Rishi Sunak rounded on “lefty lawyers” on Wednesday who he said were thwarting efforts to crack down on illegal migration, amid growing signs that the government wants to turn the issue into an election “culture war”.
Meanwhile, home secretary Suella Braverman purportedly wrote to Tory party members claiming “an activist blob of leftwing lawyers, civil servants and the Labour party” had opposed legislative attempts to curb small-boat crossings in the Channel.
The attacks prompted claims by Labour that the new illegal migration bill was a “gimmick” intended to allow the Tories to portray their opponents as being soft on immigration.
The prime minister told MPs that the government had a “clear plan” to stop small-boat crossings while defending its bill, which bars individuals considered to have entered Britain illegally from claiming asylum.
The legislation, unveiled in the House of Commons on Tuesday, aims to reduce the number of people entering the UK across the Channel, which last year reached a record 45,000. If passed, it would impose a “legal duty” on the home secretary to remove asylum seekers to a “safe” third country or to their country of origin.
But in a letter to MPs on Tuesday, Braverman said the chance that the bill would breach Britain’s commitments under the European Convention on Human Rights was “more than 50 per cent”.
The legislation is expected to be heavily contested in parliament and in the courts, setting the scene for Sunak to blame others for trying to thwart his efforts to “stop the boats”.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Sunak accused Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer of being “just another lefty lawyer standing in our way”.
Earlier on Wednesday, Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA civil service union, accused Braverman of breaching the ministerial code with her email.
In a letter, Penman wrote: “The brigading of civil servants with leftwing lawyers and the Labour party is a direct attack on the integrity and impartiality of the thousands of civil servants who loyally serve the home secretary.”
Downing Street said Braverman had not approved the email, while the Conservative party later said “the wording wasn’t seen by the home secretary” and that it was “reviewing [its] internal clearance processes”.
Meanwhile, the Bar Council said the attacks by Sunak and Braverman betrayed “a startling and regrettable ignorance” of the role of lawyers representing clients within the legal framework created by parliament.
Opposition parties and rights organisations have questioned both the morality and practicality of the policy in light of challenges to the government’s plan to deport some asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Starmer said on Wednesday that ministers had “lost control of the border” and their plans drove “a coach and horses” through the UK’s “world-leading modern slavery framework”.
Ylva Johansson, EU commissioner for home affairs, told a Politico event in Brussels that she had told Braverman “that I think that this is violating international law”.
The UN Refugee Agency also said it was “profoundly concerned” the bill amounted to an asylum ban, “extinguishing the right to seek refugee protection in the UK”.
The bill has also drawn opposition from some business groups. Richard Burge, head of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that although he had no legal reason to be involved in the controversy, he did have a “legitimate view of the damage [the bill posed] to the UK as a trading nation”.
Meanwhile, research published on Thursday suggested public attitudes to immigration across the board had softened markedly since Brexit, even though net migration has hit record highs.
UK in a Changing Europe, a think-tank, and Oxford university’s Migration Observatory said almost half of the public believed it was a force for good, compared with 29 per cent who disagreed. Only one in 10 thought it was a top issue of public concern.
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