Nick Clegg
has launched a strong attack on the government's "go home" campaign
against illegal immigrants, suggesting it was out of step with the
"decent" centre-ground tradition in British politics.
In a
phone-in on Radio 5 Live on Tuesday, the deputy prime minister said he
did not condone people breaking immigration laws but that he objected to
the tone of the campaign launched by the Home Office.
He also
said it would be hard for his ministerial colleagues in the coalition to
persuade him that the campaign should be extended.
Clegg, who
returned to work on Monday after a break in Spain, was speaking only 24
hours after Downing Street indicated that David Cameron strongly
supported the campaign and would be open to it being extended
nationwide.
The campaign is running in six London boroughs
featuring leaflets and posters with the message: "In the UK illegally?
Go home or face arrest." The leaflets are still in circulation, but the
two advertising vans that drove around displaying large versions of the
poster have been withdrawn.
"I was very surprised to see these two
vans apparently driving aimlessly around north London," said Clegg, who
has not criticised the posters publicly before, although his aides made
it clear that he disapproved last week.
"I don't think it was a
very clever way of dealing with this issue of those who are living in
this country who aren't entitled to."
Clegg said he was in favour
of taking a hard line against law breaking, but that he was concerned
about the tone of the campaign. "You can enforce the law effectively
without instilling a tone which is unsettling to communities,
particularly to mixed communities."
He said he had discussed the
matter on Monday with Mark Harper, the Conservative immigration
minister, whom he described as "a very good guy". Clegg said he told
Harper the Home Office should instead focus on improving border checks.
"I
don't happen to think having a couple of vans driving around north
London is the way of inspiring public confidence that we have an
immigration system that is working properly," Clegg said.
"I have
said to the Home Office in very clear terms … that the effort should be
spent not on vans drifting around north London, but actually reinstating
exit checks, which I think were wrongly removed in the past and which
we are committed to – and this was on my personal insistence –
reinstating as part of our coalition agreement."
Some critics have
claimed that the Conservatives have been promoting the hardline
anti-illegal immigration message for party political reasons. Clegg
hinted that he agreed, but he argued that "decent" people in the centre
ground would object.
"The Conservative party three years ago
presented itself as green, compassionate and a centre-ground party, and
now appears to be resorting, if you like, to some more traditional,
Conservative, right-of-centre signature tunes, Europe, immigration,
welfare, Europe, immigration, welfare," he said.
"Important though
those issues are, I remain of the view, as a centrist politician, as
someone who is determined to anchor the government in the centre ground,
that actually the vast majority of decent people in this country are in
the centre ground, and want to see politicians governing from the
centre, not from either the right or the left."
Clegg went on:
"Unless there's overwhelming evidence that this [campaign] is a really
effective way of bolstering public confidence in the immigration system,
and bearing down on illegal behaviour in the immigration system, I'm
going to need a lot of persuasion this is something [we want to
continue]."
Clegg spoke out as a YouGov poll for the Sun suggested that, by a margin of 47% to 41%, voters support the campaign.
In an article in the Daily Mail on Tuesday,
Harper said that the opposition to the campaign was astonishing and
that the government was simply trying to encourage illegal immigrants to
leave the UK voluntarily. The posters and leaflets feature a text
number that illegal immigrants can use if they want help to leave the
UK.
"Let me clear this up once and for all – it is not racist to
ask people who are here illegally to leave Britain. It is merely telling
them to comply with the law," he wrote.
Harper said that those
opposed to the campaign were in effect asking the government to condone
law breaking. "No society that encourages people to break its laws can
survive. That, however, is precisely what our critics are asking us to
do. But no responsible government could ever give up on its duty to
enforce the law – and that is certainly not what this government will
do."
The Home Office has only spent £10,000 on the campaign
and officials said that, provided at least one illegal immigrant who
might otherwise have been subject to enforced removal decided to leave
voluntarily as a result, it could be deemed a success.
But a full
assessment will not take place until later this summer. The two
advertising vans were only in operation for a week, but the leaflets are
still in circulation and the Home Office will be monitoring responses
to the text number for another three weeks.
Governments have been
running programmes for many years to encourage people who are in the UK
illegally to leave voluntarily, in some cases even funding their flights
home.
Over the last decade the number of so-called voluntary
departures has increased considerably. There were 28,309 in the year
ending in March 2013, of which 3,744 were "assisted voluntary returns"
where financial assistance was provided.
COPY http://www.theguardian.com
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