Farage plan to control illegal migration ‘extreme’ and ‘misleading’ Jewish lawyers say
Human rights barrister Adam Wagner KC and legal expert Joshua Rozenberg join widespread criticism of Reform plan
Two of the UK’s most respected Jewish lawyers have joined criticism of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s plan to control migration by withdrawing from long-held human rights protections as “legally extreme” and fundamentally misleading.
Leading human rights barrister Adam Wagner KC and legal expert Joshua Rozenberg joined the lengthy list of those responding negatively to Farage’s announcement on Monday that if elected into government, his party would repeal the Human Rights Act, leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and disapply the 1951 Refugee Convention and UN Convention against torture.
Wagner and Rozenberg both highlighted the fact that British common law also contained a lot of the rights reserved for those attempting to claim asylum or remain in this country, including the right to a fair trial, freedom of religion, and the right not to be tortured.
Rozenberg said:”Even if the UK were to leave the Human Rights Convention, judges would still apply Common Law principles, and they may well find ways of blocking the sort of extreme idea of sending people back to countries where they are likely to face torture or death, but Mr Farage seems to say it’s a price worth paying.”
He noted Farage was pushing the idea of a British Bill of Rights, but after the Reform leader unveiled his plans at a press conference, Rozenberg said he had “not gone into much detail about how that would work” at the press conference.
Legal commentator Rozenberg also said any legislation proposed by Reform would take at least a year to proceed through parliament, and would almost certainly come under challenge in the Lords, where Farage’s party, even if winning the next election, would not have a majority.
Wagner was also scathing of Farage’s plans. “A lot of the rights contained in the European Convention come from British common law: the right to a fair trial, freedom of religion, and the right not to be tortured,” he said.
“Farage may believe repealing treaties clears the path for mass deportations, but UK courts are not bound to ignore centuries of legal tradition,” he added. Appearing alongside ally Zia Yusuf, Farage announced plans for his Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill. Farage claimed the boats will stop “within days” as a result of Reform UK’s policies, while pledging to “deport and detain” all illegal migrants.
He claimed he would be able to deport roughly half a million people over five years, while insisting it would only cost around £10bn.
Women and children would be detained on arrival under Reform’s plans for tackling illegal immigration, Farage said.
To combat the small boat crossings, Yusuf also said Reform would launch ‘Operation Restoring Justice’, which he said was a five-year emergency programme to “track down, detain and deport all illegal immigrants in the United Kingdom”.
“It will also immediately stop the boats from coming,” he claimed, describing it as an “ironclad consequence”.
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