Friday, May 19, 2006
Labour and the hard line
"Rattled" by the deportation row, which lost Charles Clarke his job and put Government immigration policy under extreme pressure, Tony Blair said yesterday that "the vast bulk of foreign prisoners should be deported whatever the dangers in their home nations".
He made it clear that generalisations about countries being unsafe will no longer constitute grounds for the avoidance of deportation, citing the fact that people were now being deported to Iraq and Afganistan.
To the suggestion that the government could face challenges in the European Court of Human Rights, director of the Institute for Public Policy Research Nick Pearce replied that the Human Rights Act should not be confused with making moral choices.
He said the judgement whether to "put somebody on a plane to be tortured or killed" was "a harsh one to make".
He made it clear that generalisations about countries being unsafe will no longer constitute grounds for the avoidance of deportation, citing the fact that people were now being deported to Iraq and Afganistan.
To the suggestion that the government could face challenges in the European Court of Human Rights, director of the Institute for Public Policy Research Nick Pearce replied that the Human Rights Act should not be confused with making moral choices.
He said the judgement whether to "put somebody on a plane to be tortured or killed" was "a harsh one to make".
