RETURNS DEAL WON’T SEE ANY MIGRANTS RETURNED DUE TO HUMAN RIGHTS CLAUSE, WARNS REES-MOGG

SIR Jacob Rees-Mogg has said that the government’s returns deal with France is “as dead as the dead parrot of Monty Python”.

Speaking on GB News he said: “Labour’s one in one out migrant deal with France is already falling apart today.

“Failure, detention and return: he is beginning to sound like Churchill, but I’m afraid more Churchill, the advertisement for insurance, rather than Winston Spencer Churchill.

“Supposedly under the plan, for every migrant the UK takes in legally from France, France agrees to take one back. But there’s an extraordinary loophole that means almost no one can be deported.

“Look at the text. If you look at Article One 4 (e) it says that the United Kingdom confirms that at the time of their transfer, that person will not have an outstanding human rights claim, which will include a third country national with a human rights claim that has been certified under United Kingdom law as clearly unfounded.

“Well, this is absolutely lunatic. It means that if anybody who has come in illegally says they’ve got a human rights claim, and even if it’s garbage they won’t be able to be sent back.

“So these claims are clearly unfounded and are going to be a way of staying here and being protected from immediate removal. It is not a loophole; it is an entire hole. It means the thing is meaningless. There is nothing there. It is as empty as a vacuum. It is as dead as the dead parrot of Monty Python.

“Tory MPs have warned that lawyers will jump on this loophole to block or delay deportations and Chris Philp, the shadow Home Secretary has said the deal has no number in it, because they’re so small.

“Returning just 6% of illegal migrants won’t attend anyone because 94% still get to stay. But he’s wrong, because even the 6% won’t go.

“The whole thing is completely ridiculous. The numbers are small because the only ones who can be sent over to us are ones that haven’t tried to cross illegally already, which they’ve already tried to do.

“Thousands in the UK won’t be affected at all because it only applies to people who’ve arrived very recently. It’s only 50 people a week, even if it works and they’ll be able to use human rights law to stop them ever going.

“So one in 17 boat arrivals will potentially be available for this scheme, but they won’t, because they’ll be able to get round it. And of course, they want to be in England rather than France, because we don’t eat so much garlic and we speak English.

“The Home Secretary, oh, the wonderful Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has said there will be no set targets. Well, that’s marvellous, isn’t it. So she’s got no idea of what she’s going to do; no numbers, no date, no nothing.

“No targets, because it would tip off the smuggling gangs. The smuggling gangs may just have listened to GB News and have heard reports of what she was thinking of doing.

“Experts have warned the plan will do nothing to discourage illegal crossings and could even encourage smugglers to send more people.

“The deal has a year to run but actually it’s not going to work. It may as well not be started. It’s a fake. It’s a phony, it’s a cheat on the British people.

“While 25,000 people have arrived in small boats this year alone, 51% up on last year when Keir Starmer said he was getting to smash the gangs.

“It’s a bogus deal, it’s a complete waste of time.”