No civilised country should tolerate the danger of drowning as a feature of its asylum policy

Editorial: The government ought to welcome any proposals that have a chance of reducing the number of people making the dangerous crossing

People living in tents near Dunkirk are hoping to cross the Channel (EPA)

Thank goodness there is still a part of the parliamentary Conservative Party that understands the values of compassion, decency and liberalism. Pauline Latham, the MP for Mid Derbyshire, has written for The Independent to propose a sensible way out of the crisis in our asylum system, which is currently encouraging desperate refugees to play a form of marine Russian roulette in the Channel.

She suggests that asylum seekers should be allowed to make their claims at UK embassies anywhere in the world. She points out that most of the people who cross from France in small boats are accepted as genuine refugees, but that they have no way of applying here except by making their way to the UK by unauthorised means.

She is supported by David Davis and Andrew Mitchell, former cabinet ministers, which suggests that it may be possible – if the opposition can draft the right amendments to the Nationality and Borders Bill – for the government’s parliamentary majority to be tested. The bill is to be debated in the House of Commons on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Ms Latham’s proposal makes more sense than Priti Patel’s plan. The home secretary seems to be hoping that the mirage of a fantasy island will be sufficient to keep Conservative MPs in line. Yet her policy of detaining all arrivals, and removing them to centres in another country while their applications are assessed, depends on an agreement with that other country – an agreement that has not yet been made, and is unlikely ever to be made.

Quite soon, Conservative MPs, and possibly even Conservative ministers, are going to realise that it is not in their interest to wait for imaginary solutions that are not going to materialise, and that Ms Latham’s proposal, or something like it, is a pragmatic way forward.

Even if they are not motivated by compassion, they should be motivated by self-interest. The government is paying a price for having failed to “take back control” of immigration policy, and ought to welcome any proposals that have a chance of reducing the number of people making the dangerous crossing.

Ms Latham’s suggestion offers that prospect. Indeed, it offers some of the advantages of Ms Patel’s idea, in that asylum applications would be assessed outside the UK. However, it depends on the government’s willingness to allow some applications to be made abroad in the first place, opening up a safe route to asylum for those who qualify.

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So far, the Home Office has resisted the argument, and will not even accept an amendment to the bill that would allow applications only from asylum seekers already in France. Its argument is that such safe routes would only add to the “pull factor” of the UK, and that people would still be encouraged to “make dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean and overland to France in order to make claims to enter the UK”, again motivating those seeking refuge to put themselves in the hands of smugglers.

It must be said that this argument is not proven. As long as Britain takes such a small share of refugees – far fewer relative to the size of our population than France, for example – ministers should consider opening up a safe route for a limited number of refugees to claim asylum here. The alternative is to rely on the threat of drowning as the principal deterrent to genuine refugees, which no civilised country should tolerate.