SUELLA Braverman has claimed that the Conservative Party faces “electoral oblivion” if they cannot pass legislation which allows the UK Government to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.
The former home secretary was granted permission to make a personal statement in the House of Commons on Wednesday after being sacked by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak last month.
During her speech Braverman took aim at Sunak and said her support of him was conditional on whether he could secure the passing of a bill which allowed the UK to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.
She also suggested "nightingale star detention facilities" to handle "mass, uncontrolled, illegal immigration” like emergency hospitals during the pandemic.
Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that the asylum seekers plan was “unlawful” as it did not consider Rwanda a safe country for refugees.
“On Monday, the Prime Minister announced measures that start to better reflect public frustration on legal migration” she said.
“He can now follow that up with a bill that reflects public fury on illegal migration and actually stops the boats.
“It is now or never. The Conservative Party faces electoral oblivion in a matter of months if we introduce yet another bill destined to fail. Do we fight for sovereignty or do we let our party die?
“I may not have always found the right words in the past, but I refuse to sit by and allow us to fail. The trust that millions of people placed in us cannot be discarded as an inconvenient detail.
“If we summon the political courage to do what is truly necessary, difficult though it may be, to fight for the British people we will regain their trust. And, if the Prime Minister leads that fight, he has my total support.”
Earlier in her speech Braverman said she expected emergency legislation to be brought forward by the government which would address the Supreme Court’s concerns and allow the deportation of migrants to Rwanda.
She added that she had previously advocated for the Illegal Migration Act to be scrapped in favour of an alternative that excluded human rights law.
She said: “Previous attempts have failed because they did not address the root cause of the problem: expansive human rights laws flowing from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), replicated in Labour’s Human Rights Act, are being interpreted elastically by courts domestic and foreign to literally prevent our Rwanda plan from getting off the ground.
“And this problem relates to so much more than just illegal arrivals. From my time as home secretary, I can say that the same human rights framework is producing insanities that the public would scarcely believe.
“Foreign terrorists we can’t deport – because of their human rights. Terrorists that we have to let back in – because of their human rights. Foreign rapists and paedophiles who should have been removed but are released back into the community only to reoffend – because of their human rights.”
She also called for “Nightingale-style detention facilities” to be set up to house migrants.
So-called Nightingale hospitals were opened in various locations throughout England during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The temporary hospitals were hastily constructed mainly within exhibition centres.
However, many of the facilities were barely used despite costing millions to set up.
“Just as we rapidly built Nightingale hospitals to deal with Covid, so we must build Nightingale-style detention facilities to deliver the necessary capacity.
“Greece and Turkey have done so and the only way to do this, as I advocated for in Government, is with support from the Ministry of Defence.
“Parliament must be prepared to sit over Christmas to get this bill done.
“All of this comes down to a simple question: who governs Britain? Where does ultimate authority for the UK lie? Is it with the British people and their elected representatives or is it in the vague, shifting and unaccountable concept of ‘international law’?”
Yesterday, the UK Government signed a new treaty with Rwanda, which is the first step to reviving the legislation after it was shot down by the Supreme Court.
It comes after it was revealed by the journalist Peter Geoghegan that the Home Office has spent more than £2.1 million fighting legal challenges over its Rwanda policy - with the Supreme Court case alone costing nearly £300,000.
