Always on the move by Musicians in Exile

Welcome to the Lawmanity Podcast, where we explore the complex relationship between law and activism and discuss the different ways that law can oppress people but can also lead to real social change. I'm Jen Ang, a human rights lawyer and activist based in Scotland, and your host on the Lawmanity Podcast. Every episode we will bring you legal summaries of interesting cases and one-to-one interviews with activists and lawyers across the UK who are using the law in creative ways to challenge unfairness and secure justice for people and communities who are excluded or discriminated against or overlooked. This week we're speaking to human rights lawyer and legend, Alison Pickup.

Alison is a barrister and executive director of Asylum Aid where she leads an expert team providing legal representation to asylum seekers and refugees. Before joining Asylum Aid, Alison was legal director of the Public Law Project. A national legal charity which promotes access to public law remedies for those who are disadvantaged by poverty and other barriers. She has won multiple awards for her work, including outstanding employed barrister in an NGO award by the Bar Council. And, in August 2025, Alison will be taking up the post of CEO at the Helen Bamber Foundation Group, a pioneering group of human rights charities which includes the Helen Bamber Foundation, Asylum Aid and the Migrants Law Project. Together the group supports survivors of trafficking, torture and other forms of human cruelty. Wow, congratulations on the new role Alison and welcome to today's show

Wow.

Congratulations on the new role, Alison, and welcome to today's show.

Thank you.

I’m so, so pleased that you're here and I'll be honest, you're a total legal hero of mine, so I'm really grateful that you've taken the time to speak to us today as well.

That was very kind.

Now, in this podcast as a starter, I've been experimenting with a surprise opening question just to get us settled and to learn a little more about the people behind the legal legends who we're interviewing. So a good friend of mine pointed out that our sense of smell is our oldest sense and observed that sometimes we can hold deep connections between the sense of smell and our memories.

And so if you don't mind, please can you tell me if there is a smell that is meaningful to you or maybe one that you just really like, or that might be connected to a time and place that you like to bring to mind?

Yeah, sure. That's a lovely question. I don't exactly know what the smell is, but it's like a combination of essential oils, I think, that takes me back to a trip I made to Bangkok about ten years ago, and a friend and I were travelling, we'd been staying in fairly cheap accommodation, but in Bangkok, we'd treated ourselves to a couple of nights of slightly nicer accommodation in a hotel that had ...the whole hotel, just smelled beautiful. And every time I smell that combination, it takes me back to that place.

And then a couple of years ago, a cousin of mine had these bath salts that she was using that had the same smell. So I went out and bought those bath salts, and I can take myself back to that amazing holiday to Thailand whenever I'm feeling stressed. So it's the Women's Balance bath salts from Neal’s Yard Remedies , I think.

That's amazing.

And also a really nice and important reflection that the people who do the kind of work that you do - and I do - are also... they tend to be very good at knowing how to prioritise unwinding and looking after yourself, I think.

And also a really nice and important reflection that the people who do the kind of work that you do - and I do - are also... they tend to be very good at knowing how to prioritise unwinding and looking after yourself, I think.

We're here today to help listeners understand how the law can be used to achieve really significant change.

By looking at how you and your colleagues led a successful campaign to challenge the UK government's Rwanda policy, your role as a lawyer and an activist in that campaign and your reflections, now, only just about a year on from that significant legal challenge.

As the current UK government prepares to repeal the Safety of Rwanda Act in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill - such a long name - currently before Parliament.

Say it loud and say it clear! Refugees are welcome here! (repeatedly in a chant)

And so to start with, can I just ask you to explain to us how you got involved with this legal case and this campaign and what it was about, and what it was at stake that made you think that something had to be done - that litigation had to be taken in order to push for a change in the law.

Yeah, sure. So I had been, I joined Asylum Aidin late 2021, so I'd been there just under six months when the government announced its plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. And at the time we were already thinking about the need for a strategic legal working response to the legislation that was going through Parliament, the Nationality, Asylum and Borders Bill, which included plans for offshoring.

But that legislation hadn't even finished its passage through Parliament, when out of the blue, the government just announced this agreement with Rwanda under which anybody pretty much seeking asylum in the UK could come through a dangerous route - which, you know, that's basically the only way to get to the UK to seek asylum - could be sent to Rwanda. And the plan was that this was to be a deterrent to stop other people from using dangerous routes to come here, including crossing the channel in small boats.

I was really shocked when I first heard about this because I knew that Rwanda didn't have a great human rights record, wasn't known for protecting refugees, and also that it's thousands of miles away. And for our clients who had, you know, often paid a lot of money, spent a lot of time, gone through a lot of hardship to reach what they saw as a safe country in the UK – the idea that they would then be shipped off thousands of miles to another country where I didn't feel they would be safe was just horrifying. And so I mean I remember it really clearly the announcement and the days that followed even kind of lying awake worrying about how we would stop this scheme from happening.

I think it was really clear from the start that it was going to take litigation because the government had announced this as a flagship policy that was the key part of its asylum policy. It's planned to stop the boats as that government called it and so given the size of the majority that the government had in Parliament, it seemed extremely unlikely that there would be any other way to stop it. And also because they implemented it in a way that didn't actually require any new legislation, although the Nationality and Borders Bill had those provisions, so they could they could get on with it straight away. It really was kind of where it started and where it became immediately clear that we would need to be thinking about litigation. The other thing I think is that we were very aware that everyone in the refugee sector was kind of thinking and feeling the same, like we need to do something about this.

And the important thing that was finding out what other campaigns were happening, what other work colleagues doing, like who was already dealing with them, was there a particular role that Asylum Aid could play in trying to stop the policy.

I found it particularly interesting how how certain it was for you and your legal team that litigation was the way that that we could use the law in order to challenge this policy because it was such an important policy for the UK government at the time. It felt like the the sphere for policy and influencing was was really small if not nonexistent.

And the other thing I wanted to reflect was that, you know, because I was also in practice and working in the migration sector at the time that you did this work, I think also seeing your team take these legal challenges did also have like a bouying, or hopeful, impact for people who were doing their day to day work. And it was just the sense that I know that when you take litigation, you know, you you may win or lose, we don't know, but it was a sense that someone was doing something at least the challenge the injustice of that policy and that made a difference at the time - and ultimately a huge difference in impact.

So my next question for you was this and what were some of the challenges and as you saw it in running the legal case or maybe in coordinating your efforts with the campaign - , I don't know if either or both was challenging at the time - were there any really tricky moments for you and your team?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think coordination was tricky. As I said, obviously, so many actors in the sector were trying to find ways to challenge. And so a key part at the start was kind of reaching out to those other organisations and to lawyers in private practice as well, who were acting on behalf of individual clients and on behalf of other NGOs and trying to understand what everyone else was doing and where we could add value.

So I think that was, it was a challenge, but actually it, I think it was a start of a lot more proactive collaboration in the sector, that we were – the way we had to pull together.

The second and related kind of biggest challenge was the speed at which things started to happen, because the announcement was like mid-April and it was in early May when the government started detaining people on arrival and threatening them with removal to Rwanda, and we started to see how the process was playing out. And the first removals were due to take place in kind of mid-June.

So it was only really two months from even hearing for the first time that this was a possibility, to when people were supposed to be put on planes. So everything had to be done at kind of breakneck speed, on behalf of individual clients and then Asylum Aid was kind of running our own challenge, which focused on procedural fairness. And that was really challenging, and then you remember, I'm sure, that in the first instance, the High Court and then the Court of Appeal and then the Supreme Court in the UK all refused injuctions to prevent people being removed to Rwanda.

And I remember the day, the flight was supposed to take off, you know, we were getting updates about what was going on in the Supreme Court, individual clients were still going to the High Court and having the individual cases heard and they might have been refused injunctions – although some were granted. And then Strasbourg kind of stepped in and said there's a real need for this to be considered properly, so no one should be removed until the domestic courts have done so. So speed was a massive challenge, and the pace of the pace at which everything was happening. And even after the Strasbourg Court issued a Rule 39 measure and the kind of final few people were literally taken off the plane,

the court and the Home Office were still pushing the case through at a very fast pace. They originally wanted to have the final hearing at the end of July, which just wasn't, it was too quick. So it ended up being in September and October of that year, even that was a very fast pace for the, for the complex view of the issues that all of the legal teams have to get their heads around, get on top of the number of different parties involved, the coordination that was required, those six months were incredibly intense and fast-paced. Yeah,

I can imagine that it's I can actually almost like

feel, feel the tension as you describe it. But also I mean, it must have been, it must have been such a power of work, but also because you and your team were working across so many things, so quickly it must have felt like it went quickly as well. Do you know like in a blur almost? But

yeah.

I certainly remember as well with with my team following the legal updates. And



yeah, and and actually feeling that, feeling that this was so important that you know the answer could it come soon enough as well?



Interesting. Okay, so just to make sure that our listeners understand, and this might being a bit tricky because I know that actually, your team had done successive pieces of legal work in this

But just so they understand, what was the change in the law that ultimately your litigation across the cases is secured and what was important for actually the people who you were fighting for? So what was the difference it made for people who were seeking asylum and protection in the UK?

Yeah so I think there are kind of



three parts to the answer to all of those questions. The first: in the first round of litigation which was from sort of mid 2022 to the end of 2023, the fundamental issue that was being argued in the courts was that Rwanda was not a safe place to send people seeking asylum and refugees. Asylum Aid wasn't spearheading that particular argument - other people were running that argument on behalf of individual clients. Our focus was on the process that was being used by the Home Office to decide who to send to Rwanda, whether it was safe to do so, which was incredibly fast.

So people were given just seven days to respond to a notice of intent to send them to Rwanda when they had literally just arrived in the country, often hadn't had access to legal advice. I think the change in the law that our focus on that process and the lack of fairness in that process achieved, although our case was ultimately unsuccessful, was really clear guidance from the Court of Appeal about the requirements for a fair process in this context, including the need for access to legal representation and the need for proper time to understand what is being proposed to gather evidence and make submissions and respond to that, and to secure access to justice.

So that important change was subsequently reflected in guidance when the Home Office had another go at sending people to Rwanda, but it will apply to any similar scheme that might come in the future. So I think it's an important change for the future. And I think for the clients that one of the hardest things about that initial attempt to remove was that they had, as I say, mostly literally just arrived in the country after a very traumatic and a disstressing journey, and they were given so little time that even to sort of get their heads around the idea of being sent to Rwanda. So what this will do is mean that they should have proper time to get legal representation and advice to understand what is happening and to put forward their case against it.

The second sort of part, I think, is that a lot of people ended up in that kind of limbo, because during the litigation, the Home Office continued at the start to issue these notices of intent threatening to send people to



Rwanda, but no one was actually being removed. And so people spent, in some cases, a couple of years being told they might be sent to Rwanda, but not actually having anything happen in their cases. And we brought litigation in 2024, on behalf of a number of clients challenging those individual notices, and at those cases eventually settled, but I think that whole round of litigation helped to establish that you can't just leave people in limbo for no reason in the hope that you might one day be able to remove them to a third country. And that is also really important, because that limbo had a really big impact on people really unable to get on with their lives.

And then the third is obviously after the December 2023 Supreme Court judgment, which ruled that Rwanda was not a safe country to send people seeking asylum to.

The legal test, which has to be applied in this case, is whether there are substantial grounds for believing that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would be at real risk of refoulement. In the light of the evidence which I have summarised, the Court of Appeal concluded that there were such grounds. We are unanimously of the view that they were entitled to reach that conclusion.

And that was Lord Reed of the UK Supreme Court reading out the November 2023 judgment in the case just described by Alison, in which the Court finally ruled that Rwanda was not a safe country to return people to, an epic win for campaigners and long waited for relief for the people they served.

And that’s all we have time for today, but by no means the end of this legal case! Join us next week as Alison and I continue our conversation and pick up where we left off, discussing how the UK Parliament took steps following the Supreme Court judgement to declare Rwanda a safe place for asylum seekers, how the Home Office went on to once again detain people in order to remove them there, and what Alison’s tireless team at Asylum Aid did about it.

And finally, thanks so much to you, the listener, for tuning in to our very first episode of the Lawmanity Podcast, and the first in our series highlighting the inspiring cases taken by Activist Lawyers across the UK.





If you loved this podcast, please do hit the subscribe buttons, and also like and share our episodes with friends and colleagues who might enjoy learning a little bit about how law really works in practice, and how it can be used to make the world a better, brighter place.

Our first series of this podcast has been generously support by a grant from the Clark Foundation for Legal Education. The Lawmanity podcast is co-produced by me, your host, Jen Ang and by the brilliant and talented Natalia Uribe. And the music you’ve been listening to is “Always on the Move” by Musicians in Exile, a Glasgow-based music project led by people seeking refuge in Scotland. Thanks so much for tuning in today, and see you next time!

Always on the move by Musicians in Exile

Always on the move by Musicians in Exile

Always on the move by Musicians in Exile

Always on the move by Musicians in Exile