2022. This legislation aims to resolve this problem, as well as stopping smugglers, human traffickers and negating the dangerous journey people are taking on small boats.
When we view polling done by YouGov UK on The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) bill to understand the electorates opinion on this bill we can find flaws that the current Westminster policy making system makes when it comes to representation of the electorate. Most notable is the mostly even split between supporting the conservative government’s bill and opposing it. This highlights one of the main flaws of the Majoritarian Westminster policy system when it comes to contested legislation with terms like ‘rule of majority’ being used to explain nearly half of the electorates opinion being overlooked within this system. Moreover, if we also include the portion of adults in this survey who didn’t know if they supported the legislation, create’s an interesting question of the legitimacy of the majority who are in support of the governments bill. Moreover, it also demonstrates how a fraction of the electorate do not properly understand government policy that has been created questioning if agenda setting from the Westminster in informing the electorate effectively.
Conclusion
Overall when reviewing the The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, we can highlight some of the issues that the Westminster agenda system currently has. The system outside of this bill is know for having flaws with short-termism and a constant shifting of ministers between departments that cause a lack of good decision making. The Rwanda policy highlights how majority rule can leave large amounts of the electorate without representation when it comes to policy making in the UK. The Bill also highlights a large portion of the electorate not knowing if they support this piece of legislation demonstrating that there is a fraction of the electorate who are not fully informed on government policy which questions if they are effectively represented.
bibliography
Sasse, Tom, and Alex Thomas (2022) ‘Better Policy Making’, Institute for Government pp.1-12
Sobolewska, Maria and Robert Ford (2016) ‘The Politics of Immigration’, in Heffernan,Richard, Colin Hay, Meg Russell & Philip Cowley (eds) Developments in British politics 10(Palgrave)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67669609
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/06/30/726e7/1
the author has chosen an extremely relevant topic to highlight potential flaws in the Westminster model of government. I found it useful that the author explained exactly what this model entails before applying it to a current example. I agree that the Rwanda bill perfectly encapsulates an overly majoritarian system. The passing of this bill whilst almost half of the electorate disagree means that it is not representative at all. Due to this being the model that is actively employed by the UK government, it is safe to say that the electorate is not fairly represented meaning that by extension, the political system of the UK is failing in an essential aspect of governance. Another example of this in action was Brexit, where the bill was passed with a majority in favour of 51% meaning that literally half of the electorate did not want this outcome and now have to deal with the consequences. To improve this blog, the author could discuss how policies are created by the dominating party, but the entire government may not agree but have little power to influence.
I really liked how this blog is structured, it makes it easy to understand point by point. I also like how the author set the context for their argument by outlining how the current legislative system works, using this framework to point out flaws in the system. The Rwanda bill is also a solid example to use as to show the flaws in the system, if half of the electorate are voting against a bill how can this be truly representative? I believe that there should be more of a system set up to educate the public on these issues, so that in future people can be more educated on the legislation they vote for. I think to improve this blog there could be some discussion on potential alternatives to the Westminster model and what this would mean in terms of passing new legislation.
Engaging from start to finish. The layout of the blog, with headings and dividers, lends for a better reading experience, as readers can better understand what point the author is trying to put across from the heading title. The author managed to fit a lot of information into a small word count. The bar graph was a particularly engaging addition. The comparison of the Rwanda Bill with the uneasy state of Westminster as a whole was fascinating to read about. A very well-constructed blog.