A round-up of some of the new Home Secretary's quotes on immigration and asylum law
In this unexpected update to our article from last month (needless to say, plenty has happened politically in the meantime), Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has today reappointed Suella Braverman as the Home Secretary.
Braverman served in the position for just 43 days before her resignation last week. She was forced to resign after breaching the Ministerial Code for sharing an official document from her personal email address with a colleague in Parliament, namely John Hayes. The Home Secretary called it an "honest mistake". The Sunday Times reported, however, that Braverman was using Hayes as an unofficial adviser.
Sky News' chief political correspondent Jon Craig predicted that the reappointment is set to cause an "almighty row" given the controversy of Braverman's dismissal by Liz Truss. The Daily Mail reported last week that Braverman had a "90-minute shouting match" with Truss, during which the Home Secretary is said to have warned Truss that it would be 'insane' to relax immigration rules in order to boost economic growth.
According to The Telegraph, today's reappointment is a debt that Sunak had to repay for Braverman's support in the leadership contest. The Telegraph adds that it also sends a signal that Sunak is set to be tough on immigration.
Labour's Yvette Cooper accused the Prime Minister of putting party before country in appointing Braverman.
Also of note this evening, Robert Jenrick was appointed Minister for Immigration and, unlike recent holders of the post, he will attend Cabinet.
Our original article from September follows below:
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Tough line on asylum expected to continue during Truss premiership as barrister Suella Braverman is named as new Home Secretary
07 September 2022
EIN
Following Liz Truss' appointment as Prime Minister yesterday, the former Attorney General Suella Braverman was last night confirmed as the new Home Secretary.
At a time when the rising number of asylum seekers crossing the Channel continues to pose a major policy challenge for the Home Office, Braverman will bring considerable personal experience in immigration and asylum law.
Whilst working as a barrister at No5 Chambers before becoming an MP, Braverman specialised in immigration law and represented the Home Secretary in numerous immigration cases. Braverman told the House of Commons during a 2016 debate on child refugees in Calais that she had "worked as counsel on hundreds of asylum and trafficking cases."
In a 2015 debate on the Bill that would become the Immigration Act 2016, Braverman said: "Before I came into Parliament, I worked as a Treasury counsel, defending the Home Office in immigration cases, and I saw how the system has been improved over the past five years. The Immigration Act 2014 did much to tackle the pull factors that draw people here. It made it easier to deport foreign criminals by enacting the principle of 'deport first, appeal later' and ending the abuse of the right to family life. Prior to the 2014 Act, I saw at first hand how that right was stretched so far as to make it laughable and pitiful. I was involved in a case that involved the removal of a foreign criminal. One would have thought that it would be straightforward to justify the removal of a convicted class A drug smuggler, but because of the huge number of appeal rights, activist claimant lawyers and technical loopholes, as well as the backlog of cases in the courts system, it took nearly two years and thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money finally to persuade the Court of Appeal that the public interest in deportation outweighed the human right to a family life in Britain. Thankfully, the number of such cases is diminishing, as is reflected by the Court of Appeal jurisprudence in cases such as MF (Nigeria) and SS (Nigeria). I worked on many cases involving sham marriages, bogus colleges and overturned detention decisions."
She also defended the Ministry of Defence in the Guantanamo Bay Inquiry, according to her website. Nick Cohen noted in the Guardian in 2020, however: "Private Eye has tried, I have tried and lawyers have tried to find a record of her defending the MoD at a Guantánamo inquiry. We are still trying."
Media commentary suggests the new Home Secretary can be expected to take a similar, or even harder, line on immigration and asylum as her predecessor Priti Patel.
The Guardian quoted one unnamed ally of Braverman as saying: "She will be Priti on steroids. Watch this space."
Chris Daw QC said the same on Twitter, commenting: "Prepare for Patel on steroids with Braverman, who will literally say or do anything to appeal to the Conservative right. It's a very sad day for human rights and the rule of law."
In January of this year, Braverman spoke in strong support of the Nationality and Borders Bill in the Commons. She said: "The Nationality and Borders Bill brings in vital changes to enable this Government, and our immigration and Border Force operatives, to stop the illegal and dangerous trafficking of illegal migrants. I encourage everybody in this Chamber to get behind this vital Bill and support it. … What is clear is that we need to take tangible action to deal with the problem of illegal migrants crossing our channel and dangerous traffickers exploiting some of the most vulnerable people in the world, while we also need to fix our broken asylum system. That is why the Nationality and Borders Bill addresses some of these very important issues through tangible proposals. The Home Office will continue to evaluate and test a range of safe and legal options for stopping small boats, and I support that activity."
Braverman has also taken a notably hard line on the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). During her run as a candidate for the Conservative leadership, she said the UK needed to leave the ECHR.
In an article on Politics Home in July, Braverman wrote: "At present we don't have clear legal powers within the Nationality and Borders Act to act contrary to the ECHR, since courts will construe any powers so they align with Convention rights. Even if we tried, the Strasbourg court would pass a Rule 39 injunction (as with the Rwanda flight), and a UK court would likely mirror that. It would be clear to anyone that our Rwanda policy had no hope of actually deporting anyone, and the number of illegal migrants would grow. We would be incapable of meeting our 2019 manifesto promise to 'take control of our borders'. To fulfil that promise, we need to leave the ECHR, and retain the Human Rights Act, as strengthened in Dominic Raab's British Bill of Rights."
Braverman expanded on her thinking in a major speech on human rights delivered at the Policy Exchange last month. She said the ECtHR "has operated to thwart aspects of our domestic policy making in relation to illegal migration" and had "radically extended" rights such as the Article 8 right to respect for family and private life.
Referencing UK immigration case law, Braverman stated: "Take the case of a Nigerian national – called OO by the court - who was sentenced in 2016 to four years in prison for offences including possessing crack cocaine and heroin with the intention to supply, and then pleaded guilty in 2017 to battery and assault. Serious offences. In 2020, the First-tier Tribunal allowed his appeal against deportation on grounds that OO's 'very significant obstacles' to integration in Nigeria outweighed the public interest in his deportation, despite the serious nature of his offending, and deportation was irreconcilable with Article 8 (the right to respect for private and family life). The Upper Tribunal upheld that decision on appeal."
She continued: "Similarly, Article 3 which prohibits torture has been radically expanded to impose wide-ranging positive obligations on the State. This, despite having no bearing to the objective meaning of torture, inhumane or degrading treatment as originally envisaged in the Convention. In D v UK, a case of a non-national convicted drug dealer, the Strasbourg Court held that the effect of discontinuing his medical treatment available in the UK but not available in his destination country, amounted to inhuman or degrading treatment under Article 3.
"After a series of contradictory decisions by the Strasbourg Court, more procedural burdens were created by our Supreme Court in AM (Zimbabwe) v Home Secretary in 2020. States wishing to remove someone must now prove that the medical facilities available to the deportee in their destination country would remove any real risk that their lifespan would be shortened by removal from NHS facilities. When someone is being deported from a developed to a developing country this will often be the case. This places increased burden on our national resources and extends the concept of 'fundamental rights' beyond what was originally intended."
More generally, and more positively, on immigration and asylum, Braverman said in the House of Commons in 2015: "My father came to the UK to escape the Kenyan Asian crisis in 1968. His arrival probably saved his life. My mother was recruited in Mauritius as a girl of 18, and she has just passed her 45th year of service as a nurse. More passionate patriots cannot be imagined. It is clear that immigration has brought huge benefits to this country. We have a proud tradition of offering refuge, opportunity and a better life to those who take the risk of leaving their homeland. … In fact, my parents' experience has informed my strong belief that the immigrant story is a Conservative story—one of risk, starting from scratch, working hard and living frugally, all in the name of aspiration, endeavour and self-responsibility."
She went on to say in the same debate on the Immigration Bill 2015-16: "[W]e must talk about the impact of immigration. I applaud the courage of the Government in dealing with this matter in a compassionate, proportionate and fair way. The cultural impact of immigration cannot be ignored. The pace of immigration, the damaging predominance of multiculturalism, and the lack of integration in some parts of this country are having a damaging effect on social cohesion. A well-integrated immigrant must speak fluent English because that is crucial for developing relationships and gaining employment, and it connects us deeply with others. I therefore welcome the requirement for fluency in English in part 7 of the Bill.
"We as a community of parliamentarians must be more courageous when speaking out about matters of integration and what is happening in this country, and when talking about the challenges we all face. The Bill deals with the problem of illegal immigration and tightens up the problem of exploitation, and that is the only way that we will command more confidence in the system and ensure its credibility. Our country is neither open nor closed, but striking the balance is hard. In doing so, it is perfectly reasonable to introduce legislation that encapsulates proportion and compassion. Speaking as the child of immigrants and the beneficiary of immigration, and as a professional, I commend this Bill to the House."
As Home Secretary, Braverman will also inherit the considerable challenge of a growing backlog of asylum cases. As noted by the Refugee Council, 117,945 people were awaiting an initial decision on their claim at the end of June 2022.
Interestingly Braverman told the Commons in a 2015 debate on Syrian refugees: "Before I came to this place, I defended the Home Secretary in asylum and immigration cases in court, and I saw at first hand how considerable progress was made in dealing with the asylum backlog. We inherited more than 100,000 asylum cases from the previous Labour Administration."