Britain’s governing Conservative Party is hinting it could send illegal aliens to an isolated island in the Atlantic, as it scrabbles to appear tough on immigration having broken almost every promise to get the nation’s border under control.
Migrants have been crossing the English Channel from France in small boats for years, with authorities not only failing to turn them back but actually meeting them at sea to collect them and bring them the rest of the way to Britain.
The Tories, in power since 2010, have been promising to “stop the boats” for years with zero results, and are spending millions on accommodating tens of thousands of boat migrants, some highly dangerous, in often luxurious hotels across the country.
Plans to transfer boat migrants to Rwanda, a safe third country, have come to nothing, being unravelled by activists, lawyers, and liberal judges in the courts, as have plans to accelerate deportations.
Now, with a general election on the horizon, the Tories are making what may be their final, desperate attempt to appear as though they will do something about the issue, by hinting to the press that they could send migrants to Ascension Island, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
As with previous Conservative immigration schemes, there is almost no chance this one will be implemented, due to high costs and expected opposition from Joe Biden’s U.S. government, which jointly operates the only airbase on Ascension.
The island is a remnant of the British Empire, part of the widely scattered British Overseas Territory of St Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha. It has a long-settled permanent population of over 800, which would be transformed beyond all recognition by the transfer of even a few hundred boat migrants.
