My first post on Farage’s ignorant nonsense about mass deportations showed that he’s got his sums horribly wrong and that what he has in mind cannot be done within the money he says he wants to throw at it. Now let’s look at some of the operational hoops through which he’ll have to jump.
Best place to start is with the nearest like-for-like – the Tory’s failed Rwanda scheme – technically the Migration and Economic Development Partnership. What ulimately sank this misguided back-of-a-fag-packet idea wasn’t the legal challenges from those alleged “political activist” solicitors or even the, at times massive, inertia of the Home Office.
It is very true that the Mandarins of Marsham Street weren’t keen on the policy, but ultimately they do what they’re told. (For evidence see the foreign national prisoners and asylum legacy operations – the two most obvious occasions when Labour Ministers had to clear up the mess left by more than a decade of Tory mismanagement.) It is also true that the Home Office had serious misgivings not just about the viability, but the value for money of the policy. The Permanent Seretary, Mathew Rycroft, wrote to Priti Patel (the Home Secretary) in April 2022 expressing those concerns and requesting a Ministerial Direction in order to proceed. This was given and plans went forward to make the policy operational.
(Also worth noting in that letter what the right-wing press and commentators don’t want you to remember – mainly that spend on hotels for asylum seekers was then running at £4.7 million a day. Daily Mail please note – the hotels were a Tory policy.)
No – the ultimate problem was that they couldn’t find a charter airline that would take the business. The Spanish carrier Privilege Style was contacted initially, but they withdrew after legal challenges halted the operation at the last minute. Two other carriers previously involved in UK deportation flights—Titan Airways and AirTanker—signed off as unwilling to support the Rwanda removals. Not even RwandAir would touch it, citing potential damage to its brand and reputation. As a last resort the Tory government tried to turn to the RAF for use of their fleet of Voyager aircraft. The Ministry of Defence responded with the line that “defence will always support other government departments if requested” which is actually Whitehall speak for “f*ck off, this isn’t our problem”!
Farago promises five flights a day. Assuming that the media coverage of his plans wil make the furore over Rwanda look like a spat at a vicarage tea party he’s going to have to look at using miltary aircraft. For five flights a day he’d probably need between 8 and 12 aircraft. The RAF only has 14 Voyagers, so he’d have to buy or lease in. The Voyager is actually a modified Airbus A330-200 and they come in at around £182 million – each.
Then there’s the fact that any removal from the UK depends on cooperation from other countries. We cannot, as some knuckleheads suggest, just stick ’em on a plane. You have to be sure that they’re not going to kick off once they’re in the air and you have to satisfy the aircraft captain on that. You have to be sure that the aircraft will be allowed to transit other nations’ airspace. You have to be sure that the receiving country will accept them.
Farago wants to withdraw the UK from the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees and the European Convention on Human Rights. He also talks about paying money to other states and, incredibly, the Taliban? The Taliban that has erased women from public life. The Taliban that has killed British military personnel. The Taliban that has funded terrorism on our streets. And he wants to get into bed with them.
There is a real risk with that lot under our belt that the rest of Europe will regard the UK as a rogue state and will refuse to co-operate with removal flights. Good luck flying to Afghanistan when you have to turn right at Dover!
There is only one very tiny bright spot since Farago revealed this dog’s breakfast. He’s bascktracking on the removal of UASCs – unaccompanied asylum seeking hildren – something from which every sane caseworker would flee. It’s a notorious and horrible legal minefield and you enter at your peril.
What’s clear from Farago’s drivel is that he hasn’t got any real idea what he’s talking about and is just chucking red meat at the flagshaggers. He claims he would be “solving” the problem of small boats, but it’s one of his own making.
Small boats only started arriving after we left Europe and lost access to the Dublin Cenvention – that useful little tool that allowed us to send people back over the Channel. Farago bears direct responsibility for that. His “policy” is unrealistic, impractical and morally reprehensible.
Farago is a seagull – he makes a huge amount of noise and flings crap everywhere, while knowing full-well that he’s never going to have to take responsibility and clean up his own mess. He never misses an opportunity to fly to the USA and bad-mouth the UK. All he does is inflame an already tense situation in order to boost the income of the limited company he laughingly calls a political party.