Backlash over failure to deport foreign crooks
THE Home Office’s inability to properly deport foreign prisoners who have served their sentences is undermining public trust in politicians, a report claims today.
A raft of critical official reports has shown that thousands of foreign national prisoners remained after the end of their sentences despite a Government pledge to boot them out.
The latest report says: “Brexit is a chance to restore trust in an immigration system that is viewed, by a significant proportion of the public, as broken.
“This confidence, however, cannot be fully restored without engaging the public in a debate about the future direction of immigration policy.”
The findings were in an interim report being submitted to the Commons Home Affairs Committee.
The paper, jointly written by campaign group Hope Not Hate and the British Future think-tank, was based on 30 “citizens’ panels” discussions from around the country.
The authors noted: “A reason that many participants feel migration flows are uncontrolled is that they do not trust the Government to enforce immigration policy. Some of this lack of trust is associated with high-profile failures in the Home Office’s delivery of immigration policy.
“The failure to deport foreign national prisoners at the end of their sentences, for example, was mentioned in some panels.”
In a bid to speed up the removal process, Home Office officials created a “deport first, appeal later” scheme.
But last year the Supreme Court ruled that it was unlawful and it had to be dismantled. In one recent case, a violent Somali with 30 convictions has been awarded nearly £80,000 compensation for being locked up while he fought deportation from Britain.
Illegal immigrant Abdulrahman Mohammed, 39, received the payout after the Government was told it had acted unlawfully by holding him in detention for too long.
In November, the Daily Express reported that at least 56,000 foreign nationals – including criminals and illegal migrants – are on the run. They should have been deported but the Home Office had lost track of them.
Today’s report added: “This lack of trust also relates to low levels of public trust in politicians more broadly. All our citizens’ panels talked about their lack of trust in politicians who they sometimes felt had entered politics for their own self-interest.
“But participants also felt that politicians were not truthful about issues such as immigration and wanted much greater transparency.”
The Home Office said: “The British people sent a very clear message in the EU referendum. They want more control of immigration and our borders. That is why we are committed to reducing net migration to sustainable levels.”
IMMIGRATION is the biggest issue facing this country. It is the main reason we voted for Brexit and it remains a huge concern for many people over the pressures it puts on housing, social services, education and the NHS.
Now a major report reveals that (understandably) the public has no faith in the Government to keep it under control. The failure to deport many foreign national prisoners alongside a host of other concerns mean that trust in politicians has been totally eroded.
It was Tony Blair and his cohorts who created this mess when they opened the floodgates to immigration in a deliberate bid to brand the Conservatives racist if they objected, but it falls to the Tories to sort this one out. The Conservative Party has been beating its breast about how to broaden its appeal: if they get on top of the issue of immigration they will have their answer. Failure to do so risks further disenchantment with the whole political class.
And there is opportunity there. At the moment the national mood can appear bleak: if only the Tories could move further with a positive set of plans for the future, the mood could change instantly. If they could tackle the problem of immigration it would be a push forward into the new year while regaining the political initiative. There is still all to play for no matter how disillusioned the public seems.