WHEN Sir Keir Starmer announced his one-in, one-out migrant deal with France a few months ago, I’m not sure even he thought his policy would turn out to be THIS bad.
Many of us mocked the pilot scheme signed with President Macron as an exchange programme for migrants, when what we need is mass deportations in only one direction: back across the Channel.
Paul EdwardsWe watched as seats booked on Air France flights from Heathrow were left empty as migrants lawyered up[/caption]
Paul EdwardsAgainst all of our expectations, at least one migrant has been deported to France this week[/caption]
AlamyHome Secretary Shabana Mahmood lambasted illegal migrants for using legal loopholes to fight their deportation[/caption]
Even the most cynical of us didn’t think the Prime Minister meant his policy would mean 31,000 IN and just one or two OUT.
Yet, at the time of writing, that’s all the Prime Minister has managed to deport back across the Channel out of the 31,000 arrivals since the start of this year.
You have to laugh — or else you’d cry.
Of course the policy was a nonsense anyway but, with his impressive talent for incompetence, the PM has managed to turn a joke into an abject farce.
Every victimhood under sun
This week, to much fanfare, we were told that the first Channel migrants — detained back in early August — would be flown to Paris.
Then we watched as seats booked on Air France flights from Heathrow were left empty as migrants lawyered up and pleaded every victimhood under the sun to fight against their “cruel” removal to the war-torn, tyrannical state of, er, France.
An Eritrean man, aged 25, whose mother paid people-smugglers £1,000 for his place on a dinghy to the UK, was the first to win a last-minute delay from the High Court over his forced removal.
It turns out that he is worried about being “destitute” in France — where he won’t be entitled to a four-star hotel room and three square meals a day — and had completely forgotten to mention that he had been a victim of human trafficking when he was first interviewed by UK border officials.
But miraculously — after a helpful chat with lawyers — he remembered that in fact he WAS trafficked after all.
And who are we to doubt his word?
After all, it’s an easy thing to forget, like forgetting to buy milk on the way home from work. We’ve all done it.
Forty of 100 migrants detained in August are now mounting legal challenges against deportation and the other 60 won’t be far behind, using every legal loophole in the European Convention on Human Rights, the Refugee Convention and more.
Against all of our expectations, though, at least one migrant has been deported to France this week.
The Indian man will most likely be paid to return to his home country as part of a returns deal signed between Paris and New Delhi.
Why we couldn’t do the same deal here in Britain will forever remain a mystery.
On Saturday, regardless of how many boat migrants we manage to send back to France, President Macron will be sending us a “group” of asylum seekers in return.
It’s the Government which is making a mockery of the British people.
Julia Hartley-Brewer
And each one of them will be entitled to free housing, healthcare and possibly to eventually bring their entire extended families to Britain to join them.
What a great deal for the British taxpayer, huh?
The Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood lambasted illegal migrants for using legal loopholes to fight their deportation as “making a mockery of our laws and this country’s generosity”.
But in truth it’s the Government which is making a mockery of the British people.
This pilot scheme, even if it is ever scaled up to the stated aim of exchanging 50 illegal migrants for another 50 so-called legitimate asylum seekers every week, would still mean the deportation of only one out of every 18 boat migrants.
Given that 5,590 Channel migrants have reached our shores since the scheme came into effect last month, that’s a drop in the ocean.
And the idea that anyone willing to pay people-smugglers to get on an overcrowded Channel dinghy will be deterred by the faint possibility they may one day be sent back to France is absurd.
Indeed, I expect the traffickers are already offering a guarantee of a free dinghy place for any returnees.
Why on Earth is the Government surprised that their cunning plan isn’t working?
We’re a laughing stock
Did they really think the entire industrial complex of refugee charities, NGOs, lawyers, Home Office civil servants and asylum tribunal judges who worked so hard to scupper the Rwanda scheme would suddenly change their minds, just because the Home Secretary wears a red rosette instead of blue?
The Home Office has even backed a charity called Bail For Immigration Detainees to advise illegal migrants how to use the law to stay in Britain.
Was the charity’s name not a tiny bit of a clue?
Yet they have been allowed to advise migrants and have even been funded to the tune of £400,000 with donations from Comic Relief.
There’s certainly nothing comical about that and we are once again a laughing stock. A nation state that can’t secure its own borders isn’t a country — it’s a dumping ground for the world.
If Starmer doesn’t get a grip on illegal migration soon, he will soon find that he will be the one out on his ear.
PM’S HANDING WIN TO HAMAS
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is set to formally recognise a Palestinian stateReuters
THIS weekend our Prime Minister will formally recognise a Palestinian state, bringing shame on Britain.
Sir Keir Starmer will insist this is about a homeland for the Palestinian people, not giving in to the Hamas terrorists who rule them. But that’s not true.
Hamas’s leaders (what’s left of them anyway) have already publicly thanked Starmer for this “victory”, a vindication for the October 7 massacre.
This is nothing but a grubby attempt by a failing Prime Minister to shore up his support among pro-Palestinian backbench Labour MPs and win over Muslim voters.
Not only does state recognition have no real meaning (where are the borders, who runs the government?), but it also sends a clear signal to every terror group around the world that massacres, taking hostages and using civilians as human shields while refusing to agree to a ceasefire are the surefire way to achieve their aims.
Starmer’s nonsense comes after a UN report absurdly claimed that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
It makes no mention of the October 7 attack, barely any reference to tunnels or hostages, and the Hamas fighters in Gaza barely get a mention at all.
The report may as well have been written by Hamas itself.
Yes, innocent civilians, including children, have died in the war in Gaza and every one of those deaths is a tragedy.
But, sadly, civilians die in EVERY war, and many more civilians are dying in other wars right now in Sudan and Yemen but the UN doesn’t issue reports condemning them for genocide. Why not?
Consider this fact: more bombs have been dropped on Gaza by the IDF than the number of people killed in Gaza (and that includes the 23,000 Hamas fighters who’ve been killed).
Does that suggest a reckless military attack with deliberate genocidal intent?
Of course it doesn’t – it proves the exact opposite.
Shame on Keir Starmer for abandoning and betraying Israel, our closest ally and the only democracy in the Middle East, in their time of need.
We will all live to regret it.
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