The ability of those who govern a country to defend and advance the interests of its people – without outside interference – is a cornerstone of the concept of national sovereignty. It is a precious independence that Britain has defended in wars over centuries. It was this that inspired Britons here in Lincolnshire, and across the country, to vote to ‘take back control’ from the European Union in 2016. Exercising our sovereignty is essential to stopping migrant smugglers from bringing illegal immigrants across the English Channel. Nations are, after all, defined by their borders.
Which is why I supported Amendments to the Government’s Rwanda Bill in Parliament last week. These changes were designed to prevent international law being used by illegal immigrants to block their removal to Rwanda. Unless the Bill is watertight, it is sure to be less effective than what’s needed. Each loophole will be exploited by dubious metropolitan human rights lawyers and deluded interest groups to stop migrants – some of whom are known criminals – from being sent to Rwanda. If any lawful means remain, almost every illicit arrival on our shores will surely use it. Because, as the American economist Thomas Sowell said:
“Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them.”
The concept of deterrence is at the heart of this Bill’s purpose. The prospect of being flown to a third country to have asylum applications processed, thousands of miles from the shores of France or the soil of Britain, is a prospect few illegal immigrants will welcome.
But deterrents only work when they are credible.
This is our third attempt to fix the problem of thousands of Channel crossings. The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the Illegal Migration Act 2023 were supposed to do so. Now another Bill is deemed necessary – surely our last chance to get it right.
Back in June 2022, a plane of illegal immigrants was about to take off to Rwanda, but at the 11th hour, after an opaque process, a decision was made by an unidentified judge in a foreign court to block its flight. The orders used by that judge in Strasbourg were not part of the European Convention on Human Rights; instead, being the creation of the Strasbourg court which has inflated its remit over decades, beyond anything imagined by the well-intentioned creators of the original Convention.
Britain has a proud history of helping those truly in need, including tens of thousands of Ukrainians given refuge here until such time as they can return home at the end of the war. However, our commitment to legal refugees and asylum seekers is undermined when illegal migrants, who are not at risk, skip the queue and tie down our border force and the Home Office.
Sadly, last week’s attempts to improve the Bill were thwarted, and so I could not in good conscience vote for a measure that my constituents know needs strengthening. Yet, sharing the Prime Minister’s ambition to tackle this crisis, so I would not vote against the Rwanda policy in principle, which our country so desperately needs. We must now unite to get the Bill through the House of Lords and into law as soon as possible.
A self-righteous clique of fat-cat lawyers and thinly-disguised so-called ‘charities’ are conspiring to support foreigners who, having travelled through numerous ‘safe countries’, flout the very first British law they encounter – the lawful entitlement to be here! They must play second fiddle to the chorus of an expectant population who expect their sovereign country to ‘Stop the Boats’.
