The Rwanda Plan: What People Think
Ahead of a crunch vote that could make or break Rishi Sunak
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Immigration laws, Thomas Sowell once said, are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them.
I suspect many British people have been thinking much the same in recent months as they listened to their rulers debate the small boats crisis.
Rather than wanting to solve the crisis—which has so far seen more than 111,000 migrants leave the safe haven of France to enter Britain illegally— it appears many of the people who are now running Britain do not want to solve it at all.
This can be seen in the latest reaction to Rishi Sunak’s so-called ‘Rwanda plan’ for dealing with the crisis, which he inherited from Boris Johnson and is returning to parliament next week for a crunch vote.
The Rwanda plan seeks to deter illegal migrants and refugees from risking their lives in the Channel by making it clear that once they arrive in Britain they will be relocated to Rwanda, where they will have their claims processed.
But much of Westminster and the new elite oppose the plan. The opposition Labour Party, under Keir Starmer, not only oppose the policy but, if the party wins the 2024 election, which seems likely, has pledged to repeal the plan altogether.
While Britain’s National Crime Agency has openly admitted threatening to deport illegal migrants to another country is probably the only thing that will work, Labour is instead choosing to talk in vague terms about “smashing the gangs” of people-smugglers, which the National Crime Agency has said won’t come close to working.
‘Establishment Tories’, meanwhile, also oppose the current version of the plan, which was toughened up after a court ruling last year. These liberal Tories tend to think the plan is too tough, risks breaking international law and conventions, like the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), and therefore should be softened.
Much of this is also influenced by how Establishment Tories, unlike their National Conservative counterparts, ultimately view migration issues as ‘low-status’, as things they would rather not have to deal with and which they don’t really prioritise.
This is why they appear remarkably relaxed about sending legal migration to record highs and now want to soften the response to illegal migration —despite the fact stopping the boats is now the top priority for their own Conservative voters.
And then alongside Labour and the Establishment Tories come all the columnists, commentators and celebrities from the Luxury Belief Class —people who routinely advocate policies which cement their status among other elites, which impose few if any costs on themselves, but which impose very high costs on everybody else.
From actor Brian Cox, whose main residence happens to be in New York, to Emma Thompson, who just achieved “her lifelong dream” of moving to Venice, Italy, countless members of the Luxury Belief Class have lined up to variously denounce the Rwanda plan as “cruel”, “unkind”, and “racist” —while simultaneously offering no serious or viable alternative to resolving a problem that will only escalate as the global refugee crises increasingly imposes itself on Western democracies.
What’s missing in all this, you might ask? What's missing in the “debate” about a crisis which is now costing the British taxpayer £3.6 billion a year and, if left unresolved, will soon cost them £11 billion a year by the year 2026?
The answer is the British people. That’s what’s missing.
What’s missing are the very people up and down the country who actually have to pay for this unfolding crisis and live with its routinely negative effects —from crime and general disorder to the ongoing erosion of social cohesion.
So, ahead of the crunch vote in parliament next week —a vote that could make or break Rishi Sunak— what do ordinary British people think about the plan? Well, keep reading and let me tell you what I told some MPs this week …
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