Boris Johnson’s flagship plan to send economic migrants to Rwanda may not start for months in the face of legal action by human rights groups, Downing Street indicated today. The Government had wanted flights to Kigali to start by the end of May under the £120million deal it secured with the Kagame government last month.



Under the partnership agreement, people arriving in the UK, including by crossing the Channel in small boats, will be flown 4,000 miles to East Africa if they are deemed to have travelled illegally for economic reasons rather than asylum. But No10 yesterday said it could not put a timescale on when the scheme will begin. Last week two asylum seekers who came to Britain in the backs of lorries this year instructed lawyers to bring a legal challenge against the policy.

Around 550 people have crossed from France in small boats in the last two days following an 11-day pause, casting doubts over claims by some Conservative MPs that the Rwanda threat is already acting as a deterrent. The Border Force union has suggested that criminal gangs are using the policy to extort more money from migrants “before things change”.

Nobody here will be the least bit surprised if the legal bid to block the scheme succeeds. The rights of immigration cheats always trump the majority interest in the courts. Very soon we’ll be back to square one.

You could be forgiven for thinking the Tories have no intention of tackling this issue and that there’s a secret agreement with France to take a quota of itinerant scroungers. Either that or the issue is of no importance to anyone in the Cabinet. Either way, there is no sense of urgency. If the last two days set the precedent for the coming week then the new reception facility at Linton on Ouse will be at capacity days after opening.

This is no longer a matter of stretched resources. This is rapidly becoming a national security issue. The system was already saturated over a year ago, and now every town and city will have loitering migrants causing disturbances. Allowing more fighting age men to make the Channel crossing only throws more petrol on the bonfire. It’s only a matter of time before we see an explosion of violence.

Thanks to Tony Blair, the Human Rights Act turned into a lawyers’ get rich quick scheme. By failing to repeal or modify the Act, and by not dealing with the international Conventions on human rights and refugees, the government is caught in a legal trap, potentially having to pay millions in compensation if the court case(s) go against it. Removing these legal instruments should have been the first order of business for any government calling itself conservative.

Arguably it falls under the Brexit mandate and is unfinished business. Still, though, we only get vague promises of action in the next parliament. The government is pegging its hopes on the Nationality and Borders Act but will do nothing to prevent it being shot down in the courts by activist NGOs. Patel’s plan is going to fail – and she knows it. Every single assurance or promise from this government has been a lie. The situation is deteriorating by the day. The Tories have lost control of our borders.

This issue undermines the basic civic contract and makes a joke of our entire immigration system. Until we have a government willing to completely overhaul the human rights apparatus there will be no end to this invasion and we can expect to see a surge of political extremism. Anti-immigration sentiment is already coming back with a vengeance and if people feel their government has abandoned border control then we will see vigilante groups and a surge of racism. Effective border controls are essential to keeping the peace, and by failing in their most basic obligations, the Tories are putting the entire nation in danger.

We know where this goes now. Sweden has failed to integrate the vast numbers of immigrants it has taken in over the past two decades, leading to parallel societies and gang violence. Many Swedes were shocked earlier this month after violent riots left more than 100 police injured. The violence erupted after a Swedish-Danish politician burned the Quran at a rally and sought to hold more in several immigrant-dominated neighbourhoods. 

Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson blamed criminals and said both Islamism and right-wing extremism had been allowed to fester in Sweden, in unusually frank and self-critical comments. “Segregation has been allowed to go so far that we have parallel societies in Sweden. We live in the same country but in completely different realities,” Andersson told a news conference. “Integration has been too poor at the same time as we have had a large immigration. Society has been too weak, resources for the police and social services have been too weak,” she said.

So there you have it. Rapid influxes of immigrants from the third world causes crime, civil unrest and pushes public services to breaking point. Nobody is surprised but still we are to ignore the elephant in the room. The media will keep brushing the consequences under the carpet, anyone speaking about it on Twitter will be shadow-banned and politicians will keep ignoring it. Of the mainstream parties, not one of them has a plan to address immigration, not least because they don’t want to. This can only end in fire.