Matt Vickers MP slams the government’s new immigration white paper.
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OPINION: Your kid’s ECHR Article 8 right to a UK chicken nugget could still help keep you here in the UK after a sex offence conviction
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Even before the local election results were announced, it was clear panic mode had set in at the Home Office, with a mission to find anything that could be announced that looks “tough” on immigration.
Just before election day, Yvette Cooper, fresh from ordering the tide back at Dover, announced all sex offenders would be barred from refugee status.
Hoping to mesmerise voters by conjuring up an image of paedophile monsters being thrown onto a plane out of the UK, she rushed into the media to announce the news.
Yet far from spell-binding voters, she left most scratching their heads as she struggled to answer the most basic of questions: How many sex offenders would this actually cover?
What was the estimate of likely removals from the UK because of this policy? The answer: she had no idea. It is impossible to imagine the Home Office did not estimate the impact in terms of numbers internally, yet the biggest hole in the announcement was gaping and quickly revealed in questions: Can anyone barred from refugee status still cite Article 3 or Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights to block their removal from the UK?
Yvette Cooper did not want to say it, but the answer is yes. This is not just an academic debate. Criminals receiving a year or more in prison can already be blocked from Refugee Status, but it does not guarantee they will be heading home anytime soon. Those seeking to avoid a deportation flight will almost routinely cite their “human rights” as a reason they can’t be returned, including serious sex offenders.
For example, in October, an Indian Paedophile won his appeal to stay in the UK based on his Article 8 Right to a family life.
This is despite court judges previously preventing the man from having "direct unsupervised contact" with his children.
Even more bizarrely, in March, it was ruled that a convicted Ghanaian criminal deported from Britain 12 years ago should be free to return under human rights laws because being separated from his children has made him “depressed”.
Yep, your kid’s ECHR Article 8 right to a UK chicken nugget could still help keep you here in the UK after a sex offence conviction. Labour’s announcement clearly has as many holes as a colander.
Whilst the Government is saying it will “review” how the courts are interpreting the right to a family life, it’s clear a Labour Party full of people who have decried any move to leave the ECHR as “far right” and criticised attempts to scrutinise activist judges, are not going to deliver anything serious on this.
After the flop of the sex offender’s announcement and fresh from surveying the wreckage of the election results, Labour were quickly out with another immigration announcement. They announced a “visa crackdown” on those applying for visas who were likely to make asylum claims. The headline made it sound like a major change, yet it's hard to see what was new about this announcement.
The Home Office already applies restrictions, such as a more rigorous examination, to applications from nations with a higher rate of immigration abuse or asylum claims.
Where trends of immigration abuse have emerged, the data gathered already informs refusal decisions in individual cases, removal of sponsor licences (Remember Theresa May’s crackdown on bogus student colleges?) and changes to the rules and even the closure of visa routes. An existing review process is being dressed up as something new.
As small boat arrivals surge and asylum hotels remain, Labour’s recent announcements have left many simply asking: “What’s new?”.
