Chris, I take your point but the objective of the campaign is not to grant just the same rights to failed asylum seekers as to successful ones, rather it is to ensure that asylum seekers whose applications were not successful but who are awaiting a review of their case or who are unable to return to their countries of origin immediately are not forced into destitution. Any permission to work that was granted as a means of allowing asylum seekers to avoid destitution would be temporary and dependent on a later review of their application being favourable or upon their returning to their country of origin when it was viable for them to do so, whereas the right to work of successful asylum seekers is granted indefinitely along with all of the rights of other British citizens. In any case, we are in agreement that full healthcare should be provided and I think that certainly in the case of children who have been refused asylum but cannot return home, it would also be unjustifiable to deny them an education.

I appreciate the clarification you make of Dan’s point (although it does not imply that “by definition” failed asylum seekers have broken a law) but I think that for it to meaningfully be said that someone is breaking a law, it has to be possible for them to act otherwise. In the case of those asylum seekers who genuinely cannot return to their countries of origin but are trapped in a limbo here through no fault of their own, this is not the case. An asylum seeker would be acting illegally if they were provided with the means to return to their country of origin and sufficient guarantees of their safety upon doing so and nevertheless did not return. An asylum seeker can hardly be accused of acting illegally if none of this is the case and it would be impossible for them to return by their own means.