I reproduce below a letter sent by the Home Secretary to all MPs and peers, as I thought it best you read the government’s statement and respond to their proposals:
New Plan for Immigration
We have today published the New Plan for Immigration ā our landmark programme to deliver the first comprehensive overhaul of the asylum system in decades.
UK asylum claims increased by 21% to almost 36,000 in 2019 ā the highest number since the 2015/16 European āmigration crisisā. Small boat arrivals to the UK reached record levels with 8,500 illegal arrivals last year.
At the same time, our ability to remove individuals with no right to remain in the UK is being undermined by repeated legal claims designed to impede removal action, often strung out over a period of many years. The vast majority of last-minute claims designed to prevent removal are subsequently found by the courts to have no merit. Shockingly, there are around 45,000 failed asylum seekers who have not left the UK and over 10,000 Foreign National Offenders ā and yet there were just 7,000 enforced returns in 2019.
All of this impacts our ability to help those in genuine need by taking up scarce resources and wasting valuable judicial capacity.
We have already reformed our legal immigration system by ending free movement and introducing a new points-based immigration system. This plan is the next step in taking back control of our borders by tackling illegal immigration.
Our New Plan for Immigration has three main objectives:
1. To increase the fairness and efficiency of our system so that we can better protect and support those in genuine need of asylum;
2. To deter and prevent illegal entry into the UK, thereby breaking the business model of the criminal trafficking networks and protecting the lives of those that they endanger; and
3. To remove more easily from the UK those with no right to be here.
At the heart of this plan is the principle of fairness. Access to the UKās asylum system should be based on need, not on the ability to pay people smugglers.
For the first time, how someone enters the UK will impact on how their claim progresses and on their status in the UK if that claim is successful. As we clamp down on illegal immigration and abuse of the system, we will also streamline the asylum framework to prevent repeat claims which frustrate removal, including of dangerous Foreign National Offenders.
We will increase prison sentences for those illegally entering the UK, introduce life sentences for facilitation of illegal entry, give Border Force additional powers, strengthen age assessments and introduce a more robust statutory definition of āwell-founded fear of persecutionā for asylum purposes.
At the same time, we will enhance our reputation as Global Britain, strengthening our safe and legal routes for refugees and fixing historic anomalies in British Nationality law.
The proposals are fully compliant with our international obligations, including the European Convention on Human Rights, the Refugee Convention and the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings.
These reforms are explained in more detail in the policy statement, which we have published today. To inform the proposals set out and ensure we can deliver effective change across the system, we have also launched a public consultation and a wide-reaching engagement process. We will use this opportunity to listen to a wide range of views from stakeholders and sectors as well as members of the public, followed by legislation at the earliest opportunity.
You can find the policy statement and consultation portal at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/new-plan-for-immigration.
I look forward to hearing your views on our New Plan for Immigration, and hope that you will strongly encourage your constituents to take part in the public consultation so that the voice of the public is heard.
March 25, 2021
I shall certainly look forward to reading the consultation. I would be interested to know where failed asylum seekers are going to be deported back to. We have at present no agreement with France. As illegal immigrants don’t have papers it is difficult to know their country of origin. I am shocked that many are offenders in their own countries. I am also sick of the BBC going on about how many other European countries have taken in. We are more than half the size of France and smaller than Spain, Germany and even Italy. All but Germany have much similar populations to the UK but a bigger land mass. The UK wants to help genuine asylum seekers who tuly have nothing and not those that can afford to pay just because they want a better life elsewhere. I sincerely hope this time we see real action from the government and not just words. I haven’t spoken to anyone who thinks our immigration policy is working at present. The BBC is always saying what the public want but it never seems to be in line with what me and my friends want to see happen. We are fed up seeing public services cut while local authorities have to house and support these people who have not come here by legal means.
March 25, 2021
Interesting that John claims the proposals to be fully compliant with various international laws.
That is an admission that it was NEVER ECHR etc. which prevented the removal of most undesirables, but only the failure of systems under his party’s government and perhaps also of national law.
I thank him.
Reply I have reproduced the government’s words, not mine
March 25, 2021
@FUS; “As illegal immigrants donāt have papers it is difficult to know their country of origin. I am shocked that many are offenders in their own countries.”
Anyone else see the obvious hyperbolic oxymoron in the above?!
March 25, 2021
āNot the brightest bulb on the porch nor the sharpest tool in the boxā comes to mind.
March 26, 2021
That remark says more about you than it does about me.
March 27, 2021
āToucheā, but you needed me to post first a similar comment to be able to copy it. Copycat!
March 25, 2021
Why does an educated senior government minister use the word “impacts” (noun) as a verb when there is a perfectly good verb: “affects”?
March 26, 2021
Clot .. do you not know he is in Janes Joyce mode..
March 25, 2021
Doesn’t have to be the same people guilty of both Jerry. Not contradictory at all. Some without papers, some offenders. Thank you for pointing out I needed to clarify that.
March 25, 2021
@FUS; Of course those two sentences are contradictory! You can’t have it both ways, the authorities either know were these illegal migrants come from or they don’t, a bit difficult to know someone’s current or past criminal status if you do not actually know who they are, same applies to those born or legally resident here in the UK. Now, had you used the word “some”, As some illegal immigrants donāt have papers [..//..]…, but that wouldn’t have given your rant the same impact would it.
March 25, 2021
As illegal immigrants donāt have papers it is difficult to know their country of origin.
Probably not possible but keep those in jail until they tell where they are from and then check that story – expensive but perhaps not many will like to spend time in jail a long time.
Same as keeping thieves in jail until they tell where the money is etc.
March 25, 2021
Sounds sensible and if thatās fails plod could always just check their smart phone
March 27, 2021
Glen lol š
March 25, 2021
JR something like this perhaps. Simple reply required: not worth the paper written on. You have deliberately made specious claims about your new failed immigration policy which you and Sunak watered down last month to make visa applications easier. ECHR overrides all three points you made. Did you not learn from previous ten years? No cap or limit on immigration policy making it a useless paperwork exercise to con the public. Suggest you look at the humanitarian crisis at US border which you are replicating on a smaller scale across English Channel. If this is the best your department can come up with I suggest you resign.
March 25, 2021
O/T Today but going back to health and the virus. It’s being reported that customers of a chip shop in Leeds are queuing around the block for a deep fried chip sandwich containing a 1000 calories with chips on the side. Says it all really. Or as Littlejohn would say, You couldn’t make it up.
March 25, 2021
It was probably a Monday.
They sell battered chip buns for 50p then.
Otherwise it might be the food bank queue.
People have been made poor.
People are hungry.
Cheap trad food needs long cooking and anyway supermarkets have put a stop to all that.
Blame the government.
March 25, 2021
@FUS; “Says it all really .. You couldnāt make it up.”
No it doesn’t, and almost all such storied are made up, or at least sexed-up by leaving out detail.
The way some talk anyone might think Calories are highly dangerous, like certain types of fats are, rather than a unit of energy, thus it is not the intake of those 1000 calories but what use they are put to. Without knowing the lifestyles of those buying the cited take-away it is impossible to draw any conclusions, those 1000 calories are going to be used very differently by the body of someone shovelling 16 tons of muck each day compared to some0one who is sat watching TV all day.
March 25, 2021
Well I’m sorry Jerry but I hardly think which ever way you look at it that deep fried white bread with chips is healthy in anyone’s book. We have a health crisis in this country and at well over Ā£2 a portion I think I could feed a better quality meal to someone. The problem is not so much lack of money but a lack of care in what they could cook themselves. Healthy eating doesn’t have to be expensive and you don’t need to be an expert cook.
March 25, 2021
@FUS; If we have a health crisis due to deep fried foods now then we also had the same health crisis back in the 1950s, if not the 1930s, but we did not have an obesity crisis then, so what changed – work patterns perhaps, hard manual labour in the work place AND the home perhaps?
You say the take-away costs Ā£2, wow, and just how much would the same food cost to cook at home, not just the ingredient but the oil for frying, and the electricity/gas to heat said oil, and if this is lunchtime take an hour off work to go home, assuming one lives close enough…
March 25, 2021
No, I actually said well over Ā£2 and in actual fact Ā£2.80 so I’m sure even you could make a healthy meal easily for Ā£5.60 for two. Why don’t you read what I actually wrote instead of forcing your point?
March 26, 2021
@FUS; “Why donāt you read what I actually wrote instead of forcing your point?”
OK, point taken, Xxxx
But you also need to start trying to understands how others actually live, and perhaps more importantly why, not just repeating other peoples rants – we could all play that game, such as why Pubs should be closed permanently, not just for the lockdown, a fair comment from a member of the Preston Temperance Society perhaps but not representative of wider society. Learn to be a bit more tolerant.
March 25, 2021
As I said..it was probably a Monday!
āIt even runs a āBattered Bun Day Mondayā special, where they are sold at a knockdown price of 50p, a drop from Ā£1.50ā.
Make a āhealthyā ( and who defines healthy? The NHS?) meal for 50p?
From The Sunderland Echo.
āItārefers to the shop.
March 25, 2021
Apparently it was Friday, Saturday and they had to close early on Sunday. At Ā£2.80 each I could knock up a decent meal for my husband and myself.
March 25, 2021
As I don’t read the Sunderland echo I wouldn’t know about 50p. The article I was reading quotes a price of Ā£2.80 so slight difference.
March 25, 2021
+1
March 25, 2021
ain’t that the truth
March 25, 2021
Jerry
Nothing sexed up about the real reality of eating high fat wrong food.
I have attended too many funerals of young to middle aged men working flat out on 10 hour shifts labouring long before cement mixers and lifts for bricks or roof tiles when everything was done by hand or a bricklayers hod. Unloading lorries by hand, no fork lift trucks. Leave work on Saturday lunch time and never returned. I had my comeuppance on the dreaded treadmill test one minute doing fine next on the cardiac ward and rushed to major heart hospital for surgery. The words from the surgeon next day were quite profound. All your fry ups and junk food came home all at once the choice is change your diet and life style or make your will current. To that end I can see where FUS is coming from. I thought I was burning it all up. Wrong on all counts. Lucky to be alive but my life style now, leads a lot to be desired. How many times have I heard “youth is wasted on the young” We all have degrees in hind sight.
March 26, 2021
@turboterrier; I wonder what part excessive consumption of beer after work played in such early deaths? Why do I ask, just look at the average menu at traditional roadside cafĆ©s, difference being very few HGV drivers also drink (at least to the same extent). I also know of people who either died or had health issues due to heart problems who did not binge each day on high fat foods, and sometimes genetics play their part too, I’ve known people who could gain weight just eating a lettuce leaf!
I’m not saying we do not need a national conversation about diet but all we get are rants, ‘fat is bad for humans’ in the same way as ‘CO2 is bad for the environment’ – yet both are necessary components for life!
March 25, 2021
Look.
That’s Yorkshire.
Understand?
March 25, 2021
LOL
March 25, 2021
Funny!
March 25, 2021
What a load of insulting nonsense.
Yes, that is shocking. Who is responsible? You couldnāt make this up.
Yes, because you are really interested in what the public think about both legal and illegal immigration.
And STILL high levels of legal immigration take place every single day of the year. Into an overcrowded country with a housing crisis.
March 25, 2021
Yes, the government is admitting that despite having been in office since 2015 (I’m excluding the period of the coalition when clearly the Conservatives were constrained in what they could do) their policies have FAILED and do NOT represent the wishes of the public. Pretty damning, isn’t it? And still this goes on today, since these proposals (even if they were effective, which they WON’T be, as I’ve explained below) will not take effect until who knows when. But why is this? I do not believe it is necessary to change the law in order to have an overseas processing camp for asylum applicants or to hold those awaiting deportation. So why not do it RIGHT AWAY? The answer is that the government is lying to us and do not actually intend to do anyting useful at all.
March 25, 2021
You’ve been in power over 10 years and made no effort to reduce immigration and I don’t believe yesterdays announcement will change things.
Your party likes mass immigration to reduce wages for big businesses.
More hot air.
March 25, 2021
Seems so. I will believe these proposals if and when they happen. I doubt they ever will.
Rather like the Ā£1 million IHT threshold we were promised many years back, still just Ā£325k.
March 25, 2021
Also we need to leave the ECHR to do any of this, yet Patel I believe did not even mention this? So it will not happen. Just pre-election āliesā and deceptions one suspects as usual.
March 25, 2021
The Ā£325k IHT threshold was activated on 6 April 2009. So if after these 12 years of complaining about IHT you have not yet figured out how you can reduce drastically the impact of IHT by donating your āwealthā to your children and/or grandchildren (quite legally obviously with the seven-year rule constraint being applied), you really deserve to be within the 4-5% of people who pay this tax on their estate. Whining whining whining, arenāt you?
March 26, 2021
Nothing to do with my personal position which is sorted. I am talking about the principle and the Ā£1 million broken promise. Also it is economically damaging to the country and investment to have to arrange ones affairs around damaging tax laws.
March 25, 2021
Ah. Those evil “big businesses”. How many “big businesses” employ recently arrived immigrants do you think ? The big banks and insurance companies are taking them on are they ? My guess is that most go into low paying small businesses (hospitality sector for example) and big state-owned businesses like the NHS.
March 25, 2021
Go and have a wander around any big supermarket Regional Distribution Centre and you’ll find the vast majority of the people working there are from Eastern Europe earning minimum wage on a zero hours contract. This wasn’t the case pre 2004 when most of the workers were local, on long term guaranteed hours contracts with good wages. Basically as the locals contracts expired they were pushed out in favour of the cheaper alternative. You can’t blame the people who come here from Eastern Europe though, as Romania would be packed with Brits if the wages were 5 times higher than here. Auf wiedersehen pet! š
March 25, 2021
+1. Ian, a pathetic gesture to con the public. How many times has this dishonest party repeated this exercise!
The govt/ Patel, letās them burn down barracks! Puts them up in four star hotels, a go on hunger strike for not having four star hotel food! Admits to Lose hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, stats show, every figure at historic high under Tories.
This week 10,400 foreign criminals released from prison instead of deported- where do they go? What census will they complete? Modern slave trade workers increased- in England in 2021!, perhaps a link here with illegal immigration and failed deportations! Same for sex workers, foreign county lines drugs gangs etc.
I remember being told by service provider to distribute asylum seekers in 2003 that the south east public services could not cope so were being distributed around the country!
So I concluded a race to the bottom in our society where everyone shares the pain and reduction in living standards and quality of life for left wing liberal London centric politicians! 17 years on and ten years of lies and dishonesty by Tory govt and this is the best it can come up with?
March 25, 2021
The convention is that the assylum seeker asks for it in the first safe country entered. Not fair to that country adjacent a war zone or rogue state.
Most refugees end up in camps in safe countries. These camps should be run by the UN to a common standard. There should be facilities in those camps for ASs to apply for assylum to their country of choice, via in our case specialist staff from the Home Office. Alternatively we should have similar staff running an assylum office in all our relevant embassies. Genuine applicants would then have no need of taking any illegal route. If it is then made known that any illegal attempt will fail, and fail rapidly, we might get fewer people trying.
Our gathering of water borne refugees in the Channel should be conducted out side our territorial waters and lead to a return to France where they started. Rubber boats should be confiscated and sold to help fund the Border Force. All other illegal arrivals should suffer immediate return by the ferry or the aicraft or rail route they used. Return should be mandatory if the facilities I detailed earlier exist. There are now facilities for workers and professionals we really need to apply and come legally, as I understand matters.
Within the Home Secretaries proposals I detect nothing that will identify the reputed two million people who are already here illegaly. For this I propose a National Identity Card based on the vast amount of information we have on those who live in the UK starting with a birth certificate and supplemented by much else. Apologies to Andy and his mates for upsetting their digestion at such an early hour.
Those illegals convicted of crimes and residing at Her Majesty’s pleasure should be deported to a jail in their country of origin.
Only when facilities for genuine assylum exist, and the harshness to illegality is seen to exist, and the result inevitable, will the flow stop.
March 25, 2021
Good morning
Fine words. But just words. Nothing is going to change.
The Points Based System and a sham. It will lead to even higher immigration as the earnings threshold is set too low.
The way to prevent repeated claims is to stop funding the lawyers. But that won’t happen.
Just papering over the cracks.
March 25, 2021
Not entirely sure about this…
But isnāt it the case that if the establishment wants it can simply refuse to hear a case?
Whatever we see with this govt. it is only EXACTLY what it wants.
They want these people to enter the country while we are imprisoned.
March 25, 2021
Yes Mark, lawyers feasting on assylum seekers and economic migrants is akin to the life of a slave boss making a fortune from the misfortune of others.
March 25, 2021
+1
March 25, 2021
+1
March 25, 2021
Any person should have the right to legal representation. In the case of illegal immigrants, there would appear to be plenty of support for that given the people the media can find to champion their cause. It would seem that there is then no need for the government to print money to pay lawyers, as the work can be done pro bono.
March 25, 2021
MarkB – the government should publish the law firms responsible for this and how much they are being paid to bring these vexatious cases, then when we see their lawyers on our news programs we can judge matters from their personal gain to keep this gravy train on the tracks: “The vast majority of last-minute claims designed to prevent removal are subsequently found by the courts to have no merit.”
March 25, 2021
Mark,
It is not even paper is it. Grab a headline to con public before May elections, nothing more.
March 25, 2021
This voter wants to see and END to all illegal immigration and a REDUCTION in legal immigration so that our housing crisis is eased, and we stop importing unskilled, welfare-dependent, socialism-supporting, non-integrators. I listened to Priti Patel yesterday and found myself thinking that her plans would do a good job meeting the first objective and little to meet the second. I am disappointed that it has taken Patel so long to act – particularly in regards to making better age assessments of ‘children’. The government has a substantial majority; I do wish it would start using it.
The contributions from the Opposition benches show why they have lost the ‘working class’.
P.S. Having listened to both Patel and Jenrick making statements in the Commons yesterday, Jenrick struck me as the minister most on top of his brief.
March 25, 2021
But haven’t you heard? The BBC says the public don’t support deporting illegals. They must be talking to all those woke snowflakes because everyone I know is fed up to the back teeth with this crap. Of course we all know there will be at least two contributors to this site with, as normal, a different view.
March 25, 2021
@FUS; “The BBC says…”
Not just the BBC, as you well know, and the ballot box tends to confirm such views.
Never mind, with GB News due to launch soon, you’ll have no more reason to watch the BBC, nor ITV, Ch5, Sky, in the same way as I doubt you visit the Guardian or Morning Star websites either. It will be interesting to see what happens with regards ratings, we might actually find out who the “woke snowflakes” actually are, given the apparent editorial line (judging by the announced recruitments) of the new channel. Not that it will stop the ‘disgusted of Tonbridge’ letters I suspect.
March 25, 2021
As I see it, Patel is not actually ‘acting’ but has put out yet another ‘consultation’ kicking it all into the long grass again. If it ever sees the light of day, no doubt the ‘consultation’ will take many months so that the summer will be open borders again for the dinghy season. She needs to instruct Border Force to stop the taxi service and turn the boats back into French Waters.
March 25, 2021
I agree our asylum system needs a good overhaul, but so do our citizenship requirements. The Swiss requirements for citizenship should be duplicated here in the UK. Why do we give citizenship to hostile and dangerous people merely because they have been foolishly allowed to stay on our shores for so many years? Deportations of criminals (especially violent criminals) needs to be stepped up and that includes illegal immigrants.
March 25, 2021
Good point. I remember an article in the Telegraph, some time ago, in which the writer described the many hoops she had to go through. Perhaps our MPs should go there on a fact-finding mission.
March 25, 2021
Dream on while UK a member of ECHR and UN migrant pact where it is urged to treat illegal immigrants as legally here! Perhaps that slipped Patelās mind before she wrote her garbage?
March 25, 2021
Hope
+1
March 25, 2021
So whatās the plan then?
Oh to be FAIRER š¤®….did Mrs M write this?
And to observe Human Rights.
Dāyou know what?
I am sick and tired of being in prison.
Where are MY Human Rights and FAIR treatment?
March 25, 2021
You were lucky enough to be born in a rich, peaceful, prosperous country. Nobody has asked you to leave it.
That is your fair treatment. In fact, it is more than fair because most people in the world are not as lucky as you.
You are also protected by the Human Rights Act and by Churchillās European Convention on Human Rights. You have the same rights as everybody else. The Tories want to remove these rights. You vote for them.
None of this has required any skill on your part. You were just lucky enough to be born here.
If you mistake this good fortune you have had in life for āprisonā we could, perhaps, send you to, say Yemen, for a couple of weeks. See how you get on. I doubt youāll be moaning much when you get back. If you ever do.
March 25, 2021
Under those various Human Rights acts I have a right to a family life and a right to leave the country at any time. Those supposedly fundamental rights have been removed from me for the past year and yet the battery of human rights lawyers and bleeding-hear liberals like yourself have cheered on the government while they did that. Too late to complain now when they take advantage of your support to make those changes permanent – once you’ve established the principle that those rights are not “fundamental” at all you don’t get to pick and choose issues that can override them.
March 25, 2021
+1
March 25, 2021
Like the majority of people in this country and like a majority of voters, I did not vote for this lousy government.
Most of you did.
If they took your rights away, at least you voted for them. The rest of us – the majority – did not have a say.
March 25, 2021
This is a rich prosperous peaceful country because people like us made it so. Similarly other countries in the world are made by the people who live there, for better or worse.
March 25, 2021
Terrible situation in Yemen. An example of the proverb “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”. If you were from Yemen would you seek to run away or do what you could to improve things where you were?
What seems strange is that even though things look really bad there, so many think it’s a good place to start a family.
March 25, 2021
Indeed. Makes one wonder why you hate this country so much.
March 27, 2021
Worthy of a decent Psychiatrist study, don’t you think?
March 25, 2021
I frequently remind my sons that they have already won the Lottery of Life – in that they were a) born in this country and b) had parents who loved and cared for them. We are all very fortunate.
I feel deeply sorry for anyone (the majority) who are less fortunate then us – but to suggest that we can just open the door to anyone who wishes to come to this country is obviously absurd. Just be grateful for your good fortune.
March 25, 2021
So what about the children ?
You keep banging on about them when it suits you Andy.
Aren’t we entitled to see that this country doesn’t become as bad as everywhere else ?
March 25, 2021
Why would our country become ābadā because a handful of people come here in dinghies? People you will almost certainly never see, let alone meet.
What makes our country ābadā is our failure to feed hungry kids, our failure to give everyone an equal chance, an electoral system which ignores most voters, hospital waiting lists which are too long, roads which are too congested, power which is generated by spewing filth etc etc etc.
None of this is caused by dinghy people. All of it is caused by you repeatedly voting for the same people who have consistently made a mess of things for decades.
That makes you the problem.
March 25, 2021
I’m not talking about just the dinghy people.
We have your preference for lax border controls so chill.
We have an obesity epidemic so chill on that too. I have not seen a skinny kid since I was one myself and considered egg mashed up with bread in a cup a main meal.
March 27, 2021
Andy,
1. āour failure to feed hungry kids,ā it is not us that doesnāt feed children, a full audit needs doing on what these parents that claim they donāt get enough benefits to feed their children are receiving, what their home costs are, where are the fathers, why arenāt the fatherās contributing, are the carers of the children able to cook fresh ingredients (and please donāt say fresh ingredients cost too much my mother raised three children on what today would be considered a pittance). I know plenty of people feeding their children on state benefits with no jobs and no fathers around and generous funding from the State.
March 27, 2021
Andy,
2. āOur failure to give everyone an equal chance.ā Explain what you mean by that, from birth everyone has free healthcare, free schooling, and the State provides a roof over peopleās heads the three core needs. If people are not bothering to get the best of their education is that everyone elseās fault? If thousands of people arrive here with nothing should they immediately be given everything from a house to a universal income? How much money annually would suit you for each arrival? Is there no brake on your dream Britain? If we give all this money away where is the incentive to work?
Also we are bringing in people that are not tolerant people. People that feel able to close down a school that isnāt just there to provide education for their religion, they ask for tolerance but are intolerant in our country and our desire to be fair and teach other religious views in our schools, to teach sexual orientations, gender balances and yet we allow other mainly men we see in photographs to dictate to Britains and threaten teachers it is just not acceptable. We need to put a stop to this intolerance before it takes over our freedom. It needs to be a two way street.
March 25, 2021
Are you trying to tell me that I have no say in the rich, peaceful and prosperous country my ancestors and I helped to build?
This country didnāt happen by accident.
It was created through blood, sweat and many, many tears.
The Left is not hypocritical…it has an agenda.
A very sinister one.
March 25, 2021
Yes and we stayed and fought for these rights twice in the last century.
U also served in the cold war on nu clear subs to contain the Soviets.
We didn’t abandon our families and go seek shelter elsewhere, we fought for our rights and so should they.
March 25, 2021
After almost 11 years in government, and 5 years after voting to take back control.
This still sounds like somebody under pressure to do little or nothing. May with a slightly different tinge. No answer as to why Windrush assessments can’t be made on Census data, 1961, 1971, 1981. If you were here, you’d show up. Walking the fence between Establishment wishes to mix, mingle and import new workers versus the people wanting to live in peace and harmony.
Like government debt and kow-towing to overseas powers, this is all lip service and a real change is needed.
March 25, 2021
We’re a soft touch Joe and if people didn’t register themselves in the UK in any way why can’t they be checked to see if they were registered back in their Country of origin, it’s almost as if some Countries want to pass their retirement costs back to the UK.
March 25, 2021
Talk is cheap. I will believe the government is genuinely tackling the large numbers of illegal entrants to these shores when I see a reduction in their numbers.
The notion of accepting asylum seekers as a noble concept reached its peak in Victorian times when travel was far more difficult than it is nowadays. As a consequence, the numbers arriving were not so large.
So I am not particularly keen on receiving further asylum seekers – however they arrive. We have enough already.
No attention or consideration seems to be given to the difficulties caused to the native population by the arrival of asylum seekers.
March 25, 2021
Re your last point: absolutely. Consideration of ‘Fairness’ never seems to be focused on the native population.
Most people wish to see a reduction in immigration, even a reversal. And yet this Government comes up with ever more creative ways of increasing it. End EU free movement? Ok then, we’ll open up routes in to the whole world, with a lower earnings threshold and no cap. We expect 300,000 Hong Kongers to take up the offer to reside here. We will extend our efforts to offer safe passage to genuine asylum seekers, again, with no cap.
March 25, 2021
“Shockingly, there are around 45,000 failed asylum seekers who have not left the UK and over 10,000 Foreign National Offenders ….”
Yes, truly shocking. And imagine how SHOCKED you will be when you find out which party has been in government in this country for the last 11 years.
March 25, 2021
Indeed. An identity card and draconian fines for anyone employing anyone else illegally – even someone clearing your gutters for cash – would sort the problem. People here illegally have to work in the āblack economyā. It would be easy to stop that if the government could be arsed.
March 25, 2021
As far as I am concerned the people who want every year to clean my gutters, help me clean my garden and transport the resulting refuse to the recycling centre, or other menial tasks I am more than happy to do myself (all that for cash and with an āinvoiceā on a loose piece of paper without any commercial reference worth checking) look very ānativeā to me. If anything they might not have a Berkshire accent (Oops, sorry, that was taking a dig at āout of Thames Valleyā people).
March 25, 2021
Terrific. So you condone them not paying tax – unlike the rest of us. I don’t care whether they are illegal, legal, black, pink or green with purple spots – an identity card needing to be seen before employing anyone would mean it is impossible for people here illegally to work. This would remove the attraction of coming here. If they are genuine asylum seekers, let them apply for, and be granted, asylum.
That said, where is every asylum seeker who wants to come here going to be housed?
March 26, 2021
Sorry, I obviously was not clear enough. I do not condone this type of work, I was simply pointing out that āblack economyā does not in all cases rhyme with āpeople here illegallyā.
March 25, 2021
That story about the sweatshop where people were working during lockdown – and being locked *in* was treated as a one-off and quickly buried. Ask anyone living in a city and they will be able to point to factories and other illegal operations. However, neither the police nor MPs have the will to do anything about it.
March 25, 2021
Grey, what do you think Labour would have done differently just granted them all automatic asylum?
March 25, 2021
Based on your governments performance over many years, you have zero chance that I believe you.
Just the simple fact that you do not provide the funds, find and repatriate, border force, immigration tribunals etc makes it a waste of time looking into further. And where are all these prison places coming from that the same Home Office is desperately trying to manage by keeping vast numbers of criminals who should be locked away, on the streets?
We seem to have a vast army of people waiting to pounce if you drop a cigarette end, umpteen police knocking on doors for alleged Covid violations etc. Redistribute the finance from these āworthlessā costs and I might change my mind.
Ps do we really need 150 million spent on another āmillennium domeā fiasco to celebrate Brexit. I donāt think so. Instead more effort to show that it was worth all the angst. Currently i and people I talk to are feeling very let down.
March 25, 2021
+1
March 25, 2021
+1
March 25, 2021
All asylum seekers should be required to explain in detail who helped them cross Europe. If they ācanāt rememberā, asylum should be automatically refused.
March 25, 2021
Good point. I also believe migrants that turn up on our shores with no papers should also be refused entry.
March 25, 2021
Refused entry and immediately return to France – thats where they came from
March 25, 2021
+1
They seem to always have phones and someone to meet them. Doesn’t anyone carry out a risk assessment that balances the wellbeing and safety of the public against the incoming individual’s desires? Haven’t there been enough cases of violent crime for the authorities to put 2 and 2 together?
March 25, 2021
+1
March 25, 2021
Yet more empty promises from the party that can imprison it’s people for a flu bug yet not stop boat loads of illegal migrants. Pathetic.
March 25, 2021
Agree
March 25, 2021
Completely off topic I am afraid but isn’t it time to review the Barnett formula. The SNP can offer an election bribe to 150,00 public sector workers (backdated no less) on the back of the English taxpayer whom they despise.
There is something wrong in this paradise.
March 25, 2021
Agreed, this is straight forward bribery.
March 25, 2021
Yes and they’ve just awarded nurses and those on the front line of the NHS a 4% payrise. Our money is making Sturgeons government look good.
March 25, 2021
High time we all campaigned FOR Indyref2 – –
Let it go, let it go
Can’t hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door
I don’t care what they’re going to say
Let the storm rage on
The cold never bothered me anyway
It’s funny how some distance makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me can’t get to me at all
It’s time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me
I’m free.
Lyrics from FROZEN (anyone with young daughters, or grand-daughters will know).
March 25, 2021
+1
March 25, 2021
So as I understand it people are still entering the UK illegally from the safe haven of the EU.
More disturbingly these same people are robbing genuine asylum seekers from parts of the world were they are persecuted a place just because they apply in a formal and proper manner to secure a valued future.
Do something that is against the law makes every UK citizen a criminal, unless you start of by being an illegal
March 25, 2021
It all begs the question “asylum” from what, at the moment appears to be just from France, the French and our ‘friends’ in the EU.
March 25, 2021
asylum = visa free economic immigrantion
March 25, 2021
Obama attacked Syria to create this flow of migrants into Europe. This flow hasn’t happened inadvertently. It has been politically engineered and it will continue until the conventional west as I recognise it is subsumed
March 25, 2021
Spot on.
+1
March 25, 2021
Sir John.
A lot of use of the word fairness.
Where is the fairness and consideration to the tax payers let alone the electorate.
Time to change to a hard lock down on those dingy and container free loaders.
Stop them at sea hitch, up their dingy and tow it back to French waters and release them. They will only have fuel for a one way crossing, make sure it’s the other way. If we were a prosperous country full of employment , no one sleeping on the streets a good housing stock with no shortages, that is the time you can give consideration to others. Get their countries to sort out their own problems and not give an even greater burden to the taxpayer.
March 25, 2021
Good points Turbo. Fact is we do have a housing crisis and homeless.
March 25, 2021
What an absolute shambles this letter highlights, a totally and utterly unfit for purpose system which makes a mockery of politicians who are being given the runaround by everyone, including the legal profession, at the taxpayers expense.
Go back to basics John, any illegal immigrant should be sent back to where they came from immediately (within 24 hours) unless they can prove they are a refugee from a pre- approved area.
For those who refuse to divulge where they came from, then lock them up in a secure establishment until they can/will give proof, and give them a default country to which they will be sent, if they give no proper response after 3 months, absolutely no point in pussy footing around if you seriously want to tackle this problem.
Yes of course we should take a share of proper refugees, and indeed allow sensible immigration providing people apply through the proper channels (not the English one) whilst still abroad, but again that system needs to be fit for purpose, which again I suggest the present one is not.
Yes we need a new system with new ideas and new controls, but please do not try to modify and tinker with the present set up, and then pretend this will fix it.
March 25, 2021
Too strong to pass moderation John ?
Very many feel like I do, but perhaps are afraid to say so, and that’s a real problem JR, government only want to hear, what they want to hear !
That is why so many policies are failures.
March 25, 2021
Fine words butter no parsnips.
When we hear of these criminals being removed so will their fellow potential illegals. At that point it may become less attractive to pay to get on a boat but while there are pictures of illegals being wrapped in blankets and welcomed to our shores the hope will linger.
Don’t let them land – one, at present redundant, cruise ship will house the 8,500 that arrive every year, there is no need for them to set foot on British soil.
Having set up the processing ships we can then expand the programme for all refugees, if they are genuinely fleeing hardship, a little more while they are processed will not hurt.
It is notable that in the above missive, there is no mention of to where those with denied claims will be removed. The continuing problem of identifying from whence they came remains, we need to set up a camp in an African country to remove them to. Having given up their state ship, it no longer maters, to where they are returned.
March 25, 2021
More words. The Lefty/Pinko/Woke lawyers have defeated you for years. Unless you deal with them, these proposals will fail like all before.
March 25, 2021
Youāre describing what the majority of the voters wanted over many past general elections – people voted Tory to get this sorted ???
March 25, 2021
With regard to removing illegal, especially criminals but also those who come here but protest about our way of life (why come here if you don’t like the way the country is, imagine moving to say, Pakistan, and protesting it must change its way of life to suit you!)
I am of the opinion there is a simple solution. Remove the right to Legal Aid. Afterall this is funded only by the British taxpayer and we have never been asked if we want or agree to this.
March 25, 2021
The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LAPSO, 2012) and the Civil Legal Aid (Remuneration, Amendment No.3) Regulations, 2014, have already significantly reduce the scope of permissible Legal Aid.
In her proposals the Home Office Minister is trying to further the scope of restrictions.
I just hope you will never need it for a Family Law case.
March 25, 2021
Or to challenge unjust government actions in a judicial review, unfair dismissal, etc.
March 25, 2021
I am talking about illegals and foreign criminals being able to use it, but that said, you inadvertently also endorse the point I am making.
Whilst I won’t need legal aid for a family law case, I think this should be made available to other natives, who also fund it.
Therefore any restrictions against the natives using it, is a direct result of politicians myopic ignorance and, dare I say, racism, whereby foreign criminals get preferential access to claim a British tax funded service, but the natives who have to pay for it, can’t.
March 25, 2021
More words from the Home Office which will produce nothing.
March 25, 2021
Fine words that most people would support but removing the people trafficers cannot be achieved without the active cooperation of the French.
90% of those arriving in Kent illegally by boat are economic migrants who have no right whatsoever to come here. As the Australians comprehensively proved, the only truly effective way to stop the trade is to make it almost impossible to reach the UK and to be caught in the attempt means automatic and immediate return across the channel.
You would have thought the French would have wanted to end the unsightly criminal activities at the camps around Calais and the activities of people trafficers and the vicious organised criminals behind them. Yet the answer has always been staring the French authorities in the face : properly patrol the beaches to stop them setting sail and accept the return of every person that attempts the crossing and gets caught at sea or on UK beaches.
The camps would disappear almost overnight because the migrants would know they have zero chance of succeeding. Furthermore, virtually none of the migrants would even bother to come to France in the first place.
Macron has proved to everyone in recent months what an utter fool he is, so, it’s hardly surprising that he can’t understand what is needed. But then neither could either of his predecessors who were just as inept.
March 25, 2021
OT; Not at all keen on the rumoured idea that proof of vaccine will be needed to enter a pub when they reopen, not because it’s likely the thin end of a very wide wedge, a precursor to a national ID card, but because it is singly pointless! The (current) vaccines do not stop someone catching the CV19 virus, nor stop them passing it on, just stopping the vaccinated from becoming seriously ill – and what if a mutation has found ways to evade the current vaccines starts circulating…
I suspect this mad idea has come out of No.11, again, the lessons of last summer still not learnt. There will be normality again, but it will be a new normal, how we are taxed, how we socialise, how we work, and how we deal with illness -an end to both families used Schools as day-care, and those workplace ‘flu-Martyrs’, both doing little more than to spread their virus.
March 25, 2021
No system for the removal of illegal or criminal migrants will succeed unless the laws that currently support such people remaining in the UK are repealed in favour of those which allow unhindered removal.
What happened to the plan to only allow appeals once the individual has left the country ?
The laws need to be changed now while the govt has a good majority.
March 25, 2021
Fear of going out on your own is very serious for women and vulnerable folk of all ages particularly given the open borders. Having worked in some less developed countries with “No-go” areas and time zones I never thought this would happen in Britain.
Violent crime used to be very rare according to BBC Nick Ross signing off with “Don’t have nightmares, sleep well”. Until that is ……..
After Jill Dando was shot in 1999 that watershed moment when everyone knew the war on crime was seriously lost.
Immigration was unleashed to turbocharge Labour’s client state.
Drugs are now treated as alternatives to cigarettes and alcohol.
Kidnapping was something in fiction books or banana republics.
Police were on the streets and were still doing real Police work.
Judges backed up the Police.
Etc, etc, etc. The internet has accelerated that crime does pay and with escalating violence.
We have become a laughing stock where :-
Any woman cannot feel safe from crime
Parents have to guard their children 24/7
Pet owners are in fear of them going outside as they too are vulnerable.
Sad indeed and immigration needs on overdue reform.
PS I won’t begin to mention terrorists……
That would need a chapter on its own.
March 25, 2021
I watched the Home Secretary on Sky News and she displayed the usual reluctance to recognise the culpability of the migrants themselves, as if they were being shanghai’d from their own countries and waking in a dinghy in the Channel. Apparently ‘tough’ legislation is coming in the Autumn, by this time tens of thousands will have crossed and it will be possible to walk from Calais to Kent across a bridge of dinghies. But of course the most obvious indicator of their intention to do nothing is their refusal to revoke their signature of the UN Global Compact on Migration, which says that mass migration is ‘both necessary and desirable’.
March 25, 2021
If they have been trafficked against their will they will be only to happy to be helped to get home.
However, as we saw with the tragic refrigerated lorry deaths by suffocation, the passengers chose that route and paid extra for it, as they deemed it the safest. The families knew their young people were making the trip.
March 25, 2021
The UN Global Compact was penned by Peter Sutherland. This is what he wrote previously:
“Europeās Immigration Challenge Jul 20, 2012 Peter Sutherland , Cecilia Malmstrƶm
European countries must finally and honestly acknowledge that, like the US, Canada, and Australia, they are lands of immigrants. The issue is not how many new immigrants are accepted into the EU, but acknowledging the nature and composition of the societies in which we already live.
LONDON ā Europe faces an immigration predicament. Mainstream politicians, held hostage by xenophobic parties, adopt anti-immigrant rhetoric to win over fearful publics, while the foreign-born are increasingly marginalized in schools, cities, and at the workplace. Yet, despite high unemployment across much of the continent, too many employers lack the workers they need. Engineers, doctors, and nurses are in short supply; so, too, are farmhands and health aides. And Europe can never have enough entrepreneurs, whose ideas drive economies and create jobs.”
We face an international conspiracy in all countries of European peoples by a very small but powerful minority of people within who are determined to multiculturise us out of existence. They do this by claiming that despite having created the modern world, we actually need a constant supply of people from countries that didn’t do anything of the sort in order to sustain it.
Do not vote for the liblabcon; they have been sold on the big lie for which they are paid handsomely.
March 25, 2021
Being signatories to UNHCR Convention of Refugees and having the Human Rights Act on our statue books makes any control of asylum unworkable , Human Rights lawyers and our activist Judiciary will run rings around any attempt to limit it. They say they value this right, yet the abuse they have subjected the system to suggests they don’t , It is more of a political weapon to them than anything else, a way to thumb their nose to the sovereignty of a people.
None of this tinkering will work. With the offer of asylum we are dangling a carrot in front of desperate people but just hope they don’t all get here to claim it. It is a dishonourable bit of virtue signalling . We should be honest about it, the asylum system is unworkable , we should withdraw from the UNHCR Convention of Refugees. The only asylum seekers we should accept are people from nations on our border who are in trouble, like if there is a civil war in France or Denmark, no one from countries further away. If you want to take people from further away take them from refugee camps, at least that way we will remove the Human Rights lawyers and people smugglers parasites.
March 25, 2021
It is some sort of start to clearing up this area of life that has tormented many for so long.
But why do they need a consultation that will delay things – the worst problems are the most obvious to do something about immediately.
80/20 rule
Do we have to think of everything????
March 25, 2021
The same words that have been written many times in recent decades, just in a different order and will not change anything. Those immigrants crossing the channel either by RIB or truck should go straight into a vacant army barracks preferably on an island. Internment where they work to earn their keep whilst their case is examined. When it is turned down they have one opportunity to lodge an appeal and if that fails they are shipped back to where they came from. The appeals can be grouped by country to be heard so that there are enough failures for a flight to one destination which should take place a day or so after the last appeal in a group
March 25, 2021
Off Piste.
Much as I wish to see NHS staff rewarded for what they do and specifically what they have done during the Covid pandemic, I have a question mark in my mind as to how the Sturgeon plans to pay for it. Will it be via increases in the Barnett formula or just more mouthy demands on England. Of one thing I feel certain, the Scottish government will avoid using the powers they have to increase their income tax, with elections looming. Typical socialist approach, generate a sense of entitlement and then get someone else to pay for it. Check what other budget provisions are being raided to pay for it.
March 25, 2021
agricola
She already made the correct decision with a lump sum payment (amount debatable) as that has no further implications up the line for wage rates in future years, but I agree with the rest of your comment about who pays etc etc.
Looks like she has outfoxed Boris again (rightly or wrongly) with her communication skills.
March 25, 2021
I’d like to have heard the sarcasm at the time of the ‘we can’t afford more than 1%’ by the comment ‘no doubt Nicola will offer more at the expense of the Barnett formula, for those who don’t know – the English pay for the Scots’
March 25, 2021
I wonder how many commentors on here arguing for harsher treatment of asylum seekers are also supporters of this government’s decision to break its manifesto promise over the foreign aid budget.
One of the best ways to encourage people not to try and come to the UK illegally (or otherwise) is to help to improve the circumstances of those people in the places they are coming from, and the foreign aid budget is a way to do that. Of course, by cutting it by close to 30% despite promising not to, this government has reduced its ability to do that significantly, and this despite the fact that Overseas Aid is already one of the smallest components of government spending listed on my annual tax summary, being larger only than the UK contribution to the EU budget for the most recent (19/20) figures provided to me by HMRC.
March 26, 2021
Nonsense.
The Foreign Aid Budget has been at its current level for a number of years all the time MASS ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION has been occuring. Cutting will not change a thing.
March 25, 2021
Interesting to see, Mr. Redwood, what your supporters think of your party and government. If that is what your supporters think, you must feel very unappreciated. No wonder you cling to first like the post like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood. In a PR system I reckon youād be lucky to get 10% of the vote.
You must feel very proud of your party and itās achievements.
March 25, 2021
Not all (or even many) of Sir John’s supporters think that way.
March 25, 2021
No, Wokingham has been electing Sir John rather consistently with 50+% majorities. Only in 2001 and 2005 did he get 46.1 and 48.1%. Thatās the beauty of being a kind of marginal in oneās party, one can always claim one was not exactly following the CUP line.
A sign of honesty? Or a sign of self-preservation?
March 25, 2021
PR System oh yes please I do hope so after the next general election that I hope gives a coalition Gov of Labour Scottish Nationalists and Liberal, then get rid of Brexit and all current legislation.
March 25, 2021
āfirst past the postā and āitsā
Auto-complete on a phone is annoying sometimes.
March 26, 2021
You might need to adjust the auto-complete/auto-correct function on the phone.
March 25, 2021
Sir John,
Perhaps the Home Secretary should ask Tony Abbott for advice.
March 25, 2021
Oh good, another consultation from the Home Office. More words, no action. As ever on this matter.
March 25, 2021
a bit like the HS2 consultation
March 25, 2021
The last Home Secretary to fashion a sensible immigration policy was Robert Carr. He didn’t talk about it much except in the untelevised House of Commons, as it was in the wake of Enoch’s Birmingham speech, but he got on and did it. It lasted more or less till 1997. But then he didn’t have to wrestle with the wholesale abuse of the asylum system and the unscrupulous human rights industry. These last were just beginning in the eighties.
March 25, 2021
Sir J, the title of your book says it all ”we don’t believe you”
You can pay millions to the French
You can employ royal marine commando to head response
You can deploy border control cutters
You can management the illegal immigration reception
You develop new visa
You can hind illegal immigrants in hotels but not converted army bases
You can talk tough
BUT YOU CANāT RETURN ONE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT TO FRANCE
āāwe donāt believe youāā ā by your own tract record
March 25, 2021
Banging on about asylum seekers and illegals would mystify a passing alien who might wonder why such endless time was spent on a number so small it is invisible in demographic terms .Our many tentacled chum would have to be informed that the subject serves as a proxy for anti immigrant feeling which, as we know , lay behind the Brexit vote . So basically this is more of the same , and its purpose is top provoke bleeding heart Guardianistas into weeping and wailing , and if we are really lucky , vandalising a statue or two…whast do we think …meh…
On the real subject the UK faces an emigration crisis started by Brexit and accelerated by Covid . The Office for National Statistics figures suggest that a million people have left the country (at the end of 2020 Britain had almost a million fewer non-UK-born residents than a year earlier). This would represent by far the largest annual fall in the resident population since the second world war.
Perhaps John Redwood can tell us who is going to pay for this hammer blow to the Nation`s prospects for vital growth ?
Reply No evidence of such an exit.
March 27, 2021
Reply to reply: very weak reply given that the International Passenger Survey and Labour Force Survey have been suspended for a year now. ESCoE/ONS estimates 1.3 m people have left the UK with 700,000 from London. Oxford Universityās Migration Observatory has smaller numbers, 900,000 and 400,000, again with estimation that 2/5 are EU and 3/5 are non-EU people.
My own āevidenceā is from the number of bungalows/small houses in Lower Earley on the market since October, which despite the cut in stamp duty have not registered much interest when these houses are often of interest to (relatively) low-salary workers or BTL landlords.
March 25, 2021
We need some imagination some thinking outside of the box about this whole thing- here we have 45,000 people illegals who obviously want to stay- why not mould them into a working corps for picking fruit, working in the fields, working in the fishing industry and other public works for say a period of 5 – 10 years so they earn the right to be here- that’s if they want to stay. They are obviously young people in good health and with the right motivation well who knows? Besides with brexit it looks like the traditional labour from Eastern Europe that our farmers had come to depend on has largely dried up and we’re going to need the extra help.
March 25, 2021
Completely off topic, JR,I wonder whether you have heard about this, and is it true?
https://commentcentral.co.uk/post-brexit-trade-give-us-data-not-dire-straits/
“Post-Brexit trade reports have been warped by system failures. The food and drink industry is not facing a collapse in exports ā in fact, the reality is quite the contrary, argues Lance Forman, Vice Chairman of the Independent Business Network and owner of H. Forman & Son.”
It was agreed that the UK will continue to use the EU’s Intrastat system for the coming year, but:
“According to my sources, when businesses attempted to submit Intrastat returns in January, the HMRC system was down ā presumably being adapted to our new post-Brexit situation outside the EU. This means that the export trade figures for January are completely meaningless and the only way to establish the true figures is through CHIEF or directly, via industry bodies.”
March 25, 2021
Off topic – but confirming what every one else thinks – in full from the Telegraph
Jean-Claude Juncker has railed against the European Union for waging a “stupid vaccine war” with Britain.
The former president of the European Commission said he was “disappointed” with his successor’s handling of the bloc’s vaccine programme, suggesting the sluggish rollout was in part because the EU had been too “budget conscious” and “too cautious”.
Speaking ahead of a key Brussels summit, he told the BBC he was “not a fan” of Ursula von der Leyen’s threat of an export ban, warning it would “create major reputational damage” for the EU.
“We used to be the world’s free trade champion,” he said. “We have to pull back from a vaccine war.
“We have special relations with Britain, there’s room for dialogue… Nobody in Britain, nobody in Europe understands why we are witnessing such a stupid vaccine war. What the EU is asking for cannot be dealt with in a war atmosphere.
“We are not in war and we are not enemies – we are allies.”
He added: “I don’t understand this [EU] temptation to fight against Britain, and the British temptation to fight against the EU. Let’s discuss amongst adult people. What is the image we’re giving?'”
March 25, 2021
āWe used to be the worldās free trade champion,ā There is your clue. Back when Europe was a fairly low-cost producer of mid-tech manufactured goods for the rest of the World, free trade worked for the EU.
Now that China can undercut Europe on hourly wages by five to one, but the EU, unlike the UK is making very little progress towards a post-industrial design and services oriented economy, it no longer works.
The EU is now cutting up one small pie in ever fiercer ways, while the UK is moving to markets that will continue to expand for decades.
March 25, 2021
Surely the voice of the public has already been heard, as immigration has topped the list of concerns for decades. England is one of the most densely populated countries in the World.
The Withdrawal Agreement keeps us tied to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), taking away our rights as a sovereign nation to fully decide asylum policy. Theresa May signed us up to the UN Global Compact For Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and last year Boris Johnson confirmed he is staying a signatory.
Priti Patel is saying she wants an easier route for the 80 million genuine asylum seekers to be able to settle in this country. Where is she going to put them all? My village of 650 houses has had 1,800 new houses built, in the last couple of years, with another 350 just approved with no new roads or services provided.
The Government grossly underestimated the numbers of people from EU countries applying for settled status. It has recently offered those from Hong Kong a place here. I donāt think this Government has a clue what it is doing.
Iām afraid we are being conned yet again with this Government paying lip service to the concerns of the public.
March 25, 2021
Christine
+1
Very well said
March 26, 2021
80 million asylum seekers is the global number, not those ācomingā to the UK. Your comment is as āsurprisingā as the 77 million Turks supposed to be willing to come to the UK as advertised during the Brexit campaign. As a remainder for dumb and dumber leavers the total population of Turkey is 85 m.
March 26, 2021
What was actually said about Turkey was that when they eventually join the EU, their citizens will have freedom of movement and they would be able to come to the UK if they wanted to.
I recall us being told by the then Labour Government that perhaps 13,000 Poles would come to the UK after Poland joined the EU.
Over 600,000 came.
PS
Why do you have to verbally abuse those who voted to leave the EU?
Very poor.
March 25, 2021
Unless all the changes are designed to achieve and support the SINGLE objective of protecting GENUINE asylum seekers and rejecting unauthorised entry BEFORE they land on our shores (possession is 99% of the law!), those with vested interests will use the usual emotional blackmail and the ideological ECHR to include the world and his friend. I don’t believe our parliamentarians possess the single-mindedness to back just one category of asylum seeker, so good luck……………..especially, with our virtue signalling House of Lords!
The reality is that responsibility has been abdicated for decades by distributing relatively little to anyone who claims a “right” to be here, which has saved the authorities from the inconvenience of identifying and targeting the few who most definitely do deserve our generosity. They’ve been lazy and endangered us.
March 25, 2021
The Government should put the immigrants on a large boat, mid channel, to be processed. Those who can satisfy the UK asylum conditions can be transferred to the UK mainland. Those who do not satisfy the UK asylum conditions should be shipped to Gibraltar and flown from there to their country of origin. Those who refuse to say what their country of origin is should be held on a ship until they do say where they come from. They should never be allowed to set foot on UK (or Gibraltar) soil. Using their mobile phones their friends and relatives will soon get the message and eventually the influx of illegal immigrants will slow down or stop. Many of them are criminals anyway.
March 26, 2021
And what about the Brits who don’t match up to being Tory British should we ship them also out to say St Helena? Did you listen to President Biden this evening he seems to make a lot of sense- wish we had him here and more decent types like him-alas
March 25, 2021
More spin and BS. Blaming the law for preventing deportations. Not yourselves for not trying hard enough of course. Much easier to give in at the first obstacle.
Now we have a pretence of getting tougher but it just means if anyone claims they are fleeing trouble and come here the right way they’ll be let in. So there’s no need to risk RIB and lorry travel any more. Fair? Means fair to them, not to us.
Global Britain is an insult to those who want to protect what remains of our lifestyles and cultures.
March 26, 2021
Culture is gone long time.. lifetime is waiting? What did you say about global? Global what?
March 25, 2021
“The proposals are fully compliant with our international obligations” – And this is precisely why they WILL NOT WORK and will have ZERO effect on illegal migration and bogus asylum applications.
Turning boats back in the Channel or deporting failed asylum applicants back to their last safe country are perfectly good ideas but require the agreement and cooperation of other EU countries – mainly France, as this is where most of these people come from. But France has made it clear they will NOT agree to any of this – ever. More talks, negotiations or discussions will be a complete and total waste of time. Also, the idea of having an offshore centre to hold and process all migrants is also a good idea, but the suggestion that this should be somewhere like Gibraltar or the Isle of Man proves that the government is not being serious.
The solution to all the problems is clear and feasible but would require the government to put two fingers up to all the human rights fanatics: pay a third country in Africa to build and manage a huge holding centre where all asylum applicants and deported illegal migrants are held until they agree to return to their country of origin. Africa countries would welcome a handsome payment from the UK (and this can also be linked to receiving extra foreign aid), so there would be plenty of takers. Of course conditions and standards would be in line with that country, not with the UK, and the human rights lobby will object, but it is perfectly reasonable and is the ONLY approach that will work. The policies proposed by the government, on the other hand, will sadly turn out to be Priti Useless.
March 25, 2021
I favour a complete five year moratorium on all immigration as immigration is out of control and the whole system needs to be not only far more restrictive but also reconstructed from scratch.
However these measures should be supported as a second best (and the most we are likely to get at the moment) which at least at long last do something about illegal entry and would mitigate the problem somewhat.
March 25, 2021
Perhaps the Home Office is at long last serious having not been previously, we shall see no doubt, but the Home Secretary’s letter betrays a timidity in stating “The proposals are fully compliant with our international obligations,…” as it shows the opportunity (likely requirement) to modify through practise international law in this field has been avoided.
Does this mean economic migrants pretending to be asylum seekers will remain immune from challenge? Will DNA records be created with the aim of preventing those attempting illegal entry from ever obtaining settlement rights? Will the impossibility of certainly identifying country of citizenship act to prevent deportation?
March 25, 2021
One key prerequisite to qualify as an “asylum seeker” is that you must be in the process of seeking refuge from danger. As long as people are leaving the French Republic, I think we can all agree that people paying smugglers to cross the English Channel are not and should never be entitled to land here.
March 25, 2021
Very off-topic, but I read a few days ago in my newspaper that Macron was trying to get us to make a contribution to Eurotunnel, at the same time as SNCF is ploughing 600 million euros into a rail project in Spain. What a nerve! But my question is why on Earth did we sell our share anyway?
March 25, 2021
I suggest we brick up the tunnel.
March 26, 2021
Reported at the time that we sold our share, as the scheme was a money pit which required millions Ā£ each year to keep it going.
March 26, 2021
Between October 2014 and April 2015 G.Osborne sold the UKās 40% share in Eurotunnel to reduce the debt by a bit more than Ā£750m. At the time it was considered a good thing to do by the Government. As an individual you can still buy it for yourself as Getlink, LDN:GET at ā¬13.25 today.
March 25, 2021
Pritti Patel and Boris are what I call ‘Gunna People’. They always promise they are Gunna do this and Gunna do that but end up doing nothing unless what they where Gunna do is watered down to less than useless.
Remember Pritti’s ‘We shall stop foreign aid and spend it in Britain? ”If you come here illegally in boats, you will go straight back” Yeh, right! Now she is going to put foreigners in their place by making it easier for them. A waste of skin.
Yet it could be oh so simple if they had guts and were moral enough to do what those who elected them to do.
1: Withdraw from the ECHR.
2: Stop all Legal Aid To Foreigners.
3: Do not give any benefits until foreigners have ‘Legally’ lived in this Country for 5 years.
3b: Stop all benefits until foreigners have ‘Legally’ lived in this Country for 5 years.
4: Open Interment camps for ‘illegals’ and send them back post haste. If they came by boat that means to France. Blood \ DNA tests will show where the others came from.
5: Only allow jobs if the employer can prove the job was offered to Brits first.
6: Make the NHS Train up Brits first. 137,000 British applicants for nurse Training were turned down last year and foreigners brought in instead.
7: Make Britain, Great Britain again.
Why are we paying benefits? In Spain, a Brit ex pat has to earn Ā£2000 per month (Ā£24,000 PA) plus Ā£500 per member of his family if he wants to stay in Spain but we give them accommodation, housing benefit, free medics, Social Benefits, we even give them benefits for kids that don’t even live here. This government is puddled, but methinks their days are numbered.
March 25, 2021
The government *knows* what the public think about immigration. Surveys and opinion polls consistently show it. They, as with previous governments, just ignore it.
March 25, 2021
I find it so utterly depressing (and I do mean that in a medical sense) that even when the government tries to do something good they manage to mess it up through cowardice and incompetence. These changes to the migration laws are one example, but another is the announcement yesterday that all UK government buildings should fly the Union flag every day. Excellent, thought I, finally something I can wholeheartedly agree with. And then my heart sank when I read that this will NOT apply to Northern Ireland.
If there is anywhere in the kingdom where feelings of national solidarity and loyalty need supporting and promoting it is Northern Ireland. So why in the name of God will the Union flag not fly there? We are told that there are ‘sensitivities’ there, but that is just cowardly code for saying that the government wants to appease the republican Britain-hating terrorists. Surely we should be arresting terrorists, not surrendering to them? If the government, or Conservative MPs, can’t see that being too frightened to fly our own flag in our own country, because we want to pander to terrorists, is wrong on every level, then there really is no hope left for the party.
March 25, 2021
Look, no western country manages to deport any but a tiny handful of illegals. They become untraceable, and where court action is enforced, legal aid-hungry lawyers manage to thwart the process of law with the aid of foolish or political judges. It’s the same in Germany, and has been for years.
The only solution is not to allow them to set foot in the country in the first place. Just keep returning them to the French coast. If it means resiling from an article of the ECHR or Law of the Sea, push it through Parliament.
We saw through all the ‘immigration plans’ of successive governments years ago. They are the ‘plans’ meant to appease low-wage hungry party donor industrials in the IoD – plans with a deliberately inbuilt intention of failure.
March 25, 2021
If the UK were serious about deterring illegals in the first place, it would demolish the uniquely indulgent benefits system that attracts them. The French are quite right when they point to the UK benefits system as the great magnet drawing the mobile-pone communicating hordes from Africa and the ME to Calais.
March 25, 2021
correct
March 25, 2021
Not alone France but Italy as well.. but well well done to you.. army man are you mancunius? or army in Germany.. so looks like your family made it like yourself so what the hell?
March 25, 2021
Sadly the current Home Secretary talks a lot like a previous Home Secretary who went on to become PM for a short time.
The big problem I have is with sound bite Politics, “Oh we are getting tough” etc etc with stern face and hand waving.
The UK (for now) has closed the border to EU citizens coming to live here despite the fact that most immigration came from outside the EU. I’m against closed borders and restrictions, I look forward to schengen agreement within 5 years (next election).
The so called Migration proposals are a dogs dinner and will never work.
Anyway with more public sector austerity on its way and associated bad publicity, voters can easily turn bite hard and elect a different Gov with a very different Migration policy.
March 26, 2021
Yet 76% recently polled want immigration reduced and 72% said the Government was right to impose a numerical limit.
Labour’s policies on immigration are seen as a negative in polls with voters and reduce their chances of getting elected.
March 25, 2021
TREACHERY
A whopping majority of 404 for the Coronavirus Act of 2020 giving the Government UNPARALLELED powers has now been passed for another 6 months.
We thank the 76 MP’s who stood up to the government, but the rest are not representing our best interests in any way.
Time the country had a say in the actions of this despotic government — Less and less people now believe anything that it says or does. It has turned against it’s own people.
March 25, 2021
and why 6 months ? why not 1 or 2 ? …. Bryan you’re correct this is a disgrace
March 25, 2021
I have lived and worked in abut half a dozen countries for lengthy periods, so I am broadly in favour of immigration. But I am not in favour of treating immigration as some “holy” issue that you are not allowed to discuss, on penalty of being called a racist.
When you are talking about immigrants, you are talking about people who, if their applications are successful, will be residents of the UK for the rest of their lives.
So how do you want them to be integrated into UK society? Do you want the integration to be done in a controlled fashion so that immigrants become functioning members of a peaceful society? Or do you want immigrants and their children to grow up in insta-ghettos that are just thrown together to handle overwhelming numbers?
If you want a UK version of Middle Eastern refugee camps, you can have it. But I don’t think that is what you want. A lot of virtue signalling about “compassion” followed by half a century of trying to deal with a crisis of foreign violence in your own country doesn’t seem like a smart policy.
March 25, 2021
We also need to be honest, theyāre not āimmigrantsā theyāre āeconomic illegal immigration criminalsā
March 27, 2021
They certainly are economic migrants illegally entering the country. Jumping as you do to the conclusion they are criminals says more about you than about them.
March 25, 2021
Looking at President Bidens press conference this evening am struck by his honesty directness and humility about illegals and other things- a long way from Patels plans for this country about migration- America is so fortunate to have a man with such decency as president.
March 25, 2021
Illegal immigrants have no loyalty or allegiance to the host country ā thatās why many continue their criminal activity
March 25, 2021
You got a highly edited version of that conference. Had Trump had a senior moment like that he would have topped the news schedules. It was utterly shocking.
March 25, 2021
On a related note, do you remember when Brexit was going to bring the NHS to its knees because of its supposedly critical reliance on free movement? The latest numbers from uk.gov this morning show that in fact, since we left the EU the number of doctors and nurses working in the NHS has reached a new record “there are a total of 123,813 doctors and 301,491 nurses working in the NHS.”
Compared with the same time last year, there are almost 6,600 more doctors and over 10,900 more nurses working in the NHS. There has also been a 34% increase in applicants to study nursing this year.
One more remainer claim that turns out to be simply made up.
March 27, 2021
Yes, indeed, but how many are retired doctors and nurses who had applied to re-join to help fight the pandemic. Numbers in different newspapers and websites vary between 5,000 and 40,000. It would be good to get a better estimate of how many have actually rejoined before drawing conclusions as you do.
March 25, 2021
Ā£5000 fine if you’re a Brit and try to leave or enter the country by plane. Arrive by dinghy as a non Brit you get a council house, benefits for life and protected status as a special group – and able to wander freely around Kent without a mask on while it’s all being arranged.
11 years of Tory rule ! Out of the EU and an 80 seat majority and nowhere for you to hide.
The Tories have been our enemies all along and now it’s there for all to see.
It’s shameful, Sir John. Your party is delivering the worst socialism and social destruction this country has ever seen.
March 25, 2021
John please advise why my comment is being held up? I am not using intemperate or offensive language I can only conclude it’s for some other reason
March 25, 2021
If it does not suit the narrative it will not be published. Truth hurts.
March 25, 2021
Thank you Sir John for voting No.
Has resistance to the dictator finally dawned on his party?
March 25, 2021
Fred H,
Tragically only 35 Tories symbolically voting for freedom demonstrates no effective resistance to dictatorship. Freedom, human rights are gone. The new normal is tyranny.
As Jeremy Corbyn observes – Tories cannot be trusted with civil liberties. Jeremy Corbyn is right.
[Even by the ‘logic’ that 70 odd % of the population support lockdown (whether through fear or coercion), then ending both the act and all restrictions makes sense – those 70 odd % would choose to not have their hair cut, mix indoors etc.]
March 27, 2021
I wrote ‘has it finally dawned’ not has it been accomplished!
March 25, 2021
+1
March 25, 2021
Good to tell there is an election on the horizon when the Tories start banging on about immigration.
March 25, 2021
We need to stop illegal immigrants having access to our courts. The Home Secretary should judge whether a particular illegal immigrant is a refugee or an economic migrant, and the latter would be deported. And in case someone throws away their passport and cannot be returned, we need an internment camp on Stornaway or other Hebridean island, where the person will remain until we can deport him/her. Most illegal immigrants are lusty you men between 18 and 30 and are very clearly economic migrants. Shed no tears for them.
March 25, 2021
JR voted no. Well done Mr Redwood but –
I come on here and offload at Mr Redwood but he, for his sins, is simply the lightning conductor to express our anger at the party he belongs so he mustn’t think it’s personal, for it isn’t.
I can see my country dying right in front of my very eyes and it is utterly heartbreaking. The lives of brave men and women laid down between 39-45, the Falkland’s, Afghanistan, Iraq etc etc and for what? To be exposed to Marxist barbarity, racially infused fascism and the poison of feminism and year zero politics and why? To protect the Tory party from harm by forces of the fascist left who are now in control and beyond democratic accountability
We have become infected by the poison of the Left and there’s no coming back from this. Their Anglophobia and hate for white people has become disturbing
March 27, 2021
I don’t think I ever responded to your comments before – but boy oh boy – you nailed it today.
March 31, 2021
I suspect the policy will end up with the usual.
Lots of well paid passport checkers in nice warm airports causing lots of even longer queues with silly Tories saying how wonderful it is and the rest of us wanting May/Patel/whoever sacked.