Asylum, Security, Neoliberalism and the Development of the Rwanda Plan

Abstract

Why did the British government shift from its profitable commitments to mixed public/private domestic migration management to offshoring through its costly Rwanda Plan? This thesis contributes to critical immigration literature by exploring theoretical perspectives from security and neoliberalism studies as originally emphasized in literature on the Australian Pacific Solution. To study the development of the Rwanda Plan, this thesis conducts a historical comparison of immigration policy during the post-Brexit referendum period and after the Rwanda Plan’s announcement as well as an international comparison with Australia's Pacific and Malaysian Solution(s). To do so this analysis engages directly with discourse from members of parliament through Critical Discourse Analysis and discusses secondary literature on Australian offshoring practices. This thesis argues that the development of offshoring practices aligns with established discursive and institutional patterns from the UK’s formerly figurative, domestic, ‘offshore’. In the UK and Australia, the construction of migrant identities as violent or insurgent threats escalates their exclusion from legal protections and allows for their maltreatment at the hands of private actors. This reliance on private entities consequently adds a layer of insulation from external scrutiny, reinforcing the discursive and structural logic of offshoring policies as well as its evolving marketization. These dynamics help reveal the underlying goals of offshoring policies and demonstrate the value of discourse-centred approaches in analysing their instrumentalization of security logics.