Wednesday 15 June 2022

Rwanda: The sovereignty myth

So the deportation flight to Rwanda failed to get off the ground last night, stopped when not a single refugee remained on board after UK courts kept removing individual asylum seekers and finally the European Court of Human Rights intervened with minutes to spare. The flight started with 37 at first and was slowly whittled down to 7, then 6, then 3, then 2 and finally none. It was absolutely chaotic. We can only imagine what these poor sods have gone through. The Rwanda policy - like Brexit - is what you end up with if you try to solve the refugee ‘crisis’ by implementing the mad ideas of a deranged racist you once met in a pub after a night’s heavy drinking. The Nationality and Borders Bill is a rant made law.

And Brexit is certainly at the bottom of it. In an effort to 'take back control' of our borders we have lost control. As an EU member we could return asylum seekers coming across the Channel to France. Now we can’t. It is sheer insanity.

I have a friend that I have spoken about on here before. I have known him for more than fifty years. He’s a bit older than me, born pre-war. We don’t talk all that often now but in our younger days we met several times a week. He’s usually interesting and good company but he voted leave because 'we did OK before we joined the EU.'

When we talked about Brexit, which we avoid nowadays, he used to tell me he voted out because Britain couldn’t deport “that bloke with the hook.” He meant Abu Hamza who we had difficulty removing after he went round stirring up violence in various mosques. Theresa May finally had him extradited to the USA where, after a trial, he was found guilty of eleven terrorism charges. In 2015, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole

I have explained to my mate countless times that it was the European Court of Human Rights (EHCR) which stopped Hamza being sent to Jordan (I think) and this court has no connection to the EU whatsoever. We used to go through exactly same conversation about it every time we met after 2015. Whatever I said, however I tried to convince him, he simply could not get his mind around the fact that any official sounding body with European in the title wasn’t linked to or controlled by Brussels. In fact the ECHR is in Strasbourg.

Often he would simply ignore what I was saying, as if he thought I was wrong but he was too polite to say so.

I mention this today because last night's Rwanda flight was halted partly down to the orders of ECHR judges under Article 3 (preventing “degrading or inhuman treatment “) of the European Convention on Human Rights which Britain signed up to in 1951. British lawyers helped to design the fundamental charter of human rights and Churchill encouraged it.

My old friend must be shocked that having left the EU we are still unable to deport people. I wonder if the penny has dropped?  Brexit has been done at enormous cost to the exchequer, to trade and to the disruption of millions of lives and yet it has made not a ha'porth of difference to our ability to deport undesirables, the singular reason he voted to leave. It must be the costliest mistake in history.

Johnson, a man who is unable to stop digging no matter how deep the hole, is now doubling down and hinting to reporters that Britain may leave the ECHR:

Only two countries have ever left the convention, Greece temporarily after a military coup and Russia after they attacked Ukraine. What is Johnson even thinking?

The really weird thing is that we are trying to deport young able bodied men while job vacancies are at a record high and the economy is struggling to achieve any growth at all (in the last two months the economy shrank). Economists say labour shortages are one reason. We could solve both problems simply by making it easier to apply for refugee status.

Most of the 'illegal immigrants' are from Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan and well over 80% of cases are found to be genuine refugees who are granted leave to remain in the UK anyway.

And the bizarre thing is that Johnson is breaking international law in order to 'protect' the Good Friday Agreement. But this international treaty requires the ECHR to be implemented and enforceable in NI law (see page 7 of the GFA on safeguarding). 

Sir Jonathan Jones QC former head of UK government legal services, tweeted:

It would be a remarkable irony if leaving the ECHR meant tearing up the GFA which the Northern Ireland Protocol bill - introduced on Monday - is supposed to be protecting!

And note that article 692 (Termination) paragraph 2 of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement giving either party the right to terminate the agreement with 9 months notice, says this:

"However, if this Part is terminated on account of the United Kingdom or a Member State having denounced the European Convention on Human Rights or Protocols 1, 6 or 13 thereto, this Part shall cease to be in force as of the date that such denunciation becomes effective or, if the notification of its termination is made after that date, on the fifteenth day following such notification."

I think that means the TCA can then be terminated immediately if we leave the ECHR. Think about that.

The whole Brexit debacle has shown how we are bound by a complex web of hundreds of international treaties signed over centuries. Nothing more ably demonstrates the myth of national sovereignty.

Question: How can any Tory MP watch this stuff and think we have a functional government?

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