ROSS CLARK Labour must block aid to countries who don’t take back ALL failed migrants – but here’s why they won’t listen
It is essential for UK national security that we are able to deport asylum seekers from countries full of Islamist extremists when their stories fail to add up
DOES anyone really believe the Government is suddenly going to get tough on illegal migration?
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood yesterday put some flesh on the bones of her promise to adopt a tougher, Danish-style policy.
Refugee status for new arrivals is to be made temporary, and will have to be renewed every two and a half years.
She announced that she will try to instruct UK courts to adopt a tougher interpretation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights — the get-out clause often used by illegal migrants and convicted criminals to avoid deportation by claiming that it would breach their right to a family life.
The Home Secretary also said Britain will refuse to grant visas to nationals of Namibia, Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — countries which Mahmood says have been especially reluctant to take back their illegal migrants.
Bleeding heart liberals
Fine words, but it is easy enough to guess what is going to happen next.
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SHABANA MAHMOOD
I will not allow foreign criminals and illegal migrants to exploit our laws
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I give it a week before Mahmood apologetically backs down, beaten back by protests from human rights lawyers, backbench Labour MPs and migrant advocacy groups who will accuse the Government of pandering to the far right.
Mahmood hadn’t even made her speech before Tony Vaughan, a migration lawyer who now serves as Labour MP for Folkestone, was bleating how the proposals would make refugees feel unwelcome.
Mahmood, needless to say, isn’t proposing to deny asylum to genuine refugees who are fleeing for their lives.
She is merely proposing to make refugee status temporary, in the same way most visas are temporary.
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If the situation in your home country improves, she says, you will be expected either to return home or to apply for a visa to stay in Britain.
But even this modest proposal is too much for the bleeding heart liberals who have been in control of migration policy for many years, whoever is in government.
For them, offering illegal migrants anything less than a four-star hotel with room service is tantamount to fascism.
They cannot bring themselves to believe any migrant ever took advantage of Britain’s soft migration system or any criminal or terrorist ever tried to pose as a refugee.
As for instructing UK judges to take a tougher line on the right to a family life, don’t hold your breath.
As former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption explained yesterday, it doesn’t matter how UK judges interpret the European Convention, illegal migrants will still be able to take their cases to the European Court of Human Rights — backed by taxpayers’ money — whose judges will continue to interpret the convention in whatever way they fancy.
As Sumption argued, the way the ECHR has taken to making up the law as it goes along offends the basic principles of democratic accountability.
If we want to stop being subject to its perverse judgements — not just on migration cases — our only option is to withdraw from it.
Much as we can admire Denmark’s toughness in tackling illegal migration, that country has exactly the same problem
Much as we can admire Denmark’s toughness in tackling illegal migration, that country has exactly the same problem.
Its efforts to return Syrian refugees have been frustrated by human rights laws.
In Denmark, as in Britain, criminals have successfully used the right to a family life to avoid deportation.
In one case, an Afghan who was convicted of theft, violence and possession of illegal drugs was allowed to stay on the basis that he had managed to get a woman pregnant while he was awaiting trial.
As for the Home Secretary’s threat to stop issuing visas to nationals of Angola, Namibia and the DRC, it is hard to see it as anything other than a token gesture.
None of them made it on to the list of the top 15 countries for illegal migrants in 2024.
How about stopping every penny of aid until these countries agree to take back every single failed asylum seeker?
She suggests that the plan might be extended to other countries in future, but why doesn’t she start with Afghanistan, from which 5,919 small boat arrivals came in 2024, but which took back only 13 per cent of its failed asylum seekers?
Or Iran, which provided 4,158 illegal migrants and took back only five per cent of failed asylum-seekers?
Of course, there are genuine reasons why many people would want to flee the Taliban and Ayatollahs.
‘Dark forces’
But it is essential for UK national security that we are able to deport asylum seekers from countries full of Islamist extremists when their stories fail to add up.
There is a far sharper tool which the Government could be using to persuade countries to take back illegal migrants: The UK aid budget.
Britain sent £110million in aid to Nigeria in 2022, for example, yet that country only took back six per cent of failed asylum-seekers.
We paid a further £90million to Ethiopia, a country which took back only four per cent.
How about stopping every penny of aid until these countries agree to take back every single failed asylum seeker?
Mahmood has apparently told Labour MPs that they will have to accept her proposals or Labour will be swept aside by “dark forces” — by which she presumably means Reform UK.
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Don’t expect them to listen, though. Most don’t give a damn about public opinion on migration.
They would rather go down fighting to the last ditch for an open borders policy.
