Our unambiguous signal: come to the UK illegally and you won’t be able to stay
A YEAR ago this month, an aeroplane sat on the runway at Boscombe Down military airfield in Wiltshire with a group of illegal migrants on board.
It was bound for Rwanda, where the British Government had negotiated a deal to take people who had arrived in small boats on our shores.
We all remember what happened next.
One by one the migrants were taken off, back on to the tarmac and into British society — where they remain.
They were removed because judges and lawyers decided that sending the migrants to Rwanda breached their human rights.
Indeed, the final ones were taken off the plane because a judge in Strasbourg ruled that the Rwanda policy was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Border security
Ever since, the Government has been fighting to defend the Rwanda plan in the courts.
This week, I hope, we will get the good news we’ve been waiting for — a green light from the Court of Appeal that the long-delayed flights can finally go ahead.
But we need to do more than win legal battles.
There is nothing more fundamental to the existence of a country than the security of its borders.
The most basic job of the state is to control who comes in.
That is why it is fundamentally wrong for judges — especially judges in a foreign court — to overrule the Government and allow illegal migrants to remain in the UK.
In response to the events of last summer, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman introduced a bill in Parliament which REQUIRES the removal of illegal immigrants to Rwanda or another safe country — no matter what the courts say.
We desperately need that law to come into effect — and soon.
Despite a small, highly-welcome reduction in small boats crossing so far this year, they are still coming in unacceptable numbers.
If the good weather holds into the autumn, we might see even more migrants this year than last.
The only way to stop this is to send a clear, unambiguous signal: If you come here illegally, you won’t be able to stay.
We’ll send you back to your country if it’s safe — and I congratulate the Government for its deportation deal with Albania, which is now working well.
If it’s not safe, you’ll go to Rwanda.
But even with the new law, it is not going to be easy.
The UK’s membership of the European Convention on Human Rights means we will always be vulnerable to judges ruling against common sense and fairness.
We saw this week a rearguard action by Home Office civil servants who are still trying to undermine their own Government and stop the Rwanda plan.
They produced calculations showing it costs more to send a migrant to Rwanda than it does to keep them in a British hotel.
This was then eagerly reported as evidence the policy is stupid and should be scrapped. Well of course it costs more!
We are flying people to another continent and giving the Rwandan government a lot of money to make sure they settle into their new lives.
But the whole point of the policy is to bring the numbers down.
As the Home Office figures show, we only need to deter two migrants for every one that still comes for the policy’s costs to be covered by savings on accommodation.
And if Rwanda goes ahead, we can expect to deter a lot more than that.
Take back control
When people know they will be packed off to Africa rather than given a home and benefits in Britain, they will find the idea of spending thousands of pounds to risk their lives in the English Channel a lotless appealing.
It is how Australia dealt with the same problem.
Increasingly it is how every Western country is dealing with it — Germany, Holland, even liberal Joe Biden’s America are all looking at ways to deport illegal immigrants to safe countries.
Unless you want open borders, with anyone who can afford the journey welcome to come to live here, it is the only way.
Of course, the small boats are the thin end of a very long wedge.
Last year, 46,000 people arrived here illegally, more than a million came in legally, on a visa issued by the Government.
This is way, way too many.
Once the Illegal Migration Bill is passed, we need a relentless focus on bringing down the migration numbers overall.
People voted for Brexit in 2016 and for Boris Johnson’s Conservatives in 2019 because they wanted to take back control.
Most of all, that means control of our borders.
We promised it — we have to deliver.