‘Stop the Boats!’: Hyper/Invisibility and Spectacle

There have been various moments in history where the public’s attention has been directed to a hypervisible arrival of migrants to the state. Specific meaning is also then attached to that image which has broader ramifications. For instance, the Windrush generation is associated with that moniker because of how they are linked with a newspaper image of Caribbean migrants, arriving to the shores of Britain aboard the HMT Empire Windrush.²⁰ This is despite the fact that this was not the only ship that carried people from the Caribbean to Britain after the war.²¹ More recently, imagery of small boat arrivals has been similarly converted into a visual shorthand which, in this case, is then condensed to the moniker of ‘illegal’ arrivals to the state. This, in turn, has had a wider impact on how the concept of asylum has been discussed, to the point that the legitimacy of asylum itself is threatened.

Media coverage of asylum seekers from the latter half of the 2010s, up to the current day has overwhelmingly been accompanied by images of asylum seekers on boats, or the ‘barbaric space’ of the ‘Jungle’ at Calais.²² Coverage has also inevitably featured discussion of the fact that to cross the Channel in this way, migrants and asylum seekers would need to rely on smugglers to make such a journey.²³ These journeys and the images associated with them then became synonymous with the idea of illegally crossing borders, which, in turn, is reduced to the status of ‘illegal’.

There has however been a shift in recent years, as the concept of illegality has given way to that of criminality. This shift in some ways has been subtle but has serious consequences in terms of how people arriving in small boats to the state are characterised. People arriving in this way were once viewed as victims of opportunistic smugglers but are now being characterised as wilfully breaking the law.²⁴ The distinction between the smuggled and the smuggler becomes conflated to the point that they are interchangeable in media reporting, government speeches and inevitably, in the minds of the public. This interchangeability is now reflected in the law and its enforcement. People who previously were considered to be asylum seekers are being convicted not only of smuggling but of manslaughter in cases where crossing attempts have led to a loss of life.

Ibrahima Bah, a young Senegalese man, was convicted of the manslaughter of five people who drowned after the unseaworthy and overcrowded boat they were travelling in got into distress.²⁵ Other people on board stated that if it had not been for Bah more people would have drowned.²⁶ Despite this, Bah was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison. Since Bah’s sentencing, another young man from Sudan has been sentenced for ‘facilitating illegal migration’, in part because he had control of the tiller of the boat that he was travelling.²⁷ It is clear that the state is increasingly looking to criminalise anyone even vaguely connected with smuggling operations, who often find themselves being coerced by smugglers to take control of vessels. This is evident even from the statement of the judge who sentenced Mr Bah. He noted that ‘primary responsibility’ for the deaths of those on board lay with the people smugglers who had procured a ‘wholly unsafe and unsatisfactory vessel’.²⁸

The pursuit of the prosecutions in the abovementioned cases represents a renewed and targeted approach by the state in the context of the spectacle of deterrence. In December 2021, the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions of four Iranian men who had piloted inflatable boats crossing the Channel.²⁹ While there is a striking similarity in that case to those outlined above, changes to the law that were made under the 2022 Nationality and Borders Act (NBA) mean that there is now no requirement under the law for someone to have received payment or ‘gain’ for facilitating an irregular arrival to the state.³⁰ In other words, merely having one’s hands ‘on the tiller’ can result in being convicted for facilitating illegal entry to the state, a crime that under the NBA is now punishable by up to life imprisonment.³¹

One of the reasons that those with their hands ‘on the tiller’ are the focus of prosecutions is because of the impossibility of prosecuting and sentencing every person who arrives in the state by small boat. Therefore, the CPS has stated that ‘aggravating factors’ such as repeat entry to the state as well as having a hand on the tiller should be used to single out individuals for prosecution.³² As Taylor notes, people are identified as having control over the tiller through drone footage, long-distance lenses and other photographic evidence.³³ In these cases, intention to carry out smuggling appears to be unimportant to those prosecuting. Rather, it is the visibility of the person on the boat, and in some cases, even their mere proximity to the tiller that is enough to seal their fate.

We can see that images are used to establish criminality on several levels. These attempts to enter the state are framed, at best, as a wilful disregard for the borders of the state and the rules about entry. The government has stated on numerous occasions that entry to the state should be by ‘safe legal routes’.³⁴ Entering in the state by small boat is therefore presented as ignoring the availability of such routes and instead choosing smuggling to enter, which is then reinforced by the way that these arrivals are reported and the imagery that is used. The second level through which criminality is established through imagery is in the use of footage and photographs of people on board the small boats and their proximity to the tiller to single them out as ‘facilitating illegal immigration’. In this way, hypervisible entry to the state accompanied by the visuality of a hand on a tiller has been key to the construction of criminality with respect to boat arrivals.

The underlying reasons for these kinds of movements are ignored in favour of the image filtered through the logic of deterrence. This focus on the individuation of responsibility is key to absolving the state of duty to the asylum seeker. The images of asylum seekers and migrants moving in this way as well as their criminalisation are separated from the context in which they exist – a lack of so-called ‘safe legal routes’ to the United Kingdom, and a desperate need to acquire protection.

There are no ‘asylum visas’ available to those who need to seek asylum in the United Kingdom.³⁵ The construction of the Refugee Convention means that an asylum seeker is required to be present in a host country to claim asylum. This requirement to be physically present on the territory of the state means that asylum seekers must travel, usually clandestinely, to the state of asylum.

Despite the content of the Refugee Convention, states often push back against the commitments therein. The legitimacy of asylum claims is often undermined through state narratives, reframing asylum seekers as prima facie ‘illegal entrants’.³⁶ Through making a claim for international protection, this classification is refuted by asylum seekers.³⁷ However, the space and opportunity to do this is becoming increasingly narrow, as evidenced by the changes that the United Kingdom has made to the law under the NBA 2022. The Refugee Convention provides for a non-penalisation clause in circumstances where asylum seekers need to travel clandestinely, for example on false passports, to access to country of asylum.³⁸ This is generally understood to mean that an asylum seeker should in general not be subject to criminal or other kinds of sanction for travelling in this way.³⁹ While, as noted above people accused of violating s24 and s25 of the NBA may be able to rely on the defence of non-penalisation under s31 of the 1999 Act, there are questions over the availability of this defence in practice, particularly with regard to the high number of people prosecuted from countries with asylum application acceptance rates of up to 95 percent.⁴⁰

The increased criminalisation of those who would seek asylum in the United Kingdom through changes in legislation is however only one part of the government’s development of its spectacle of deterrence. Indeed, while more people are being prosecuted for ‘facilitating illegal entry’ to the state, there has been comparatively little media coverage or government commentary about this fact.⁴¹ As I discuss later however, this speaks to the oscillation between hypervisibility and invisibility that is characteristic of the spectacle of deterrence that has been developed under UK asylum law and policy.

This narrative of criminality and illegality however underpins the oft-repeated slogan of ‘stopping the boats’. Fear of advancing boats connects to the state’s imaginary of itself as a vulnerable island, susceptible to invasion. Imaginaries of historical invasion, ranging from the Second World War to Viking attacks, are not comparable to the arrival of those seeking protection on small boats that are unarmed and often barely seaworthy. The seeming absurdity of how small boats were characterised in relation to the power of the British State was probably most acutely apparent with the launch of the ‘Clandestine Channel Threat Commander’, a position created by the then Home Secretary Priti Patel, but whose exact purpose or role remained unclear.⁴² However, the spectre of this supposed threat has also been invoked as a catalyst for seismic change to asylum law in the state, some of which are discussed above. ‘Stopping the boats’ was set as a legislative task for the Conservative government that still persists for the new government.⁴³ Yet, the transformation of the concept into legislation highlights that the content of the law is secondary to the performance of legislating to an image.

‘Stopping the boats’ is not only about the physical act of preventing entry to the state but also represents a tangible intervention targeting a collection of anxieties. These anxieties all connect to specific imaginaries about the figure of the migrant. By targeting the highest visible entrant to the state, the state communicates its power to regain control over the borders of the state through the spectacle of boat arrivals.

The intervention of ‘Stop the Boats’ also connects to other images, including the migrant trying to overcome border fences in Calais, as well as attempts to enter the state either in the back of lorries or clinging to their undercarriage.⁴⁴ This emphasises the shifting position of the border and its existence beyond the traditional frontier of the state. The anxiety of the image of the migrant therefore not only relates to the hypervisibility of the migrant but also their hypermobility.

‘Stopping the boats’ is therefore not just a call to action to prevent entry to the state but also a promise to disrupt the ability to move freely. ‘Stopping’ invokes the cessation of movement as well as the possibility of enclosure. ‘Stopping the boats’ speaks not only to the immediate possibility of preventing entry to the state but also the message that stopping boats sends to those who would make the journey across the Channel.

When speaking publicly about the introduction of the Illegal Migration Act (IMA) in March 2023, the Prime Minister stood at a lectern with the phrase ‘Stop the Boats’ emblazoned across it.⁴⁵ The image invokes previous announcements of Covid-era restrictions and rules where the public are called to action to protect the state and its citizens. ‘Stopping the boats’ is therefore presented as imperative – crucial to the ongoing existence of the state.

In the speech, as well as in subsequent communications, the Prime Minister refers to the legislation as the ‘Stop the Boats Bill’, despite the official name of the legislation being the Illegal Migration Bill.⁴⁶ This directly speaks to the equation of the image of the migrant with the concept of illegality. A complex bill with many layers of restrictions on rights is reduced to a slogan that invokes a series of specific images and a narrative about a nation being overwhelmed.

In this way, the so-called illegality of migration has been reduced to an aesthetic. The Illegal Migration Bill (now the 2023 Act) is notably regressive, rolling back on many developments made in relation to asylum and refugee rights in the United Kingdom. Moreover, the legislation significantly curtailed the ability of people to seek asylum. In addition to the increased level of criminalisation of irregular arrivals to the state established under the NBA 2022 already noted, the 2023 Act illegalised those seeking asylum in the United Kingdom if they travelled through another country before making a protection claim in the United Kingdom.⁴⁷ This is significantly out of line with core principles set out in the Refugee Convention, which specifically envisages the need for asylum seekers to travel to the border of the state in which they want to seek asylum.⁴⁸ It also undermines key principles of British constitutional law including protections set out in the Human Rights Act and the inclusion of ouster clauses.⁴⁹

Crucially, the legislation undergirded the concept of illegality with the state response of deterrence. In addition to this new expansion of who was categorised as illegal, agreements that had been made with the Rwandan government meant that this categorisation would ultimately result in spectacular performances of deterrence. In this way, the act of legislating itself becomes part of the spectacular motif.⁵⁰ This is clear from the introduction of three major statutes that significantly alter asylum law in a three-year period, the NBA 2022, the IMA 2023 and most recently, the Safety of Rwanda Act 2024. In different ways, the content of those pieces of legislation demonstrates that foundational principles of refugee and UK constitutional law were seen as disposable in the pursuit of the spectacle of deterrence. Law itself became secondary to the spectacle and the imagination of stopping the boats.

As I note in the next section, the current reality of spectacular deterrence driving the legislative agenda belies an ongoing tension and oscillation between the modes of hyper- and invisibilisation as part of a spectacle. This is evident from the various elements of ‘deterrence’ within asylum law and policy that the government seeks to either highlight or obfuscate at different moments. The way in which this has manifested lately is best understood by looking at the concept of deterrence in asylum along a longer timeline. As I argue, the birth of deterrence as a policy towards asylum seekers in the United Kingdom provides a crucial context for the current reality.

The aesthetic of deprivation has a tutelary effect. Images and imaginaries of deprivation teach the public how asylum seekers should be treated. There is now a well-established position in UK asylum law and policy whereby asylum seekers should not be treated as equal to British citizens. This position aligns with the concept of ‘necessary suffering’ already discussed. The cumulative impact of lessons on ‘necessary suffering’ on the concept, for example, was particularly tangible when the government referred to asylum seekers staying in ex-military accommodation as ‘not analogous’ to British citizens and permanent residents.⁶⁰ Inferred from this classification was that it was legitimate to treat asylum seekers more poorly. However, the construction of the destitute asylum seeker as ‘lesser than’ can be traced back to the establishment of ‘destitute’ as a legal threshold in the 1990s. This, in turn, has had a significant impact on perceptions of asylum seekers’ deservedness. Specifically, there is a fundamental connection between the imaginary of a destitute asylum seeker and the parameters of the definition under the law.

From the establishment of a formal asylum system under the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act in 1993, the asylum seeker quickly became a figure onto which the imaginary and the expectation of deprivation was affixed. Welfare support to asylum seekers was stripped out to such a degree under laws such as the Asylum and Immigration Act 1996, that the courts intervened to assert that councils were required to assist under s21 of the National Assistance Act 1948 to asylum seekers whose welfare support had been denied. In R v Westminster CC & Ors Ex parte M, P, A & X, Lord Woolf MR referred to the ‘destitute condition to which asylum seekers can be reduced’, as a result of the 1996 Act.⁶¹ While neither the 1996 Act nor 1948 explicitly refer to the concept of destitution, this judgement indicates a specific link being drawn between destitution and asylum seekers’ deservedness of support. This legal threshold of destitution is closely linked to a particular aesthetic of deprivation, as well as anxiety over the hypervisibility of asylum seekers.

In the debates leading up to the introduction of the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act, the creation of visible poverty through permitting a state of destitution among asylum seekers was invoked. Lord Alton of Liverpool referred to the imaginary of ‘shanty towns’ emerging as a result of creating a class of ‘destitute’ asylum seekers.⁶² This reaction should also be considered in the context of the increased number of judicial reviews that were being taken by councils because of the number of asylum seekers who were being rendered destitute as a result of the law preventing access to welfare or accommodation support.⁶³ In this way, we can understand how the law is constructed in the reflection of both the imaginary and the image of the abject destitute figure of the asylum seeker.

We must again recall the ‘tutelary’ effect of the conditions that asylum seekers were subject to during this time. Even while efforts were made to push back against the complete deprivation of support to asylum seekers, the association between asylum seekers and the imaginary of destitution was embedded. While the concept of destitution was being crafted through the experience of deprived asylum seekers, a new approach to accommodating asylum seekers was being developed in the form of ‘dispersal’. The culmination of these developments in law signalled the emergence of a distinct spectacle of deterrence that arguably reached its apex with the Rwanda policy. The specific form that practices of invisibilisation historically took in the United Kingdom is however important to note.

The National Asylum Support Service (NASS) was established after the introduction of the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act. The NASS, which operated under the auspices of the Home Office, was the facet of the department through which applications for asylum support were administered.⁶⁴ The creation of the NASS also highlighted that the support that asylum seekers received was distinct and importantly, less than what was provided to the British population in social welfare support.⁶⁵ Another feature of the post-1999 system was the introduction of ‘no-choice’ accommodation for destitute asylum seekers. As many asylum seekers sought to stay in London and the Southeast of the country while awaiting the outcome of their asylum accommodation, this policy was also devised as a form of deterrence to new arrivals.⁶⁶ This process was referred to as ‘dispersal’ and resulted in asylum seekers being sent primarily to the North-East and North-West of the country.⁶⁷

Creating the NASS, as well as a separate welfare system for asylum seekers in a way marked asylum seekers as a more visible group within UK society – specifically a group that was singled out as not deserving of mainstream support, and whose treatment can lift them out of ‘destitution’, but cannot reach a higher standard.

As Hynes notes, the dispersal system also entrenched the distinction between asylum seekers and refugees as legal statuses, embedding an imaginary of the treatment that each group ‘deserved’.⁶⁸ At the same time, however, the act of dispersal also has the effect of selectively invisibilising asylum seekers. By sending asylum seekers to specific parts of the United Kingdom and removing them from others, some asylum seekers become highly visible within certain communities and completely absent within others. Once again, therefore, we see that rather than opposites, hypervisibility and invisibility exist in one and the same moment.

When the policy of dispersal was being developed, proposals to group asylum seekers from similar backgrounds or countries to the same areas were rejected. The rejection was framed in relation to concerns that this would encourage the creation of ghettos.⁶⁹ These concerns are clearly connected to anxiety about certain ethnic groups becoming highly visible within communities. By establishing ‘no-choice’ dispersal on a more individualised and disparate basis, peoples’ identity is reduced to that of an asylum seeker, especially as their connection to their social background is fractured through the process of dispersal. Framing accommodation for asylum seekers as ‘no-choice’ heavily implied that preventing asylum seekers from having any agency over where they stayed is a form of disciplining and punishment.

A clear goal of the post-1999 system was to perform a spectacle of deterrence, aimed not only at asylum seekers but also the British public. However, this did not necessarily have the desired effect. In media reporting about economic support for asylum seekers, there is effectively no acknowledgement of the fact that asylum seekers cannot access the same social welfare entitlements as Britons. Rather, reports emphasise the idea that British citizens are in direct competition for resources with asylum seekers.⁷⁰ Coverage highlights the overall figure that is spent on asylum seekers, not referring to the individual payments that asylum seekers receive, which is much less than that paid through the mainstream welfare system. Regularly, it is either overtly stated or heavily implied that when it comes to accessing housing, asylum seekers are prioritised over British people.⁷¹

The media coverage crucially reveals that the media is either not aware or not interested in covering the use of ‘no-choice’ dispersal as a means of deterring asylum seekers. Much like media coverage of asylum seekers prior to the introduction of dispersal, the focus is on the propensity of asylum seekers to ‘exploit’, ‘abuse’ or otherwise ‘take advantage’ of the UK’s ‘generous’ welfare system.⁷²

Regardless of the government’s pivot to a ‘tougher’ asylum reception system, the actual hardships that asylum seekers experience are either underreported or ignored in favour of the more familiar and entrenched narrative. In this way, while asylum seekers were spectacularised in the news, it was the imaginary of their experience rather than their actual realities. The creation of the dispersal model rather had a marked invisibilising effect. This was established through geographical dispersal, with a focus on relocation to the Northeast but also through the centralisation of asylum services.⁷³ Following the introduction of NASS and dispersal, asylum seekers were now much less likely to come into contact with local authorities compared to the era of the local council judicial review cases discussed above. This had the effect of further anonymising asylum seekers within communities.

Invisibilisation is however not a settled state, especially when it occurs within the borders of the state. Moments of spectacle can result in revisibilisation. In these moments, not only are migrants revealed, but so are counter-narratives relating to the migration law and policy. Revisibilisation can also occur as a result of unintended or deliberate acts. This emphasises the volatility and unsettled nature of practices of invisibilisation.

An example of an unintended spectacle resulting in revisibilisation was highlighted during the events that occurred in Middlesbrough in 2016. Jomast – a subsidiary of G4S – was given the responsibility of maintaining asylum accommodation in Middlesbrough. To ensure workers could more easily identify the houses that they were responsible for, a decision was made to paint the doors of the asylum seekers’ accommodation red.⁷⁴ The act of painting the doors in this manner made the homes of asylum seekers suddenly spectacularly visible on streets that were otherwise uniform and unremarkable.

Media coverage at the time noted that there were fears that revealing the asylum accommodation on terraced streets in this manner could make asylum seekers the target of racially motivated attacks.⁷⁵ Indeed, a report in The Times went so far as to refer to the painting of the doors as ‘[a]partheid on the streets of Britain’.⁷⁶ However, unusually, in the reporting, asylum seekers were not referred to as a large anonymous group, but were rather portrayed as individuals, who were being subjected to specific attacks as a direct result of the red door policy. In many ways, the painting of the doors spectacularly revealed the two-tier policy that already existed for asylum seekers living in the United Kingdom. The spectacle of the red doors therefore reframed the existing policies of deterrence through destitution as a form of apartheid, unsettling the tacit acceptance of this kind of policy.

The spectacle of the asylum seeker, whether it is the hypervisible arrival by boat, or the spontaneous revisibilisation within the borders of the state, has the power to confirm and/or reframe worldviews. In this way, we are reminded of the inter-reliance of hypervisibility and invisibility in this construction of the spectacle.

Invisibilisation within the boundaries of the state permits the construction of a specific kind of imaginary of the asylum seeker and their day-to-day life. This narrative is perpetuated and advanced in equal measure by media reporting and through claims made by government representatives which are then transformed into law and policy. This narrative becomes more difficult to refute as the asylum seekers’ reality is underrepresented. The focus lies more on the spectacle of arrival. The position taken with respect to hypervisible arrivals is also premised on the unchallenged understanding of migration numbers being ‘out of control’ and set to ‘overwhelm’ the country.⁷⁷

Yet by invisibilising within the boundaries of the state, there is also greater scope for coming spectacularly into view. With the internal invisibilisation of asylum seekers in Britain through dispersal, there are a couple of issues that come to the fore.

First – a system that is built on invisibilising asylum seekers, or at least invisibilising from certain parts of the country is not a settled state and is in continual danger of disruption. In moments where invisibilised asylum seekers once again come spectacularly into view, the relation between hypervisibility and invisibilisation is subverted.

Secondly, and related to the above, the script which dictates the operation of certain invisibilisation policies is brought into question and the binaries that the state wishes to perpetuate – for example, ‘good’ migrants versus ‘bad’ migrants – become less distinct as complexities and shades of grey are revealed. This disruption then leads to challenges with respect to the level of control that the state has over the established narrative about migration as once settled assumptions and myths are destabilised. While it is true that the act of revealing asylum seekers in a context where their presence in the state has been weaponised by the state and the media is potentially threatening to asylum seekers, in certain contexts it also has the potential to instil a sense of injustice in the public and feelings of solidarity with the experience of the asylum seeker or migrant. Crucial to this sense of solidarity with asylum seekers is a de-emphasis on their identity as asylum seekers. The legal status of asylum seeker has become so synonymous with the concept of deterrence, their ill-treatment is expected and, in some contexts, even demanded, as demonstrated through the spectacle of necessary suffering, discussed above. Representations of asylum seekers in a way that de-emphasises their legal status fundamentally challenge this framing.

Making the asylum seeker visible and knowable therefore reveals the fine line that the state must walk in terms of communicating a spectacle of deterrence on one hand, and inadvertently tipping over to action that evokes outrage from the public. This disruption then leads to challenges with respect to the level of control that the state has over the established narrative about migration as once-settled assumptions and myths are destabilised.

While it is clear that there are particular moments of mistreatment that evoke outrage in the public, the threshold of suffering that the public is willing to withstand is equally subject to change. As Susan Sontag wrote, ‘[a]s one can become habituated to horror in real life, one can become habituated to the horror of certain images’.⁷⁸ We are again reminded of the spectacle of necessary suffering, which significantly impacts the baseline acceptability of so-called deterrence measures. Therefore, disruptive counter-spectacles become increasingly important to challenge existing laws and policies.