The government’s Illegal Migration Bill, unveiled by the home secretary this week, has set the Conservative Party on a potential collision course with the House of Lords, the courts, humanitarian groups and the Labour Party, in a calculated move that some pundits believe may be setting up the issue as one that defines the next general election.
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Rishi Sunak has declared he is “up for the fight” with judges in Europe over his plans to detain and deport nearly every migrant who arrives in the UK in small boats.
But some analysts, including The Spectator’s political editor Katy Balls, believe he is actually spoiling for a fight with the Labour Party. The prime minister’s real hope, Balls said, is that the bill will “create a dividing line between the Tories and Labour on immigration”.
What did the papers say?
The government plans to stop migrants from crossing the Channel “rely on deterrence”, said The Times in its leading article this morning.
The plan, unveiled by Home Secretary Suella Braverman, will mean that almost all asylum seekers who reach the UK on small boats will be detained without bail for 28 days then deported either back to their home country or another destination if safety is an issue. They will also have no right to challenge their deportation under human rights law while in the UK, and if they are deported will lose all right to return to the UK in the future.
The government’s intention to make Britain “such a hostile environment” that migrants simply switch to legitimate modes of entry “are certainly bold”, The Times said, however, they are also “politically toxic”.
For one thing, the plans to deter asylum seekers “hinge on getting Rwanda plan up and running”, said the i newspaper’s Arj Singh.
The government insists that Sunak’s controversial new laws would have a “quite powerful” deterrent effect on small boat crossings “quite quickly”. But according to modelling for the former home secretary Priti Patel, thousands of asylum seekers would need to be sent to Rwanda for any deterrent to work and that scheme has faced a series of legal challenges which have meant “it is yet to deliver a single …read more
Source:: The Week – All news