Mercy Muroki: British people have little to no appetite for activist lawyers blocking deportations

When you think of some of Britain's most resented professions, bailiffs, bankers, and of course politicians might spring to mind. But there’s a new class of professionals that is giving them a run for their money and fast becoming one of Britain’s most disliked… Lawyers. Specifically lawyers who stop deportation flights full of foreign national convicts.

Of all the ways in which you could really annoy the British public, surely fighting to keep drug dealers, kidnappers, and violent criminals who aren’t British citizens in the country really has to be up there. And that is why, undoubtedly, the latest round of ditched deportations will not come as welcome news to many...

This morning, it emerged that all but 13 foreign criminals on a deportation flight were removed from the flight last night at the eleventh hour after last-ditch appeals from human rights lawyers.

Currently, as the law stands, the UK Borders Act 2007 mandates that the Home Secretary must make a deportation order against a “foreign national” who has been convicted of an offence and sentenced to at least 12 months’.

A foreign national is somebody who does not have British citizenship, and even for those with dual citizenship, the British Government can still strip that if they believe it’s “conducive to the public good”...But the argument is made that it is wrong to deport people who came to this country as children.

One man on the flight, for example, came to the UK when he was just three months old, and is being deported to a country he has no memory of. I sort of get this. I came to this country when I was 5 years old. I feel British, I am, for all intents and purposes, British. How bizarre would it be to deport me to a country I have little recollection of and haven’t lived in for two decades? It would all feel a little bit, I don’t know, BNP-esque.

But, then again, I don’t go around committing grievous bodily harm, selling crack cocaine, or kidnapping people, and thus getting myself deported. And if I did… well, some might argue I had it coming.

Look, it’s a very complicated issue and I certainly don’t proclaim to have the answers. But I do know this – British people overwhelmingly have little to no appetite for activist lawyers blocking deportations.

All the evidence shows we're a tough on crime kind of people – it’s just rather unfortunate that that isn’t reflected in the actual law of the land. We have laws in this country to keep society sane and civil. And if you break those laws, well, tough.

The activists who blocked the roads, risking it all constantly trying to stop foreign criminals being deported might do well to spend that time meeting the families of the victims, many whom undoubtedly suffer life-changing injuries and a lifetime of trauma.

And as for the lawyers, they might be able to stop these one way trips for foreign criminals, but in doing so they’re putting themselves firmly on a one way trip to being Britain’s most hated professionals.