‘Don’t Make Me Laugh!’: Farage Doubts Govt Will Follow Through with Tough Sentences for Illegal Migrants

MAIDSTONE, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 26: Leader of the Brexit Party Nigel Farage speaks during t
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Victoria Friedman

Brexit leader Nigel Farage doubts that the British government will follow through in imprisoning migrants who enter the country illegally, saying the only way to stop the crisis in the English Channel is to turn the boats back to France.

Mr Farage made the remarks after it was revealed that the Nationality and Borders Bill, which saw its first debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday, seeks to impose prison sentences on migrants and people smugglers who illegally enter the UK on small boats coming from Europe in order to stop “asylum shopping”.

If passed, the law, devised by Home Secretary Priti Patel’s Home Office, would see migrants knowingly illegally enter the country after travelling through Europe face imprisonment for from six months to four years and people traffickers facing up to life in jail.

Mr Farage told GB News on Tuesday: “The idea that Priti Patel is going to put all these people in prison for up to four years — oh really? Don’t make me laugh! Two thousand came last month, and as the next few months go by, it’ll be even more. The prisons are full already.

“The European [Convention] for Human Rights is still written into British law and will make that, frankly, impossible.”

Mr Farage criticised Ms Patel for talking tough since August 2019, while now, numbers of landings are “going off the charts” with the capacities of the boats landing going from the dozens to some that can carry 70 people.

“And yes, they are nearly all young men between the age of 18 and 30 who come from war-torn parts of the world. They’ve left behind the women, left behind the children. They are not refugees in any classic sense of the term and they come here from a safe country called ‘France’,” Mr Farage observed.

Farage admitted, however, that while he called the home secretary “Priti Useless” in the past, gave Patel credit for admitting and “seriously” saying that the UK might need to tow the boats back to France.

“That is the only thing that will stop this happening,” Mr Farage said, detailing how Australia in 2012 experienced a similar migrant crisis and then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott instituted Operation Sovereign Borders and “turned those boats around, towed them back to Indonesia and do you know what happened? Boats stopped coming.

“That is the only remedy for this situation. We now have in this country 60,000 people who’ve entered illegally, who we’ve put up at taxpayers’ expense in four-star hotels, in private accommodation, and the whole thing is a scandal.

“Westminster doesn’t think it matters. Let me tell you: it Middle England, it matters hugely.”

Patel is also proposing in the bill withholding visas from countries that refuse to accept their own citizens back if they are illegal migrants, failed asylum seekers, or criminals whose permit to be in the UK has been revoked.

Other measures included in the bill are asylum seekers who arrive illegally not having the same entitlements to those who arrived via approved routes; a speeding-up of processing removals for failed asylum seekers; and foreign deported criminals who return facing jail terms of up to five years.

Former Conservative MP and Brexit Party MEP Ann Widdecombe said of Patel’s proposal to imprison illegals: “We need to see the detail. We don’t just need the talk, we need to see the walk.”

Asked whether she thought the threat of imprisonment would act as a deterrent, Ms Widdecombe told talkRADIO on Tuesday: “It might. I don’t actually set great store by the fact you’re making it a criminal offence. It already is a criminal offence to enter a country unlawfully.”

Further, the veteran conservative questioned the nature of the plans, given that current British prisons are overcrowded and thousands of asylum seekers are arriving illegally every year.

“The next thing we’ll have is, they’ve got to be bailed. And the next thing we’ll know is, they’ve gone. So, make it secure,” she said.

Instead, Widdecombe reiterated her long-held recommendation for all asylum seekers to be housed in “secure reception centres” so “where we know where they are”.

“Come on, Priti! Where are you going to site these things? How much is it going to cost? How many are they going to hold?” Widdecombe asked.

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