I'm waiting to hear just how the Home Secretary intends to put the "tougher deportation rules" into practice. He has already wide powers to deport anyone who he considers not conducive to the public good. So why on earth does he think he needs "tougher" powers? His problem is that any powers that are introduced will certainly have to be compliant with the Human Rights Act and specifically Article 3.
Blair's wittered on about this here . I'm afraid, unless they alter the Human Rights Act AND withdraw the UK's signature to the Convention, they will face precisely same dilemma I mentioned here last August.
Update 16:30 3 May 2006
George Pascoe-Watson in tommorow's SUN gets Blairs PMQ performance just right:
"Tony Blair was breathtaking in his cynical attempt to survive the foreign prisoner scandal.
He promised to deport every foreign prisoner after their sentence automatically. But there's not a chance that this will work.
It'll be ruled illegal by his own Human Rights Act."
And rightly so.
Blair equated foreign nationals with asylum seekers. He seemed quite unable to understand that a foreign national may well have lived for many years in the UK. He may have a family; kids at school;be running a business and employing folk. The idea that having been convicted of one offence, however serious, would lead to an automatic deportation, is just unfair. And the legislation to impose such nonsense is unlikely to come unscathed with any contact with the HRA.
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