Chris Philp: Time to toughen up on immigration and end the Human Rights Act farce

Rt Hon Chris Philp MP is the Shadow Home Secretary.

Immigration into the UK has been far too high of late – and far too many people with no right to be here have been allowed to get in and then stay.

Kemi Badenoch and I have been honest in saying that previous Governments – including recent Conservative ones – made very serious mistakes on this issue.

This is serious because strong borders matter.

A nation state cannot function unless it controls and limits who comes in.  Illegal immigration is a security risk and means numbers cannot be controlled.  Legal migration that is too high (as it has been too high – far too high) puts stress on public services and undermines social cohesion.

Social cohesion maters because a shared sense of national identify is a requirement for a nation state to function.   Recent research has also shown that low-wage migration is actually bad for the economy – it turns out that low-wage immigrant workers overall cost other taxpayers’ money.

But now the Conservatives are under new leadership, and we have a new approach. Kemi and I are working on specific and credible plans to end mass migration and make sure those with no right to be here are quickly removed.

We have already said that we would introduce a binding annual migration cap – at a level far, far below those levels recently seen. Parliament would vote on this each year, and the UK would simply stop issuing visas in each category when its cap is hit. We will press this idea to a vote as an amendment to the Borders Bill as it goes through Parliament.

We have also announced that we would make sure people who come here to work but who do not make a net economic contribution would never get Indefinite Leave to Remain. Instead, they  would be required to leave when their visa expires.  It is unfair and immoral that those who have recently arrived and paid no tax or little tax should be a cost to everyone else. Benefits, public services and social housing are entitlements to be earned, not taken soon after arrival.

Now we must go further and also make sure that foreign criminals and people with no right to be in the UK are quickly removed.

I am angry that recent Immigration Tribunal decisions have allowed dangerous foreign criminals and others to stay in the UK on obviously spurious human rights grounds.

One serious Albanian criminal was allowed to stay because he was apparently a role model for his daughter.  An Iraqi drug dealer was allowed to stay in the UK because he had allegedly become too “westernised” to be returned to Iraq.

A Polish drug dealer was allowed to stay as he claimed he couldn’t speak Polish.  A Jamaican rapist avoided being returned because he purported to be bisexual.  A convicted Zimbabwean paedophile was allowed to stay in the UK because he might face some “hostility” back home.

The list goes on and on.  But what about the human rights of British citizens to be protected from these dangerous criminals?  What about sovereignty of our elected Parliament to set the rules about who can stay here?

The cases just mentioned were all decided by British Judges.  They used the Human Rights Act 1998, which lets them apply their interpretation of the ECHR in a UK court. The problem is that the ECHR is very vaguely worded – containing articles like “a right to a family life” or “freedom from degrading treatment”.

These clauses have been interpreted by the UK courts in increasingly bizarre ways that often defy common sense. The practical effect has been to allow dangerous foreign criminals or people with no right to be here to stay.

This madness has to end.

That is why, last week, I laid a further crucial amendment to Labour’s Border Security and Immigration Bill.

The amendment will disapply the Human Rights Act from all immigration matters – including the granting or removal of immigration and asylum status, and deportations. If passed, it will put an end to the abuse of our courts with spurious claims from those with no right to be in the UK. It would end the expansive interpretations of the ECHR by UK Judges – interpretations with no grounding in common sense which have seen dangerous foreign criminals allowed to stay.

The amendment also allows Ministers to disregard interim judgements by the Strasbourg Court – ensuring that an appeal to Strasbourg under the ECHR does not prevent removal. We will see if the Labour Party is prepared to back this amendment when we put it to a vote in Parliament. My expectation is that Labour will refuse to stand up for the British national interest by backing our amendment. Keir Starmer is a weak Prime Minister, leading a weak Government.

As soon as Labour took office, they scrapped the Rwanda deterrent before it even started – despite the National Crime Agency said that that a removals deterrent was needed.

As a consequence, the number of illegal immigrants crossing the channel is up by 28 per cent since the election. The start to 2025 has been the worst ever for illegal immigrants crossing the channel.  The number of illegal immigrants in hotels is up 8,500 since the election as a result of all this – costing taxpayers billions.

Starmer is too weak to support the tough measures needed to control our border and restore common sense over who is allowed to stay here.  The Reform Party has good slogans, but – as their own MP Rupert Lowe recently admitted to his cost – no actual plans or ideas for how to achieve their objectives.

The Conservatives are now under new Leadership and we are now taking a new approach. Only the Conservatives have the will to fix this problems and also proper, thought-through plans to deliver. The amendments I laid in Parliament last week are important step along the path to fixing the country’s immigration mess.

But these are just the start.  As the new Shadow Home Secretary, I am determined that we will develop the detailed and credible plans needed to slash legal immigration numbers and end illegal immigration.

The future of our country and our national interest demands nothing less.