← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · hqz
Thread ID: 12551 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2004-02-29
2004-02-29 02:22 | User Profile
The move will be seen as the latest stage in Tory leader [Jew]Michael Howard's careful attempts to reposition his party on immigration, which began with a controversial speech in Burnley denouncing the BNP as bigots and telling the story of how his grandmother had died in a Nazi death camp.
Tories come to defence of immigrants
Howard accused of hypocrisy over party rebranding
Gaby Hinsliff, chief political correspondent Sunday February 29, 2004 The Observer
The Tories will tomorrow rise to the defence of rejected asylum-seekers in a startling new attempt to rebrand the party as anti-racist and tolerant of immigration.
They will line up with Labour rebels, civil-liberties groups and refugee charities in opposing government plans to scrap asylum-seekers' legal right of appeal, sparking furious charges of hypocrisy from Labour aides.
Shadow frontbencher Dominic Grieve insisted the plan was 'fundamentally wrong' and the Tories would vote against it when the Government's Asylum Bill comes before the Commons tomorrow: 'We are sympathetic to the Government's concerns that the system of appeals has been massively abused by a small number of unscrupulous lawyers spinning out proceedings. But we consider it fundamentally wrong to oust the jurisdiction of the higher courts.
'It's unheard of, it's never been done before and it's beyond my comprehension frankly as to how the Home Office came up with it. We hope that what we are doing will meet their concerns while making sure that civil liberties are protected.'
The move will be seen as the latest stage in Tory leader Michael Howard's careful attempts to reposition his party on immigration, which began with a controversial speech in Burnley denouncing the BNP as bigots and telling the story of how his grandmother had died in a Nazi death camp. He went on to strip backbencher Ann Winterton of the party whip for telling an offensive joke about the dead Chinese cockle-pickers.
Beverly Hughes, the Immigration Minister, will tomorrow unveil fresh concessions over another controversial aspect of the Asylum Bill, which would see asylum-seekers jailed for two years if they deliberately destroy identity documents on arrival in Britain.
She will make clear that children or 'vulnerable' adults forced to jettison their papers by those smuggling them into the country would not be prosecuted. Refugee groups had objected that traffickers often make their clients destroy passports to hamper attempts to deport them.
But the Home Office is refusing to back down over ending the right to judicial review, which it says is essential to prevent unfounded claimants spinning out legal objections for years to avoid deportation.
'The case for reform of an appeal system that is being widely abused by people who are not refugees is overwhelming. Coming from someone who, when he was Home Secretary, tried to remove benefits from asylum- seekers at all stages of the process, this is more than a little hypocritical,' said one source close to Blunkett.
'They're trying to play it both ways and the public catch up pretty quickly with politicians who are two-faced.'
Grieve's amendment would grant rejected asylum-seekers the right to appeal within seven days to a High Court judge, and go to the House of Lords if necessary.
Tomorrow's Commons revolt is unlikely to be big enough to torpedo the Bill. But Vera Baird, the Labour MP and barrister, predicted defeat in the Lords: 'Even if opposition at this stage is split, there is a pretty clear pattern which is about an independent appeals process.
'I think the Government will have to give way on that in the end.'
The row came as Trevor Phillips, chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, attacked 'wicked' media coverage of migration from eastern Europe, warning it could fuel resentment against gypsies already living in Britain.
Tabloid headlines have screamed of Britain being 'swamped' by migrants infected with HIV or TB once its borders open to the 10 new EU countries from 1 May, despite controls announced by the Government last week to prevent benefit tourism and restrict numbers.
[SIZE=1]http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/story/0,9061,1158887,00.html[/SIZE]