The British public have ‘changed their minds’ on migration since Brexit

I'm saying Brexit and the 2019 elections were predicated on people's views on migration generally, but particularly legal migration. But we have actually got data that says that, you know, attitudes are changing significantly. Let's take the Ruranda aspect of this, for example, mentioned in your thoughts on that as a policy, because it seems to have two question marks one is practicality is ever actually going to move many people to Rwanda? And secondly, is it going to be palatable to law if we remain in the European Convention on Human Rights? Both of those two questions, I think will come up in the House of Lords. Are they right to push back on Rwanda, do you think? Well, I think it's right for them to challenge the concepts behind the bill, whether they are right to actually challenge the policy of Rwanda. It's not necessarily the same thing, because they're just to review the law. Rwanda has obviously already gone through part of the court system as well, although there are current appeals on certain aspects about it, where the courts have agreed that this is a policy that the government can pursue, providing that they look at individual cases more carefully. Rwanda, practically, you're right, there are going to be some difficulties.

The difficulties are, have they got enough planes to be able to remove people? Is the system in place to do so? And can Rwanda take it? The numbers that are required? The Rwandan government, and particularly the defence spokesman who spoke out about it, said yes, they could take many, many thousands, but we haven't yet heard anything, practically, from the government, on how they're going to transport more people. Although from talking to those in the Home Office, they have suggested to me that there are future deals coming in that will include greater numbers of planes being used to take people to Rwanda, once those hurdles have been faced. The House of Lords are quite right that they're going to challenge concepts of the European courts of human rights. They're going to challenge the aspects about unaccompanied children, because there is a great concern that this bill enables the government to remove people under the age of 18 in the same way that they do those over the age of 18. They're going to challenge the European Court of Human Rights concepts that they think that we're actually breaching international law. And it's right for the House of Lords to challenge that, but it's also right for the government to push back too. What about the House of Lords in the form of the Archbishop of Canterbury? There's some talk today, he's going to say this is ungodly.

Is that his role, do you think? Well, of course, he absolutely has already suggested that this is the case as well. And as as a head of the Church of England, he has a moral and religious duty to see what he thinks is fit. I'm not sure that there will be lots of people who totally agree with him entering the world of politics and suggesting that God would disagree with a government policy. But he's quite entitled to say so, not only because we are a clear democracy and people have the freedom of rights to be able to speak, but also because he has the role of the Church of England and is a member of the House of Lords. But it is equally right for somebody to suggest that we shouldn't be bringing in God in relation to a particular aspect of public policy and legislation. Interesting stuff. Stephen, good to see you.

Thank you for joining us. Thank you. That's Stephen Woolf, the director of the Center for Migration and Economic Prosperity. Let's speak to Jacqueline McKenzie, who's an immigration lawyer, Lee Day, solicitors and the founder of the Center for Migration Advice and Research. Good morning to you. Good morning. Is there something in Soella Braverman's claim that it is the will of the people that something is done about immigration, illegal migration in this country, as she puts it, because there is some, there's polling, consistent polling since 2010, which shows the British public want to see a decline in migration numbers? Of course, yes.

And I think Stephen was absolutely correct that both Brexit and the, he didn't say Brexit, but I'm saying Brexit and the 2019 elections were predicated on people's views on migration generally, but particularly legal migration. But we have actually got data that says that, you know, attitudes are changing significantly. So, following the arrival of the Windrush generation and throughout the 60s, attitudes from various studies that includes the British, British elections study, the, the Maori polls, showed that as much as 80% of people were opposed to migration. And if we come quite recently, because it goes down and down and down over the decades, maybe come up to 2019, or 2013, sorry, those figures were at 77% and then look at 2020, where the figures are below 30%. Now that is deemed to be as a result of people seeing that there are real problems in the society as a result of Brexit, you know, the shortages of workers, the chaos that's been caused and people's attitudes have changed. Now, the organisation that does the most work on this is Oxford University's Migration Observatory, and they show a curve that is almost perfectly elastic, going down from the 60s to today. So, it's a very confused position.

You speak to your neighbours, they may say, yes, we don't want, of course, nobody wants illegal migration, but the attitude to migration has changed. Okay, let's look at the, specifically on the Rwanda policy that kind of the most recent polling we could find on that was for the times it was done by the more in common think tank in April. 46% of people are supported the Rwanda policy, 27% opposed it. So, more people supported than opposed it. Does that mean that it's the will of the people? Well, it's still not the majority of the people, if it's 44%. And this hasn't been put, the Rwanda policy has not yet been tested, so there is no mandate for it in terms of the people, which would come if it forms part of a manifesto in a future election. That's not happened yet.

But as I said, overall, the figures towards migration are showing a very changing position and a more accepting position towards migrants. Of course, everybody is concerned about illegal migration. Everyone's concerned about people smugglers. And what happens is that the two things get conflated. And I think if people fully understood, even what extent tested in the times, and I don't know whether that's times readers, or cross section of the population, but even there, people fully understood a lot of people haven't understood what the Rwanda policy is. It isn't that you go there for processing and possibly come back if you're successful. It is that your entry to the UK, and I've always said we get very, very few people coming, given the entire picture globally, will be deemed inadmissible and you'll be sent to Rwanda where you will make your application.

And if you succeed, stay, or if not, possibly be removed to an unsafe country. Okay. I want to ask you one, just one other question, because one of the things, there's a huge backlog, which the Prime Minister wants to get on top of, but apparently it's being frustrated because this kind of fast track scheme is floundering. The government says they believe that lawyers are deliberately advising people to fill out the forms wrongly to delay the process, which means that the fast track process is not working. Have you seen that happening? Definitely not. And I think that's just another slow on lawyers. We've seen quite a lot of that coming from this government in particular.

So I've got some of those questionnaires and we are working hard. All the questionnaires I'm dealing with are for people from Afghanistan. 99% of people from Afghanistan, remember 25% of people coming across in the boats are from Afghanistan, will go on to get asylum, yet they've been sent this very, very long, detailed and complex questionnaire. And the Home Office have not provided all the evidence. So for instance, there's a couple that I've not been able to complete, because the Home Office have not yet provided disclosures of the statement of evidence questionnaires that people have already filled in. So the Home Office is causing some of the problems. But what is the purpose of the questionnaire? If people are coming from countries that ordinarily, if the system worked, you would provide safe routes for those people.

Okay. Jacqueline, thank you very much for that. This is Jacqueline McKenzie, she's an immigration lawyer at Lee Day Solicitors and the founder of the Center for Migration Advice and Research. It was put to a few weeks ago, I was in asthma, that the government doesn't want to clear the backlog too much, because if they clear the backlog, it'll involve more people coming in and they want to create the narrative of fewer people coming in. And therefore, it's not in their interest to clear the backlog. And there you're hearing that the asylum view on immigration is changing to become more positive. So where does the will of the people lie? 8722, start your message with the word times or tweet us at timesradio.

brexit, immigration, migration, immigration after brexit, eu immigration after brexit, immigration after no deal brexit, brexit transition, eu immigration crisis, british politics, suella braverman immigration, public opinion, uk immigration control, impact of the uk immigration system, public attitudes, eu immigration debate, uk immigration system, immigration uk, eu immigration, uk immigration, immigration law, immigration enforcement uk, eu immigration uk