Take Back Migrants or Face Visa Ban, Says Home Secretary

Countries that refuse to take back illegal migrants from Britain will face visa bans, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is to announce as part of a crackdown on immigration. But Labour MPs are getting uncomfortable. The Telegraph has more.

States that will not accept the deportation of failed asylum seekers or foreign criminals are to face a “sliding scale” of penalties, from the removal of fast-track visa services to bans on entry documents for everyone from tourists to senior politicians.

On Monday, the Home Secretary will announce plans to block people from travelling to the UK from Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo unless there is a rapid improvement in the number of returned migrants they accept.

Other countries will also be at risk of a future crackdown. Those with the worst records for accepting refused asylum seekers also include Somalia, Bangladesh, Iran and Egypt, according to analysis of Home Office data by the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory.

The visa bans, which mirror measures introduced by Donald Trump, the US President, against some African and East Asian nations during his first term, are among a string of measures to ramp up the removal of illegal migrants and foreign criminal offenders.

Reforms to be announced by Ms Mahmood will include legislation to prevent immigration judges from putting migrants’ rights to a family life under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) ahead of protecting the public and controlling the UK’s borders.

Ms Mahmood will commit the UK to working with other European countries on reforms to the ECHR in an attempt to prevent it from blocking deportations.

In addition, illegal migrants will be restricted by law to only one appeal against their removal, rather than “endless” appeals where they cite different reasons at different times to remain in Britain.

The appeals will be decided by a Danish-style independent board of adjudicators with powers to identify and weed out unfounded cases.

The Tories initially called the reforms “just a gimmick”, saying: “It won’t work. The only way we can properly tackle it is to leave the ECHR.” However, party leader Kemi Badenoch later backed the proposals, calling them “steps in the right direction” on migration policy and saying she wanted to encourage the Government “in that right direction”. She offered the Conservative Party’s support in the Commons amid unease on the Labour backbenches.

Of course, Mahmood may point out that Denmark, which many of the reforms are modelled on, is an ECHR member, suggesting much of it may be possible within the convention. But then, Denmark doesn’t have Britain’s decidedly pro-immigration judiciary, many of whom seem to revel in gold-plating any and all protections for immigrants at the expense of the native and settled population.

According to the Telegraph, new policies to be confirmed by the Home Secretary in the House of Commons today include:

• Countries that refuse to take back illegal migrants from Britain will face visa bans.
• Refugees who enter the UK illegally will be forced to wait 20 years before they can apply for permanent settlement.
• Refugee status will become temporary, with reviews every 30 months to determine whether their home country is safe for them to be returned. 
• Asylum seekers with assets such as jewellery, cars and e-bikes will be required to contribute towards their taxpayer-funded bed, board and financial support.
• Immigration judges will be prevented from putting migrants’ rights to a family life under the ECHR ahead of protecting the public and controlling the UK’s borders, under new legislation.
• Illegal migrants will be restricted to only one appeal against their removal.
• The legal obligation to support asylum seekers who would otherwise be ‘destitute’ – inherited from EU law – will be scrapped. Instead people will only be funded if they are vulnerable, contribute and obey the law. 

In the Spectator, Ross Clark says Mahmood’s sanction for uncooperative countries – suspending visas – is unlikely to have much effect, and she should instead hit them where it really hurts: in the aid budget.

A backlash against Mahmood’s reforms is growing among Labour MPs, with Tony Vaughan, the MP for Folkestone, Hythe and Romney Marsh, calling the reforms a “wrong turning” and John McDonnell, Corbyn’s old shadow chancellor, backing him, claiming he speaks for many in the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Whether this will turn out to be just a few immigration fanatics on the fringes sounding off or will swell into an internal opposition that could kill Mahmood’s programme remains to be seen. The Mail reports that at least one Minister is on ‘resignation watch’ and quotes from MPs describing the proposals as “disgusting” and “performative cruelty”.

As with welfare reform, the question is whether Labour MPs will stomach what the Government has determined is necessary to deal with the problem and win back wavering voters, or whether they will rebel en masse against the ‘Right-wing’ policies and force the Government into further humiliating U-turns. There are only so many humiliations a government can take, of course, before a change of Prime Minister becomes necessary to restore party confidence – and both MPs and Ministers surely know this. Perhaps this will concentrate the minds of MPs and lead most to back the Government, despite possible misgivings. The risk for Starmer, though, is that disgruntled MPs with an eye on the party’s dire polling will see it as a chance to bring him down and put a ‘proper Left-winger’ in his place. Whichever way they jump, one thing is clear: with the Budget also approaching later in the month, it’s crunch time for the Prime Minister.