There is a perverse pleasure to be had by Watching the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, try to maintain her composure -her ‘move along, nothing to see her’ attitude- when questioned about illegal immigration.
It is such a contrast to the anger and venom she exhibited when questioning Conservative ministers about it from the Opposition side of the Commons.
She would rant about how Labour would work much more closely with France to ‘smash the gangs’ and to co-operate over returns, so that there would be no need for implementing the Rwanda scheme.
Now having repealed the Rwanda legislation (writing-off the investment before it even got started), she is scrabbling to find an alternative venue. The PM was humiliated in public when Albania announced it wouldn’t be there. Now, apparently, we are trying for Kosovo.
As for co-operation, performance by the French stopping a proportion of the boats has fallen sharply. Their police (for whom we are paying) just stand and watch.
The reality is that since Yvette Cooper took on the Job, all previous records have been broken by the number of boats and migrants now coming ashore.
If we are to solve this problem, illegal migrants must know that there is a probability that they will end up somewhere else. Labour has removed the possibility of that deterrent.
We need to restore a scheme to send them elsewhere, but we also need the certainty that we will not be stopped from doing so by the courts, in defence of their human rights. Last weekend, the hapless Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, announced that we are not even going to try
Sir Desmond Swayne TD
