The Channel boats make a mockery of Britain’s laws and guarantee an election rout. That’s why every Tory who wants to keep their seat must support this Bill
CONSERVATIVE MPs are staring down the barrel of a gun. Unless voters get to see illegal migrants being marched off planes in Rwanda before polling day, they face electoral annihilation.
Frankly, even if deportations have started by then, the next election will be tricky. The last time a party won five successive elections was at the beginning of the 19th century, and polls currently suggest a 120-seat Labour majority.
But if the Rwanda scheme has not come into effect, there will be a total meltdown. Voters will conclude that the Tories were lying when they said they would do ‘whatever it takes’ to stop the boats.
Despite their doubts about Sir Keir Starmer, they will vent their rage on the governing party.
Clashing
Few Conservative MPs disagree with what I have just written. Almost all of them, whichever faction of the party they represent, want to remove people who enter Britain improperly.
The flotillas crossing the Channel make a mockery of our law, insult those who have entered our country legally and make a Tory rout certain.
Why, then, are they divided over the legislation, which is now back before the House of Commons?
Some argue that it does not go far enough, because it allows individual claimants to appeal against their removal. This, they believe, will give the courts an excuse to intervene, and will mean more politicised rulings by judges who oppose deportations on principle.
Others argue that, without such a right of appeal, Britain would be in breach of international law; and, since the Rwandan government has said that it will only sign deals that are compatible with international rules, the whole scheme would therefore fall.
Rishi Sunak is carefully steering the legislation between these two clashing rocks. He, more than anyone, knows that people need to see planes touching down in Kigali before the General Election. It will not do to promise results, or to be seen to have fought hard against a Leftist judiciary. Voters have heard too many excuses. Only physical removals will do.
Since hardly any of his MPs dissent from the principle of what Sunak is doing, their reaction is odd. Sitting in No. 10, the PM has a more unobstructed view of what is going on than anyone else. He is getting the official legal advice. He is talking to the Rwandan authorities.
As even his most aggressive critics admit, the PM is a details man. He may not be a rousing speech-maker, but he is adept at solving delicate problems. He knows that the new policy must be tough enough to ensure that significant numbers of sans-papiers are expelled. Yet it must also be proof against legal challenge. Sunak is one of nature’s needle-threaders. This is precisely the stuff he is good at.
Why are his MPs not uniformly behind him? Why, in an election year, are dozens of them risking their own seats?
There are, I think, two different answers. A handful of Tory MPs share Keir Starmer’s dislike of the Rwanda scheme in principle. The Labour leader argues that it is a massive distraction and has promised to scrap it on taking office, even if it is working.
It is true that the plan is expensive. And it is true, too, that it will affect only a minority of illegal arrivals. But that does not mean that it will be ineffective, especially if it forms part of a wider package of measures, together with returns agreements and swifter processing of claims.
Indeed, these other measures are already working to a far greater degree than is generally recognised.
Over the past year, Channel crossings have fallen by 36 per cent — in contrast to Mediterranean crossings, which have risen by 83 per cent. A returns agreement with Albania has led to a 90 per cent reduction in the number of illegal entrants from that country.
The Rwanda scheme should be seen as part of a wider strategy. Because clandestine migrants must pass through several safe countries before reaching the UK, the knowledge that they might end up in Rwanda would incentivise many of them to try their luck elsewhere.
In any case, the policy has now assumed a totemic importance that goes beyond its deterrent effects. What is at stake is whether an elected government is subordinate to a politicised judiciary.
Most voters have been doubtful all along that the Rwanda scheme would actually happen. They find politicians’ promises on the subject both false and patronising. The only way to prove them wrong is to begin deportations before the election.
Far more numerous than those who dislike the scheme are those who agree with Sunak, but who don’t really believe that his heart is in it.
Distrust
They never explain why he would want to introduce a Bill that did not work, since he would be the chief casualty of its failure. But, in politics, facts often give way to feelings. And there is a feeling, especially on the Tory Right, that Rishi is not, politicallyspeaking, quite One Of Us.
Politics is a tribal business, and most of the MPs seeking to toughen the Bill are, in a broad manner, of my tribe. I backed Boris Johnson as party leader, and I was furious when he was forced out. I voted for Liz Truss as his successor. I set up the European Research Group in 1993, and was a cofounder of Vote Leave in 2016.
Some of my fellow Rightists are motivated by distrust of Sunak. If this measure were being proposed by Johnson or Truss, they would be more willing to accept that it was the best deal on offer. The feeling that Sunak is a milkand-water Tory is, on paper, an odd one. Judged purely in policy terms, he is plainly to the Right of Boris.
Sunak resigned as Chancellor because he was no longer prepared to go along with high levels of spending.
He has rowed back on some of the more extreme green targets he inherited from Johnson and Theresa May, and salvaged what he could from the HS2 fiasco.
He did not prevaricate on the EU referendum: he was writing Eurosceptic articles while still at school.
On immigration, he is far tougher than Boris, who championed amnesties for illegals.
Provincial
Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge Boris fan. To force him from office over proximity to uneaten cake was an act of pettiness that cheapened us as a nation. I simply find it odd that Right-wingers deny Sunak the trust that they cheerfully offered the man who called himself a ‘Brexity Hezza’.
Then again, as I say, facts often give way to feelings. During the Truss/Sunak leadership contest, 80 per cent of Leavers backed Truss (who had voted Remain), while 80 per cent of Remainers backed Sunak (who had voted Leave). Why? Because of what we might, if we are of a pretentious bent, call their gestalt — or, more simply, their vibe.
Truss looked and sounded like a Leaver, saying blunt things in a provincial accent and annoying all the right people. Sunak, with his tight suits and thin ties, looked and sounded like the CEO of a big multinational.
You’d be amazed by how many MPs pick a side on the basis of these tribal indicators and then reason backward.
But the votes this week are not about the PM’s image. They are about our ability, as a country, to expel people who should not be here. The Bill before MPs would do that.
It would honour a manifesto commitment, reassert the supremacy of our legislature and go a long way to restoring confidence in our democracy. Every Conservative should back it.