Description
The controversial policy of relocating asylum seekers to Rwanda has put the UK’s attitude towards immigration under the spotlight, raising questions about the outsourcing of the government’s human rights obligations.
As the climate crisis intensifies, with millions expected to be displaced in the coming years, creating a surge in climate refugees, how might these policies respond to such an impending emergency? And what are the legal and ethical ramifications of not responding?
Featuring journalist, Aamna Mohdin, author of Scattered: The Making and Unmaking of a Refugee, Naz Shah, MP for Bradford West, and Matthew Lockwood, author of This Land of Promise: A History of Refugees and Exiles in Britain, this panel looks at first-hand accounts from the frontlines of the refugee crisis and takes a critical look at the complexities and contradictions of seeking asylum in the UK today.
Please note, this venue has changed from the printed programme.
About the Speakers
Aamna Mohdin
Aamna Mohdin is the Guardian’s first community affairs correspondent, reporting on the social, political and economic experiences of the UK’s diverse communities, with a particular focus on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. She was previously a reporter at Quartz where she led the publication’s coverage of the European refugee crisis. Mohdin is the winner of the British Journalism Award 2022 and her work has been shortlisted for the British Press Awards. She lives in London.
Naz Shah
Naseem Shah is a British Labour Party politician. She was elected at the 2015 general election as Member of Parliament for Bradford West, winning the seat from George Galloway of the Respect Party. She has served in the Opposition frontbench since 2018, currently as Shadow Minister for Crime Reduction.
Matthew Lockwood
Matthew Lockwood is a Migration Scholar and the author of The Conquest of Death: Violence and the Birth of the Modern English State (Yale, 2017) and To Begin the World Over Again: How the American Revolution Devastated the Globe (Yale, 2019). He received his PhD from Yale University in 2014, where his dissertation won the Hans Gatzke Prize for outstanding dissertation in European history. He held posts at the Yale Center for the Study of Representative Institutions and at the University of Warwick before moving to the University of Alabama where he is currently Assistant Professor of History.
About the Chair
Mehreen Khan
Mehreen Khan is the Economics Editor of The Times, a role she took up on 2022, after spending five years in Brussels as the EU correspondent for the Financial Times. She has extensive experience writing about macroeconomics, the political economy of the eurozone, and the EU’s institutions.
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