“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”, so says the oft-used, if likely misattributed, quotation. Yet this encapsulates what we’ve been doing in respect of the laws that have stopped tough action on small boat arrivals and deporting foreign criminals. We now need to be bold and admit that it’s time the UK left the European Convention on Human Rights.
Since small-boat arrivals began being recorded in 2018, over 150,000 people have crossed the channel in this way - that’s the equivalent of a city the size of Cambridge. And it is getting worse - numbers have surged by nearly a third since Labour came to power. After six months of this Labour Government, it is clear that they have no credible plan to tackle small boats or to drive through the changes needed to deliver deportations of foreign criminals at the scale or speed needed.
Secure borders are essential to keep our country safe, as is the ability to deport dangerous foreign criminals. Rightly, the public wants to see action. Boris Johnson’s pledge to ‘stop the boats’ was one of the key drivers behind his 2019 landslide election victory. Yet time and time again, it is the ECHR that has frustrated the progress of democratically elected Governments to deliver on their pledges to the British people.
Illegal migrants commonly use arguments under the ECHR, such as the “right to family life” to stay in the UK. The same is true of foreign criminals, including those convicted of the most serious crimes like murder, sexual offences and drug dealing, who routinely use ECHR arguments to avoid deportation.
The ECHR was also one of the central blockers to getting the Rwanda plan up and running, which as well as facilitating removals, had the potential to serve as an effective deterrent to prevent people from making a dangerous journey to the UK when they are already in a safe third country.
Whilst in the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, I authored a paper for the then prime minister recommending that leaving the ECHR was the only certain way to tackle small boats - but it was felt too many then Cabinet colleagues were opposed. This meant in government we weren’t bold enough to commit to leave as I had advised. Instead, we sought incremental improvements elsewhere. Whilst welcome, they simply couldn’t deliver the fundamental change that people wanted. And, partially as a result of this, we now have a Labour Government that will do even less.
