Will Rishi Sunak’s Channel migrant crackdown work?

The government’s inability to control our maritime border is a public scandal. Bold action is needed to make crossing the Channel pointless and put the people smugglers out of business. This will be impossible without major legal reform. So it is good news that the government is about to introduce new legislation to Parliament. 

The government’s Rwanda plan was well-intentioned. However, it not supported by a legislative mandate and was, predictably, challenged in the courts. In June last year, an attempt to implement the plan was blocked by a last-minute intervention by the European Court of Human Rights. The legal challenge in our courts continues and even if the government in the end prevails, the Strasbourg Court may still say no.

So, the existing legal framework is unworkable and legislative reform is required. The shape that legislation should take, in order to avoid repeating past failures, was set out in a recent paper for Policy Exchange, which I wrote with Sir Stephen Laws, a former First Parliamentary Counsel.  We