THE United Kingdom prides itself on its humane asylum policy. For centuries it has welcomed groups of refugees, from the French Huguenots to the Ugandan Asians. It has also given shelter to political exiles who have chosen to flee their own countries. These latter were always required to put aside their political activities in return for their asylum. Unfortunately by a rather British process of muddle and hypocrisy, these rules have not been strictly enforced.
As a result the UK government finds itself with a major political row on its hands. At its center is Boris Berezovsky, the ebullient Russian billionaire, whose fortune was made during the Yeltsin years when state assets were sold off to cronies for a fraction of their real worth. Once one of Russia’s most powerful men, Berezovsky is now in exile in London. Unfortunately for the British government, the Russian has used his great wealth to wage a campaign against the Putin presidency. Despite being warned last year by then British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Berezovsky has continued his anti-Moscow activities. Last week he actually called for the use of force to overthrow Putin.
The Russians are furious. Their anger is the greater because the British have refused to extradite Chechen rebel spokesman Akhmed Zakayev, whom they brand a terrorist and who has also continued to denounce Moscow from his London exile.
There are dissidents in the UK from other countries, including those in the Middle East, who are abusing their asylum by continuing to campaign against their governments. The British are either unwilling or incapable of enforcing the terms on which these individuals were granted leave to stay in the UK.
Perhaps part of the problem is that London has regularly broken its own rules in a brazen manner. The anti-apartheid campaign against the white-supremacist government of South Africa had official backing. So too now has the campaign against Robert Mugabe’s vicious and failing regime in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwean exiles are being assisted quietly to attack the regime.
The British may argue that it is only propaganda that is issuing from dissident exiles on UK soil. They would never countenance direct plotting. It is hard, however, to see where in such circumstances the line can be drawn. This is indeed dangerous reasoning. The only way to guard against the fomenting of violence is to fully apply asylum conditions and require all propaganda to stop.
The British appear to be conflating the freedom of speech granted their citizens with the more limited rights of political refugees. And besides, how supine would the British authorities remain if any Britons started calling for the violent overthrow of the British government? The answer has to be “Not much.” The British really need to bring all their unruly political exiles to heel, on pain of deportation, perhaps to their home countries.
Meanwhile, Putin’s fury over Berezovsky should be weighed against the tolerant London exiles of Marx and Engels, whose work brought about the triumph of the Russian Communists from whose ranks President Putin sprang.
