The new bill is a necessary first step
Will the new bill stop the boats?
While the government announced its latest legislation to tackle the crisis of illegal immigration into Britain via small boats, our team has been doing the rounds in the media.
Will this finally be the moment that Britain takes control of its borders again? Is it ‘ra ra Rishi’ and ‘sock it to them Suella,’ or ‘oh no not again?’
The Home Secretary Suella Braverman, we know, is serious about securing the nation’s coastline and we do not doubt her commitment to border control. And it seems she has the Prime Minister’s support.
The real question is whether the open border brigade and the bloated industry of NGOs, lawyers and celebrity luvvies can undermine the legal process and once again weaponise the Refugee Convention or ECHR.
As our supporters well know, we’ve been here before. So why do we remain cautiously optimistic about this new bill? For the following reasons:
- It places a statutory requirement on the Home Secretary to detain illegal arrivals until they can be removed to their home country or another country where they can claim asylum
- It introduces longer time-limits for detention and fast tracks processing for illegal immigrants
- Those arriving in small boats or by any other illegal means will be barred from claiming asylum
But there are potential obstacles that could still lead to the European Court of Human Rights holding up removals. Professor Richard Ekins explained in the Daily Telegraph on 9 March how the Bill “still permits substantive legal challenges, including human rights litigation, to continue outside the UK. If these claims eventually succeed, [our] courts might well order the Home Secretary to return the person to the UK.” The good news is that the government has time and there will be opportunities to plug the gaps as the bill progresses through parliament. Read Prof Ekins’s article here.
Once on the statute book as an Act, the Opposition and House of Lords will do their utmost to block its passage. Will it work? Time will tell but this Bill is definitely a necessary step. And if it doesn’t work because of the ECHR, then it is time to pull out of the ECHR. Some might argue that this should have happened anyway.
The Home Secretary herself has said Britain has been taken for a ride for too long. Enough is enough. And if the government fail yet again to solve this growing crisis, they will get their come-uppance at the ballot box.
Blog of the week
What’s The News On Modern Slavery Abuse Among Asylum Seekers?
In recent years, the amount of modern slavery claims being made by asylum seekers has risen substantially. In 2022, claims reached a high of 17,000 of which just a quarter were for sole UK nationals. Earlier this year, we published exclusive data linking the significant increase in modern slavery claims to the Channel crisis. This data had such an impact, that just a few weeks later the Immigration Minister, Robert Jenrick MP, promised to begin publishing this information regularly in the wake of our research. The first batch of that data came out in last week’s quarterly statistics release, and has now been followed up with a round-up of the data.
Read our full blog here on this issue.
Migration Watch in the news
This Bill, then, is a genuine chance for the Government at last to begin to put an end to the illegal-migration crisis — an issue that has been stoked for so long by the Left, the luvvies, the liberals and the ‘open borders’ fanatics.
Telegraph: MPs and peers urged not to ‘neuter’ Illegal Migration Bill (please scroll down to 2.49pm)
Alp Mehmet, chairman of the Migration Watch UK campaign group, urged MPs and peers not to “neuter” the Government’s new Illegal Migration Bill as he said it has “many of the right ingredients to solve the Channel crisis”.
He said: “It is vital that it is not neutered as it makes its way through Parliament. Enshrining in statute a requirement to detain and remove illegal arrivals is a vital first step.
“Furthermore, establishing the precedent that illegal entrants will be unable to claim asylum or other forms of refuge will serve as a powerful deterrent.
“It is equally important, of course, to plug the huge gaps created by the Human Rights and Modern Slavery Acts. These are all essential elements if the tide of illegal boat arrivals is to be stemmed.”
Talk TV: Our reaction to the government’s plan to ban asylum for illegal Channel migrants
‘If the government doesn’t get a grip, the numbers will go up, and likely to be anything up to 90-100,000 this year, and if they go up at that sort of rate, the numbers dying will also go up. And that’s what those who are dead set against all this should think about.’
Radio 5 Live: Will the government’s new asylum ban plan work?
‘When you are saying half a million people net coming here, over 1.3 million visas for long-term stay were issued at the same time last year, you have to take into account what that means for population growth, what that means for additional demands on services, on schools, and the rest of it.’
GB News: Will the government’s new asylum law stop the illegal crossings?
‘It’s the government who didn’t think of this, as one of the consequences of their inaction and and inability to actually control the boats.’
Migration Watch chairman Alp Mehmet said at the time that Albanians “and their traffickers have identified a huge loophole in our legislation and are exploiting it to the hilt”.
GB News: Will the government get its new asylum ban law through parliament?
‘If we are serious about stopping the boats, then something along these lines is absolutely essential.’
BBC: Will the government’s new law stop the boats?
‘Ultimately this is about addressing the demand for those traffickers. If you reduce the amount of people who are going to make these journeys all the way from the Middle East or Africa, or even various parts of Europe, then the smuggling gangs will have less customers.’
Al Jazeera: Those crossing the Channel illegally are coming from a safe country
‘If they are entering the UK having travelled directly from France or Belgium or the Netherlands or maybe other places, they are not fleeing a conflict zone, they are not coming from an unsafe place. They’ve passed through quite a few countries where they could have easily claimed asylum.’
GB News: Those crossing the Channel must be detained, assessed and removed
‘The returns agreement are the nub on which the entire policy lands, and if that fails, if there aren’t places where we can send all these illegal immigrants that the government is planning to detain, then it will all be for naught.’
‘The actions of these people smugglers just show what the government is up against.
‘By travelling in bigger and sturdier boats, the worry is that they could arrive in the UK beyond the usual routes, making it even harder to detect.’
This story was also picked up by the Express here.
BBC Scotland: Will the government’s new plan stop the boats?
‘It works in the long term by reducing the amount of people who try to make that journey.’
GB News: The Labour party doesn’t have a plan to stop the boats
‘The Labour Party seems to say “let’s tackle the gangs, and get the backlog down”, and that miraculously is going to stop people from coming over. It won’t, I mean it’s a nonsense frankly.’
Make your voice heard
Thank you to those who have written to their MP over mass immigration and the Channel crisis. It really has helped to get the government moving on border control. This new bill is a sign that leaders know the public will not tolerate more betrayals.
If you haven’t done so already, please do write to your MP today.