Keir Starmer’s government has grudgingly accepted publicly something it has privately known for months: voters are deadly serious about what they see as uncontrolled immigration. Despite the best attempts of the Prime Minister to make vacuous promises to “smash the gangs”, they can no longer be fobbed off.
Labour’s real problem is that on immigration and human rights it has painted itself into a corner
This realisation has led to a flurry of announcements from the Home Secretary. Yvette Cooper has said that serious sex offenders will be automatically denied asylum. To prevent undesirables avoiding deportation on unmeritorious human rights grounds, Cooper has also promised “a stronger framework,” that would be “backed by Parliament,” and would require international law (meaning the European Convention on Human Rights, or ECHR) to be interpreted with an emphasis on “common sense”.
This is clearly a pre-local election charm offensive aimed at winning over wavering voters. It is also one that roundly deserves to fail, being both disingenuous and borderline deceptive.
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