Rishi’s 10-point plan To slash migration
ILLEGAL immigrants would be housed off-shore on cruise ships under Rishi Sunak’s plan to secure our borders.
It is part of a 10-point plan the leadership hopeful will today set out to fix Britain’s “broken” immigration system.
His radical proposals would also create a Small Boats Taskforce with military expertise to stop illegal cross-channel crossings.
Foreign countries that refuse to take back failed asylum seekers or migrants who commit crimes in the UK would become ineligible for a share of the UK’S £11.5billion aid budget.
The former chancellor has also pledged to do “whatever it takes” to ensure the Government’s policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda is put into effect.
A judgment from the European Court of Human Rights stopped the first relocations taking place last month.
Mr Sunak said: “Our immigration system is broken and we have to be honest about that.
“Whether you believe that migration should be high or low, we can all agree that it should be legal and controlled.
“Right now the system is chaotic, with law-abiding citizens seeing boats full of illegal immigrants coming from the safe country of France, with our sailors and coastguards seemingly powerless to stop them.
“It must stop, and if I am prime minister I will stop it with a series of concrete measures that are reasonable, fair and proportionate, including tightening the definition of who qualifies for asylum and setting up a Small Boats Taskforce to protect those being exploited by criminal gangs, and end the scourge of illegal migration.”
Mr Sunak’s supporters also highlight his credentials as a Brexit supporter, unlike rival candidate Liz Truss who campaigned to remain in the EU, and say he will “take back control” of the UK’S borders.
It marks a new stage in the Tory
leadership contest, where debate has so far focused largely on taxation. Mr Sunak favours a more cautious approach to tax cuts than Ms Truss, who has pledged to reverse the recent national insurance increase and cancel a rise in corporation tax due to come into effect next year.
Today’s focus on immigration comes after the two rivals engaged in a bitter debate over tax policy, with Mr Sunak claiming that Ms Truss’s tax cuts would push up inflation and make the cost of living crisis even worse.
In a speech yesterday in Grantham, Lincolnshire,
where Margaret Thatcher
was born, Mr Sunak said: “Rising inflation is the enemy that makes everyone poorer and puts at risk your homes and your savings. “I will deliver more tax cuts. “I will not put money back in your pocket knowing that rising inflation will only whip it straight
back out.” Ms Truss, the Foreign Secretary, has said that her tax cuts will curb soaring inflation.
She will also set out immigration proposals today, and, like Mr Sunak, she will promise the policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda is implemented, as well
as signing similar agreements with other countries. In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, she said: “The Rwanda policy is the right policy. I’m determined to see it through, as well as exploring other countries that we can work on similar partnerships with.”
She also said she would increase frontline border-force staff levels from 9,000 to 10,800 and ensure
a British Bill of Rights to give Parliament the power to make laws tackling illegal immigration.
She said she knew from her work in the Foreign Office of other countries that could accept asylum seekers, and pledged that her government “will be moving forward on those efforts very strongly” if she becomes prime minister.
Describing herself as someone
“prepared to take on thewhitehall orthodoxy”, Ms Truss pledged to end the “appalling abuse” of Channel crossings by small boats.
She highlighted her record overseeing sanctions on Russia and negotiating post-brexit trade deals, saying she had a reputation for getting things done despite opposition from “naysayers and the doubters around the country”.