The national archive has released official papers which suggested Tony Blair was considering sending asylum seekers to the Isle of Mull to help drive down the numbers entering the UK.
The papers released under the 20-year rule said that a top aide to the former prime minister considered this a “nuclear option” for tackling the country’s growing asylum problem. Putting people back on the planes they’d just got off with no right of appeal was also considered.
Drawn up just months before the US and UK invaded Iraq, the scheme also called for the creation of a series of regional “safe havens” in countries such as South Africa and Turkey, where refugees who could not be returned to their own country would be sent.
Although in the event the scheme was not taken up, it echoes the debate still taking place more than 20 years later around Rishi Sunak’s plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.
The papers also showed that Blair also wanted to overrule or sidestep the European Convention on Human Rights to deport asylum seekers.
After Home Office lawyers warned that the measures would fall foul of the Geneva Convention on refugees, Sir Tony scrawled, “Just return them”. He added: “This is precisely the point. We must not allow the ECHR to stop us dealing with it.”
These revelations come in the wake of Conservative Lee Anderson, who cynically suggested that the Orkney Islands would be perfect for people fleeing persecution.
So, it seems the War Hawk Tony Blair tried to curb immigration, which you probably find surprising in light of his famous “rub the rights nose in diversity” statement.
It does make you wonder if Blair and Co did have a conscience and were weary of mass immigration damaging the fabric of our Homeland beyond repair, no matter how much he hated the right.
Perhaps after the senior civil servant types had told him what he couldn’t do, he just took the easy option and allowed the floodgates to open whilst calling anyone who protested a racist.
That is probably a very likely option; however, it’s not within the realms of possibility that these papers coming out and hitting the headlines could also be the powers that be painting the picture that the Labour Party is the anti-immigration party. Sowing this seed now isn’t the worst idea, with an election fast approaching.
After all, anti-immigration rhetoric is an election winner and seeing how fundamentally pro-Israel the labour leadership is, we could see a scenario where they target the centre-swing voters in light of labour support in the Muslim community nose-driving.
To make it an absolute landslide, perhaps Starmer and his gang should ask for a referendum on immigration and let the people decide.
