Nearly one year to the day, thirty-two men, women and children drowned in the freezing cold waters of the English Channel in total darkness. It’s a human tragedy that’s hard to comprehend. With more people making the journey than ever before, we need a safe passage scheme to ensure we treat refugees with the humanity they deserve and that a catastrophe like this can never happen again.

We need safe passage for refugees because so far this year, over 40,000 have made the perilous journey in small boats, and it’s projected to rise to over 60,000 by the end of 2022. These unprecedented numbers are a damning indictment of the government’s disastrous approach, which is putting the lives of thousands of people at risk and lining the pockets of ruthless people smugglers.

The government has attempted to deter the crossings by promising to deport people to Rwanda, a country four and half thousand miles from the UK, with an appalling human rights record. The policy is cruel, doesn’t work—as the record numbers show—and contravenes refugee and human rights law. For the government to respond to the misery of thousands of refugees with such a policy is grotesque and inhumane.

Nowhere is this inhumanity more brazenly on display than the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman’s self-proclaimed ‘dream’ and ‘obsession’ to see the first flight of refugees depart to Rwanda. Such a blatant disregard for the suffering of fellow human beings is revolting. Trade unions, charities and campaign groups are taking a stand against this hatred and have vowed to turn Braverman’s dream into a nightmare by stopping the flights and putting a halt to her department’s despicable policies.

That’s why my union, PCS, and Care4Calais have made a significant policy intervention this week. We’re calling for the implementation of a safe passage visa scheme to allow refugees to travel to the UK safely to begin their asylum claim. An initial application would be made, and if the safe passage visa is granted, that person would be allowed to travel to the UK and start the normal asylum process here. This is the best and only way to prevent hazardous channel crossings, smash the people smugglers’ business operation and, ultimately, save lives.

Our proposal gets to the heart of the issue: the severe lack of safe routes for refugees to enter the UK and begin an asylum claim. The currently available schemes are narrow in scope and the numbers accepted are pitifully low. Up to June this year, only 1,622 people were resettled via three schemes.

And these numbers will go even lower. It’s estimated that now that changes in the Nationality and Borders Act are being applied to one scheme – Family Reunion – 3,500 people per year will be prevented from joining their families, with over 17,500 people excluded over the next five years. It’s reckless that, when so many people are risking their lives crossing the channel, the government is restricting these vital schemes rather than expanding them. It’s this absence of safe routes that are pushing ever more people into the hands of people smugglers and the hazardous waters of the English Channel.

It needs to be repeated again and again that under international law, claiming asylum is not illegal, irrespective of how a person enters the UK. And the majority of asylum applications are successful, despite claims of the contrary from government ministers. So how can it be morally justified that someone with the legal right to make an asylum claim should have to put their life at risk when simply getting to the UK to make that claim? Our safe passage scheme solves this problem.

The government often tells us that there is no alternative to the Rwanda policy to stop small boat crossings. This is disingenuous, to say the least, as campaigners have been calling for the expansion of safe routes for several years, and those calls have intensified as the crossing numbers have continued to rise.

It’s also absurd for the government to claim there isn’t an alternative when just this year, they rolled out the Ukrainian visa scheme following Russia’s brutal invasion. Thankfully, not a single Ukrainian refugee has had to pay a people smuggler, cross the channel in a small boat or drowned. If we can allow safe passage for Ukrainians, why not others?

Tens of thousands of PCS members work in the Home Office, and they’ve been cynically used as a political plaything in the government’s relentless assault on refugees. Our members want to work in a system that treats refugees and staff with dignity, but they’re hamstrung by government policies that are hell-bent on punishing people rather than helping them.

This is why our partnership with Care4Calias in putting forward this proposal is so vital. Experts from the charity have invaluable access to what’s happening on the ground in Calais and elsewhere, and our members have essential experience in delivering Home Office policy. That’s how we’ve produced the most credible policy to stop dangerous boat crossings so far.

The recently announced deal between France and the UK shows how badly the government is getting this wrong.  It is a sign of their total failure to grasp the life-and-death nature of the situation and their unwillingness to admit that a great many people in Calais genuinely need asylum. Our proposal of a safe passage scheme is the only way to stop the small boat crossings, end the chaos that our members are struggling to cope with and end the untold suffering of desperate refugees.