Mayor of London Boris Johnson has expressed his support for a one-off amnesty for illegal immigrants in direct contradiction of David Cameron, who said last Friday in response to a proposal by the Conservative MP for Stratford-upon-Avon that such a move would signal Britain as a “soft touch” around the world.
Speaking on a London radio station, Mr Johnson said the government should “be honest” about its failure to effectively pursue long-term illegal immigrants. He said it would now benefit society if those people were contributing taxes, rather than being paid ‘under the table’.
The Mayor told listeners to his Ask Boris show on LBC 97.3: “We should have an amnesty (..) We’ve got people who’ve got in here illegally. They are not engaged with the economy and being honest with the system. The key thing is to stop them coming in in such numbers and be tougher in our approach to borders.”
Mr Johnson also criticised successive governments’ failure, over the last 20 years, to deport illegal immigrants when they first arrive.
“The culture of human rights is such that it is blindingly difficult to get people onto planes,” he said. “These people will melt away into the undergrowth and be lost again – one reason why people have lost confidence in the immigration system. What we need to do is make it clear to illegal immigrants where to go.”
The Mayor’s statements come in the wake of those by Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi, who says an amnesty would help to ensure better relations with voters from ethnic minority communities as well as boost the economy. In an essay for a new think-tank, provisionally called Right Revival, Mr Zahawi said recipients of the amnesty should be given leave to remain rather than full citizenship, limiting their entitlement to benefits, and the move should be combined with an overhaul of border controls. The suggestion was quickly ruled out by David Cameron on Friday. At the last election, the Conservatives won 16 per cent of the black and Asian vote while two-thirds supported Labour.
Mr Zahawi, an Iraqi Kurd, who succeeded John Maples as MP for Stratford-upon-Avon at the 2010 General Election, said: “It’s only because we’ve been so robust on immigration in government we’re able to have this conversation with the electorate. We’ve earned the credibility to think outside the box.”
Mr Zahawi, who co-founded the market research company YouGov, said he had commissioned polling which found ethnic-minority voters backed Tory policies on major policies such as benefits, taxation and reducing non-European immigration. But when respondents were asked which party was most in touch with their needs, just six per cent named the Conservatives, compared with 53 per cent who named Labour.
London’s Mayor first called for an amnesty in 2008, after which he claimed to have had “machine guns” turned on him by fellow politicians.
The campaign for an amnesty was led in the last Parliament by Citizens UK, the largest alliance of community groups in Britain.
