And so the Conservative leadership election has turned into immigration. Supporting the plan to send migrants who come here illegally to Rwanda, Rishi Sunak says, “I will do whatever it takes to implement it.” Liz Truss agrees: “I am determined to see our Rwanda policy through.”
Predictably, Labor has accused Mr Sunak and Ms Truss of pandering to “rabid and bigoted” party members. But most of us understand that immigration must be controlled, for social, cultural, economic and democratic reasons.
Of course, we can integrate newcomers, but integration takes time, so the pace of change should not be too fast. There is a cultural argument for control. Our common identity and culture, obviously valuable in themselves, also help us recognize the familiarity of strangers and accept the need to compromise and make sacrifices for our fellow citizens.
On the left and right, advocates of mass immigration claim that it leaves us better off, but that is not true. Academic studies suggest that it makes little economic difference overall. But we know that for people in low-paying jobs, immigration can hold down wages and lead to job displacement. And, indisputably, it puts pressure on services and infrastructure. Immigration is the cause of almost half the demand for new housing and the need for 216,000 additional secondary school places by 2026.
Furthermore, there is a democratic case for control. Among those who never paid attention to public opinion when polls showed people wanted sharp cuts to immigration, it is now fashionable to claim that since Brexit, concern about immigration has disappeared. But this shift is driven in part by voters who believe Brexit has restored the control they demand. They hope to see the immigration rate reduced and the border secured.
We have not yet heard in great detail Mr. Sunak and Mrs. Truss what they will do to reduce immigration, but the reason for their support for the Rwandan policy is clear. More than 28,500 people crossed the English Channel to enter Britain illegally last year, and more than 15,000 have made the journey so far this year.
Ministers cannot return migrants to France or their countries of origin: migrants destroy identity documents, apply for asylum and, even if they are refused, launch numerous and lengthy appeals to stay. Crossings are enriching criminal gangs, enabling mainly young, male, fit and comparatively prosperous migrants already in safe countries to abuse the system, undermining our ability to help the genuinely needy and vulnerable and destroying public trust. Asylum now costs the taxpayer £1.3 billion a year.
To stop crossings we need to break the link between entering Britain illegally and staying here to live and work. As Australia, we must legislate to ensure that no-one who arrives illegally can ever, under any circumstances, settle in Britain.
For this to be a reality, anyone who enters the country illegally must be transferred to a safe third country such as Rwanda. They should be treated humanely and, where necessary, the third country should offer genuine refuge. The government should ensure that the move from the UK to the third country is safe and dignified.
Once transferred, migrants can choose to apply for asylum there or return to their country of origin, but should not be allowed to return to Britain. And the Government should establish legal channels here, limited in number, for those who need our help the most.
However, achieving this political goal will be difficult and controversial. The Rwanda scheme has already been suspended by an injunction issued by the EU Court of Justice, pending a judicial review due to be heard in the High Court. There is nothing in law to stop ministers sending migrants to safe third countries, but the European Convention on Human Rights means the government has a responsibility to assess that the receiving state is safe and must give migrants the chance to argue that the host state is safe. it is not a safe place for them as individuals.
The risk is that the policy will be killed, either by the courts ruling it illegal in principle, or by allowing so many appeals that migrants know they have a good chance of staying in Britain. That is why Mr. Sunak said: “The ECHR cannot inhibit our ability to adequately control our borders and we should not let it,” and why Ms. Truss said: “We will not go down to the ECHR and make sure it works for Britain.”
There are a number of steps ministers can take to limit legal impediments to implementing the policy. The government could, for example, add Rwanda to the list of safe countries in the Asylum and Immigration Act 2004. It could design policies that define the extent of individual risk based on established scenarios, such as sexuality or religious faith of the migrant. It could introduce a procedural ban on appeals beyond a specific point in the process: for example, requiring migrants to make all claims as soon as they get here and are in contact with the authorities. The law could make it impossible to claim asylum here after traveling from a safe country, unless through a legal route.
But as long as Britain remains a signatory to the ECHR and subject to the jurisdiction of its Strasbourg court, these changes will be challenged in court. Even if the Human Rights Act is replaced by a British Bill of Rights, claimants will be free to bring appeals based on the Convention in British courts and free to apply to Strasbourg, regardless of the content of any domestic legislation. In particular, the government will not be able to remove the requirement to assess the individual circumstances of all those transferred to Rwanda without abandoning the Convention.
The proposals made by Mr Sunak and Ms Truss to make Rwanda work are welcome. Making it harder for illegal immigrants to live here, better cooperation with France, a tougher approach to countries that refuse to recognize migrants as their own citizens, as Sunak suggests, would all help. It is also important to increase resources for immigration enforcement, as proposed by Ms Truss.
But both candidates should know that if they are truly willing to do “whatever it takes” to fix the immigration system, they must ultimately be prepared to abandon the European Convention and its court jurisdiction.