03/10/2014
Those fragile souls who believe that trust is an issue in politics would have every good reason to cast a jaundiced eye over this morning's headlines, and especially those in the
Mail,
which have the Conservatives once again promising to end the dominance of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
It would be perfectly reasonable under the circumstances to point out that, long before his "
cast iron guarantee" of a vote on the Lisbon Treaty on 26 September 2007, Mr Cameron was promising to scrap the Human Rights Act.
We have him reported doing this on
12 May 2006 and then full frontal on
26 June 2006, more than a year before he was to make his referendum pledge.
Come the 2010 election, however, any idea of scrapping the human Rights Act disappeared from the agenda, sacrificed on the altar of coalition government. Only now does it re-emerge as a key element of the manifesto for the next election, at which point commentators could rightly ask, "what's new?"
Nevertheless, if we are to make sense of our immigration policy, then the role of the ECHR and Council of Europe in
family reunification must be curtailed. This accounts for a significant proportion of EU and non-EU migration.
Inevitably, the media focus on some of the more high profile cases, where Article 8 of the Convention is clearly being stretched, but the same Article, on right to family life, is invoked in terms of family reunification.
Some of our more problematic immigration comes in under the mandate of the ECHR (and the Strasbourg judges), and that would remain a problem even if we left the EU. Thus, while the issue is
under review, there can be no resolution until this nettle is grasped, and the Human Rights Act is scrapped.
What is not fully appreciated, in this context, is the huge scale of family-related migration. The government admitted to 792,230 visas is this category between 2005-2010 (see p.66 on the link above). At this rate, the total from 2005 to the present must be well over a million, despite the government apparently massaging the figures.
For instance, in the
July to September 2013 statistics, we see a fall of 20 percent or family-related visas issued (down to 33,747). But we then see grants of permission to stay permanently increasing by 26 percent and a rise of 138 percent in family-related extensions of stay.
Currently,
we see persons in the "accompanying/joining family" grouping accounting for something like a third of net migration, a group which is most likely to be economical inactive, and which imposes greatest burdens on public services.
The trouble is, of course, is that when it comes to Mr Cameron and his promises, we really have heard it all before. Thus, some will be asking whether we can trust him to deliver on this next electoral round.
The answer to that, of course, is no. But as
The Boiling Frog points out (with another post on the way), trust is not the issue. If Labour wins the general election, we can be entirely certain that we will not get a repeal or any modification of the Human Rights Act. If the Conservatives take office â with an absolute majority â then there is a possibility that we might see changes.
This, of course, is an unsatisfactory position. But in grown-up politics, there are no absolute guarantees, even if there is every reason for holding Mr Cameron's feet to the fire, when he makes his promises. The issue is of calculation. In terms of managing immigration, repeal of the Human Rights Act is every bit as important as leaving the EU â if not more so, in the shorter term.
We hear very little of this from UKIP, which means there is a major gap in their policy make-up. This further underlies the fact that any serious developments are unlikely to come from this source. Once again, therefore, UKIP supporters are presented with a conundrum. They will â as will we all â have to calculate the odds on getting serious change after the general election, and act accordingly.
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