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The talk this week has of course been all about the Safety of Rwanda Bill, which received its third reading having survived its passage through the Commons intact. It will now pass to the Lords where the government does not, of course, have a majority. The Prime Minister called on the ‘appointed’ chamber to ‘do the right thing’, pass the Bill and not ‘frustrate the will of the people’.
In fact, the main hurdle to removing those arriving illegally and claiming asylum lies in the Bill’s connection to Sir Tony Blair’s 1998 Human Rights Act, which incorporates the European Convention of Human Rights into the British legal system. It is this Act that provides the avenue to challenge removal to Rwanda or anywhere else. No matter that they made their way here illegally across the Channel in small boats from safe France, and having handed over huge sums to criminals to bring them here.
While the Safety of Rwanda Bill excludes key Human Rights Act provisions, crucially, it does not disapply section 4. It is this section that allows challenges to its compatibility with the European Convention of Human Rights in domestic courts.
We strongly believe that, as it stands, the legislation will very likely face challenges in the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg. We agree with the former immigration minister, the excellent Robert Jenrick, and his former boss, the equally fine ex-Home Secretary, that such gaps will lead to any attempts to remove anyone to Rwanda getting mired in the courts. It was heartening to see that Mr Jenrick, like Ms Braverman and nine other Tory backbenchers had the courage of their convictions to vote against the Bill on Wednesday night.
While we are on Robert Jenrick, we were delighted to hear him on GBNews drawing attention to the much bigger problem of the scale of legal immigration and its impact on the economy and society. Net migration of 600,000 to three quarters of a million, potentially leading to population growth of more than 13 million people in less than 25 years, is simply too awful to contemplate. Do take a peek at this short clip.
This is a preview of Migration Watch’s free weekly newsletter. Please consider signing up to the newsletter directly, you can do so here and will receive an email copy of the newsletter every Friday as soon as it is released.