The Telegraph UK
written by Alex Singleton
November 29th, 2010
The Swiss know how to stand up for themselves. In a referendum yesterday, they voted in favour of the automatic deportation of foreigners who commit serious crimes. Needless to say, the latte liberals at Amnesty International are appalled and – revealing their utter contempt for democracy – are calling on Swiss politicians to ignore the will of the people.
Amnesty’s reasoning is that deportations could cause convicts to be sent back to countries where they could face persecution. But this is a ridiculous argument: no one is forcing visitors to Switzerland to commit offences. If people don’t want to be sent back home, why don’t they just desist from rape, robbery, murder and fraud?
The new Swiss policy is so obviously a sensible idea that we ought to copy it here. Having very high levels of immigration, and having allied ourselves with America in the fight against terrorism, we have an even bigger problem with foreign criminals. In Opposition, David Cameron promised to allow their deportation by abolishing the Human Rights Act, which makes British courts follow the European Convention on Human Rights. Now that he’s in office, he won’t do that, because it would involve leaving the European Union, which he isn’t prepared to do.
That’s a mistake, because it leaves Britain in a wholly unsatisfactory position. We are a nation that acts as a magnet to immigrants from around the world, but we are not allowed to control which ones can remain within our borders, even when they threaten our way of life. Cameron, like Brown and Blair before him, will hope the problem of foreign criminals goes away. It won’t – and it’s the public who will be the victims.
No comments:
Post a Comment