Some bold, punchy calls for the need to change the Geneva convention here, particularly to stop the abuse of economic migration:
“The Geneva convention was intended to protect individual people from persecution. A significant number of people who claim asylum are doing so for broadly economic reasons. So I think it is right we look at the framework, as indeed other European countries are doing.”
And another:
“Britain, like all European countries, had inherited the post-war, post-Holocaust system and sentiment on asylum … [that is] completely unrealistic […] The presumption: “that someone who claimed asylum was persecuted and should be taken in”] was plainly false; most asylum claims were not genuine. Disproving them, however, was almost impossible. The combination of the courts, with their liberal instinct; the European Convention on Human Rights, with its absolutist attitude to the prospect of returning someone to an unsafe community; and the UN Convention [Relating to the Status] of Refugees, with its context firmly that of 1930s Germany, mean that, in practice, once someone got into Britain and claimed asylum, it was the Devil’s own job to return them.”
Feisty. No doubt the likes of James O’Brien and Nish Kumar will be absolutely incensed, although wait until they hear who said them… New Labour’s immigration minister Phil Woolas in 2009, and Tony Blair himself in his autobiography. Jack Straw made the same arguments in 2000.* Suella’s speech was practically anodyne by comparison…
*Hat-tip: John Rentoul for reminding Guido of New Labour’s attitude.
New statistics from the Home Office reveal the taxpayer is now forking out £8 million a day to house asylum seekers in hotels, with most of the cost coming out of the foreign aid budget. The overall cost of the government’s asylum and accommodation system is now a whopping £3 billion overall. Yvette Cooper points out that the cost of hotel accommodation has gone up by a third since Rishi promised to end hotel use. Labour say they will end hotel use – without explaining how.
Emma Churchill, the Home Office Director General for Migration and Borders, raked in a bonus of between £15-20,000 on top of her £135,000 salary before she departed for the Cabinet Office. A reminder that more migrants were detected crossing the channel in the first weekend of this month than the entirety of March…
Despite the eye-watering sums and unprecedented asylum claims, Guido hears officials are quietly of the view that the worst has passed, and the Home Office is beginning to break the backlog. Productivity is supposedly up, and claims are finally being processed quicker. Given the appalling state of these figures, you’d hope so. The proof will be in the pudding…
This morning Labour are talking tough on “smashing Channel migrant gangs” to stop the boats, vowing to treat traffickers like terrorists by freezing assets and restricting their movements. While Starmer appears in both The Sun and The Times to sell his migrant deal to voters, the Conservatives are already on the counterattack: not only does the deal junk the Rwanda plan, it opens the door to thousands of EU migrants in exchange for a new borders agreement with Brussels. Starmer is willing to accept a share of asylum seekers in return for the EU taking back migrants who arrive via small boats. Labour insist this is up for negotiation, which is code for ‘yes’…
Stamer told The Times this morning:
“We effectively exited the returns agreement we were in and have never replaced it. The first job is to secure the borders and make sure we are the ones determining who comes to this country.”
The Tories claim this would amount to around 100,000 EU asylum seekers a year, based on a Council of the EU document produced in June which says that distribution of migrants within a sharing agreement should be based “on the size of the population and the economy of the Member State”. The figure could go even higher if the migration crisis worsens. 100,000 more migrants a year, and 100,000 fewer homes built after Labour opposed the scrapping of the EU derived nutrient neutrality laws…
The government’s latest immigration figures show work visas have risen by 65% since this time last year, with study visas also up by 34%. In total, there were 3,287,404 visas granted in the year ending June 2023, a 58% increase in just 12 months…
The data reveals:
“Work visas (including dependants) [are] up 208,295 (+63%) to 538,887
study visas (including dependants) [are] up 165,968 (+34%) to 657,208, including sponsored and short-term students”
A huge increase. Better build a few houses…
Rishi Sunak has once again refused to commit to stopping the boats before the next election, even as the latest figures show 17,000 migrants have crossed the channel so far this year. A reminder that he stood behind a podium emblazoned with a big red “stop the boats” banner at the beginning of the year…
Now he’s in choppier waters. This morning he claimed:
“I am not complacent. I never said this would be easy. I never said it could be fixed overnight. We are going to attack it from every angle and not stop until we are done… We have got to stop the boats, that is why it is one of my five priorities. The current system is unsustainable and it is unfair. The best way to reduce pressure on local communities is to stop the number of people coming here in the first place […] I also want to be honest with people that it is a complex problem.”
Meanwhile NHS waiting lists are also at record highs. The tide isn’t turning…
Ex-Home Secretary Priti Patel has written a furious public letter to her successor Suella Braverman and Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick over new reports that the Home Office is planning to house migrants on RAF bases for up to five years, attacking the government directly for being “evasive” and bypassing planning rules under the pretence of emergency need. Nothing like blue-on-blue melodrama to keep hacks busy over recess…
Patel suggests the government has been “secretive about its intentions” over plans to keep migrants on RAF Wethersfield for years longer than publicly stated, and accuses the Home Office of offering “no clarity” to Patel personally on the issue. She points out she asked three Written Questions on the time frame and funding for the project, and received “no definitive answer”…
“The lack of a direct response to my questions relating to the length of time the Home Office plans to use the site for asylum accommodation gives the impression that the Home Office is being evasive… Ministers have been evasive over their plans for the future of Wethersfield. They’ve bypassed the usual planning requirements, claimed the site is temporary for emergency use only and now we see they‘ve been planning to use the site for five years. This is unacceptable.”
The letter ends with four questions – which Patel politely asks to be answered “urgently”:
- How long the base will be used as a migrant camp?
- What does the government’s financial modelling on the camp say, including value for money?
- What is the average cost-per-bed?
- What are the details for the approach to planning for the site?
Read the furious letter below:
