Nigel Farage has warned that “nothing” Home Secretary Priti Patel’s proposed to curb illegal boat migration will work, including her reported plans to push for harsher prison sentences for illegal migration.
On Tuesday, Home Secretary Priti Patel will introduce her Nationality and Borders Bill in Parliament. The legislation has been long been touted as the means through with the government will finally fix the United Kingdom’s “broken” immigration system.
According to a report from The Telegraph, Patel will seek to introduce a new criminal offence for people arriving illegally in the country, with a maximum prison sentence of four years. The crackdown would also introduce life sentences for those involved in the deadly people-smuggling trade.
A Home Office source told the paper that the clause would specifically target boat migrants “so that it encompasses arrival, as well as entry into the UK. This will allow prosecutions of individuals who are intercepted in UK territorial seas and brought into the UK who arrive in but don’t technically ‘enter’ the UK.”
Appearing on GB News, the Brexit leader responded to the report by saying: “Don’t make me laugh.”
“With every extra few thousand that come, we get a statement from the Home Secretary, we’re going to have the RAF in the Channel, we’re going to have drones in the Channel, we are going to have long prison sentences.”
“The prospect of people arriving by boat being put straight into prison, I would have thought that given the Human Rights Act and given that we are still part of the European Convention on Human Rights is just about zero,” Farage warned.
Mr Farage went on to cite reports that people-smuggling gangs have been using larger dinghies which can hold up to 70 people, warning that these unseaworthy vessels will result in more migrants drowning in the English Channel.
“We saw 43 people drown in the Mediterranean yesterday, honestly, there is going to be a very major tragedy in the Channel before too long,” he said.
The Brexiteer noted said that while the mainstream media often highlights pictures of young women and children, he said that it is overwhelmingly young men between the ages of 18 and 30 who are arriving.
“Very few have identity documents, they deliberately throw them away, because if you don’t know where they are from. Even if you had the will or were allowed to legally deport them you can’t do it because where would you send them?”
“I’m going to stick my neck out and say that at least 20,000 come this year through the Dover route, and nothing Priti Patel has said is going to work,” Farage concluded.
Writing in the Express, the Home Secretary said: “The British people have simply had enough of illegal migration and the abuse of our asylum system.”
“This week we will introduce new legislation to tackle this issue by going after the gangs exploiting people, deterring illegal entry into the UK, introducing new and tougher criminal offences for those attempting to enter the UK illegally, strengthening our ability to remove those with no legal right to be in the UK and reforming the broken asylum system.”
“Through these and many other measures in the new legislation, we are determined to bring lasting change to the system so that it is fair to those who need our help when fleeing persecution and in need of genuine asylum.”
Her pronouncements come as another 212 illegal immigrants landed on Sunday, bringing the total number of migrants who reached British shores since the start of the year to almost 6,000, more than double seen during last year’s banner year in which over 8,100 arrived during the whole of the year.
Meanwhile, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has announced it will no longer bother to prosecute migrants for illegal entry even under the existing legal framework in most cases — a move which would render Patel’s proposed tougher penalties and so on meaningless.
Mr Farage, among others, has argued that the only way to stop the waves of illegal migrants will be for the British government to adopt a ‘send back the boats‘ approach unilaterally, as was successfully implemented in Australia.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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