Some lawyers approached by the Gazette for this article did not want to comment on the record, for fear of putting themselves and colleagues at risk. That is perfectly understandable. Lawyers acting for refugees and asylum seekers have increasingly become the target of vitriolic abuse and even death threats, as successive governments fail to ‘stop the boats’ or ‘smash the gangs’.
The ‘hostile environment’, they note, is fuelling the perception that migrants are to blame for all manner of societal woes, from housing shortages to NHS waiting lists.
In 2020, home secretary Priti Patel deployed social media to accuse ‘activist lawyers’ of frustrating efforts to remove ‘migrants’. Four days later, a mentally troubled neo-Nazi went to the offices of immigration law firm Duncan Lewis with the intention of killing its solicitors because they helped immigrants. Cavan Medlock was deemed too mentally unwell to stand trial and sentenced to a hospital order.