DAILY MAIL COMMENT: So how would pious peers stop the boats?

The rift between those who genuinely want to stop illegal migration to this country and those who don’t is now one of the defining features of British politics.

On one side is a Government with a huge electoral mandate, making an honest attempt to stem the flood tide of small boats crossing the Channel.

On the other is a loose affiliation of virtue-signalling peers, opposition politicians and Left-wing lobby groups determined to thwart ministers at every turn.

Caught in the middle of this unedifying and profoundly undemocratic conflict is the general public, the vast majority of whom want to see our borders controlled, rather than thrown open to all.

For weeks the Lords have fought a guerrilla action against the Illegal Migration Bill, which includes the proposal to send those who claim asylum after entering Britain illegally to Rwanda for assessment.

DAILY MAIL COMMENT: The rift between those who genuinely want to stop illegal migration to this country and those who don’t is now one of the defining features of British politics. Pictured: A group of people thought to be migrants are brought into Dover yesterday

The amount of hot air emanating from the red benches could have filled a Zeppelin. But where is their own strategy to stop the boats?

They scorn and deride the Rwanda plan while offering no alternative to break the business model that keeps traffickers in riches and migrants – mostly economic – in peril on the seas.

The Government suffered a setback when the Court of Appeal ruled the Rwanda scheme unlawful, on the narrow ground that asylum seekers risked being returned to their country of origin.

But the three judges did not say Rwanda was intrinsically unsafe and the most senior of them, the Lord Chief Justice, dissented from the ruling.

So if assurances can be given that refugees sent there will not be repatriated, the Government has a good chance of winning in the Supreme Court.

We learned yesterday that thanks to the court challenges and delaying tactics of the Lords, the first Rwanda flights will not now take place before January.

It is a classic case of a self-styled political elite thinking they know better than the people and treating their views with disdain. The fact that illegal migration is damaging many communities and the public purse, they simply ignore.

The £2.2billion cost of housing migrants in hotels is now higher than the Government’s levelling-up fund and three times the amount spent on tackling homelessness.

On one side is a Government with a huge electoral mandate, making an honest attempt to stem the flood tide of small boats crossing the Channel

Some 10 per cent of all new social housing goes to non-UK nationals. In the London borough of Brent it is 40 per cent.

Meanwhile, councils take legal action to block mass processing centres being situated in their locality, saying communities would be overwhelmed.

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said yesterday there will be no further government concessions on the Bill, at the same time taking a sideswipe at the Lords. ‘It’s incumbent on those who criticise our approach to provide an alternative,’ he said.

He is absolutely right. Their pampered lordships may be immune to the effects of illegal migration. But for many at the sharp end it poses a very real threat to their way of life.

In a stunning example of tin-eared arrogance, David Postings, head of banking’s trade body UK Finance, claims mortgage rates should be even higher than they are and that far from profiteering, ‘the banks have been pretty sensible’.

How is it then, that they are making massive profits while families struggle with steepling mortgages and savers still receive pitiful interest rates?

Having already been told they can still do private work while on strike, hospital doctors are now being encouraged to do lucrative locum shifts to cover the gaps created by their own industrial action.

Strikes are supposed to be about withdrawing labour on principle. This one looks more like a ruse to make some extra money.

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