Tony Smith says leaving the ECHR would not be enough

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 41:22

   Suela Braverman, a bunch of people who all have a different perspective on these things. Suela Braverman, who was here recently, her argument is, you can't deal with this until you leave the ECHR. Is that your view or do you think that's wrong? No, you do need to do that, but you need to do a load more stuff as well as that. So even that's not enough. No. So the ECHR, we have to leave for us to be able to enforce our border.

2. 41:47

   Yeah, because what you've got to do is redefine the relationship between our laws and international laws. That's where I came in. I told you, when I started, we didn't take any notice of human rights. sent people back. But now, because the lawyers have crept in, and they call it judicial overreach because of judgements, you've got to, if you're running a country, you've got to change that relationship between ourselves and international law. That means looking again at our relationship with the ECHR. The Refugee Convention has got a get-out clause already in it, which is in Article 31. Because Article 31 of the Refugee Convention says you must be in immediate fear of persecution to claim asylum. So that was brought in 20 years ago when i was there we said well you're coming from france you're not in immediate fear

3. 42:32

   of persecution that's how we did the third country removal so that's what the tories relied on for the rwanda plan right that's what this lot relied on for the one-to-one scheme right you could go to your court and say well he's not in immediate phase in france yeah so there is already there's nothing in the echl that allows that there's nothing in the model so why doesn't that work why doesn't that carve out apply now why can't we because it's because you then lodged an application for human rights.

4. 42:56

   So you logically can't... So this is what the last government did on the Rwanda plan, is they stacked up a lot of cases and served them all with notice when they came off to say, right, you're not an immediate purpose. We're not going to admit you into the asylum system at all. But they hadn't got the route out to Rwanda. And then whilst that was going on, the lawyers said, well, all right, then we're going to claim human rights.

5. 43:15

   You know, we've got family life or we've got infealming or degrading treatment. So then what were you going to do about all those human rights applications that were coming in whilst they were in limbo you've still got, now you could have said well alright, we'll still remove them to Rwanda and we'll consider the human rights application, if you win it we'll bring you back from Rwanda, how do you want to do that, what you really want is a law that says you can't claim human rights at all, you can't claim anything you can't claim modern slavery human rights or asylum if you come from France without a document, that's what I would like to see, I'm not a policy wonk, but that's what my instruction would be at policy making Write a policy, write a legislation that's watertight enough.

6. 43:55

   It's going to get challenged, as the Rwanda plan was. It's going to get challenged in the courts. It's going to get challenged in the Lords. And they don't rush. They are quite happy to take their time. So the Rwanda plan, you know, was first mooted, like, two years before the election when Boris first. And I was down there at Lid when he announced it. I thought, oh, that's quite a good idea. I wonder if this is going to work or not.

7. 44:16

   But the government of the day, that's his government, and the SUNAT government did not go far enough on this human rights issue. That's why Suella Braverman and Rob Jenwick both resigned from the Conservatives because they were in that government. They were there at the time, but they could see this was happening. They said, well, this isn't going to work, is it? I mean, we've got to go further on the Illegal Migration Act 2023, and the Tory party didn't.

8. 44:40

   They would not go any further with some of those amendments. That's why they both left in the end. And so you've still got this. And then, of course, the next government came in with a vowed intent to abolish Rwanda. I mean, I remember Starmer standing on the cliffs of Dover a couple of weeks before. So the first thing I'm going to do is abolish this Rwanda plan, which I thought, oh, my God, my head was in my hands.

9. 45:00

   I said, well, you can do that. Smash the gangs. So I knew that wasn't going to work and it didn't work. And you've got to get back to basics and you've got to get back to a position I was in in the 70s and the 80s. Vest the power in law in your immigration officers, Border Force officers at the border to make a decision on somebody and to allow them to remove that person from the country. You've got to get that somehow through this tension between international law and domestic law empowered so that we can get back to the future and we can start doing the things that I was doing when I was an immigration officer and put all this international law stuff because it's hopelessly out of date.

10. 45:37

    It's broken. It's completely broken. It's no longer delivering what the asylum system was meant to deliver in the first place. It's actually completely being misused by smugglers and illegal migrants to get into the country, and it's causing mayhem. Tony, you know, I'm listening to this, and what you're doing is providing a forensic analysis, which is brilliant. There's a part of me that's really silly.