‘Asylum amnesty’ gives Tory right extra ammo

The allegation that so many non-EU immigrants have been allowed to slip through the net that there is now a virtual 'asylum amnesty' in place in Britain has been strenuously denied by immigration minister Damian Green. But it will be used by the Tory right to pour more bile over the coalition government.

According to the cross-party Commons Home Affairs committee, out of 403,500 cases of asylum seekers dealt with by the UK Border Agency (UKBA), only nine per cent resulted in their removal.

But what grabbed the headlines were the 161,000 cases where people were given leave to remain - "such a large proportion that it amounts in effect to an amnesty". And the further 74,500 cases that had to be "concluded" because "the applicants cannot be found and it is unknown whether they are in the UK, have left the country or are dead".

Keith Vaz, Labour chairman of the committee, showed Sepp Blatter levels of chutzpah when he put most of the blame for the scandal on the current Conservative-Lib Dem government.

Although Vaz acknowledged the problems caused by the ineffectual Border Agency were inherited from the previous Labour government, the loud and clear message is that the Cameron-Clegg coalition, and in particular the dripping wet Tory Damian Green, are responsible for turning a blind eye to the illegal immigrants in our midst.

It provides another weapon with which right-wing Tories can bash Cameron and Clegg. They believe the coalition is 'soft' on immigrants, just as it is soft on the other traditional obsessions of the Conservative right - law and order, defence and the economy.

Vaz raised the spectre of worse to come when he warned on this morning's Today programme that his committee was not satisfied that this is the end of the story. "There appears to be another backlog that is emerging of about 25,000 of these asylum cases," he said.

As the Mole wrote yesterday, the Tory right were already on the warpath over claims that Cameron and some of his top team want to "castrate" the Tory right and are secretly plotting for a permanent coalition with the Lib Dems.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude was rumoured to have said that even if the Tories won an outright majority at the next election, they should still ask the Lib Dems to join them in coalition again.

Maude has now used an interview with Paul Goodman, editor of the Tory grassroots website ConservativeHome.com, to deny this. "No, I haven't said that. I've never said that... I have heard people argue this case is all I said."

He then added: "I would also say for clarity that it has been a huge advantage for the country that in the circumstances of having to undertake emergency fiscal surgery there's been a broad-based government commanding a broad consensus of opinion."
 
Maude's weasel words were taken by some members of the Tory rank-and-file as a classic 'non-denial denial' and provoked a fresh outpouring of anger against senior Conservatives suspected of "selling out" traditional Tory values.

One woman who said she had worked for his father, Angus Maude, said it was "like father like son - very slippery and hard to pin down to any settled belief. A man for all seasons".

John Loughton, who was on the Welsh Tory candidates list at the last election, was even more damning. "Two years ago we had the misfortune to have Maude as principal speaker at the Welsh conference," he said. "Not only was he boring to the nth degree but demonstrated the total abandonment of Conservative principles. What on earth is he doing in government and the Conservative party?"

Next week, with the Whitsun break finally over, the Tory right will doubtless begin plotting around the Palace of Westminster bars against the takeover of the Tory government by the 21CWs (21st Century Wets).

After his holiday in Ibiza, David Cameron will find it a long hot summer. He is very likely to be Blattered – a new verb meaning to be browbeaten by a person who swears black is white. ·