The B word (remember that?) was meant to takeback control. Control of immigration and control of our borders. Yet seven years after Brexit and nothing of the sort has happened.
In fact, it seems to have the opposite effect. Despite the rhetoric, thousands more people than ever are attempting the perilous Channel crossing and who knows how many desperate people are reattempting to get in via lorries.
Take Back Control has turned into Stop The Boats, the latest three-word slogan designed to grab the headlines. But like its predecessor it’s totally meaningless.
And the funny thing is everyone knows it. The Stop the Boats policy, or to give it its proper title the Illegal Migration Bill, seemed to be unravelling when it reached the House of Lords where peers sensibly asked for a series of amendments.
Back in the House of Commons on Tuesday night, MPs overturned 20 changes that had been asked for. More than a dozen senior Tory MPs including former Prime Minister Theresa May lined up to fight for a number of the amendments, criticise the bill and ask ministers to consider a different approach.
If the government has its way migrants who had been exploited would not be exempt from deportation and, as May said, this would “enable more slave-drivers to operate and make money out of human misery”.
She said they were telling women forced into prostitution “we don’t care that you’ve been in a living hell”. It would mean that there would be a legal duty for the UK to detain and remove migrants arriving illegally –either to Rwanda or another “safe” country.
And every migrant arriving by small boat or lorry, even those fleeing danger, would be deemed ‘illegal’. The Court of Appeal has already ruled that Rwanda is not a safe third country.
Even if the bill eventually goes through it will do nothing to deter often desperate people from paying gangs for the chance of a better life. What have they got to lose?
Isn’t it time to Stop the Farce? This is a global issue that needs global solutions not cheap one liners. The complex issues that drive migration have to be addressed and we need a system that above all is as fair and humane as it can possibly be.
