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And the big news story today is the boats are now launching from Belgium and the Belgians
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hand them over to the French and in line with the wing three quarters that operates in the
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channel they then get handed on at the 12 mile line to the British. And there has been
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much negotiation between the Home Secretary and the French over the course of the last
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few weeks. We have given the French £800 million since 2014 to stop the boats and we are negotiating
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the next round. But it's all completely and utterly irrelevant. Because if you cross the
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English Channel by boat, or if you hide yourself in the back of a lorry, or if you come on
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a visitor visa or a work visa from Pakistan or wherever else it may be and overstay, your
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chances, despite being in Britain illegally, your chances of remaining in the country stand
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at just over 97%. So it's a virtual cert. Get onto a boat, pay a trafficker, throw your
1:02
passport and iPhone into the sea at the 12 mile line so that nobody can really identify
1:08
you or check you and you will be able to stay. And so what we want to talk about is some
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very very simple basic principles that need to be put in place. Australia succeeded with
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this back in 2012 by simply saying that no one that comes to Australia illegally on a
1:29
boat from Indonesia and the principles are remarkably similar that nobody that ever comes via this route will ever be able to claim refugee status That was the first significant act of the Abbott administration followed up
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by boats then, even when a few more did start to come, boats simply being towed back to
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Indonesia. And guess what? The boats stopped coming completely. The other alarming aspect of this is the whole illegal immigration industry
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Big companies making vast profits out of housing people in hotels, in houses of multiple occupancy
2:13
or wherever it may be, but also the legal profession. And I'm grateful to the BBC for saying what they have over the course of the last couple
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of days that there are just too many fake, spurious claims, people claiming to be gay
2:29
so they can't be sent back, being just one example or the other absolute farce is being
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baptised by Church of England vicars to say suddenly we've become Christian therefore
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we can't return to a country that would treat us terribly. And that is why today what we
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announce is not just that anyone that continues to come illegally will not be allowed to stay
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under a reformed government, but that we will go back five years and review all asylum applications
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And if there is a belief, those applications have been granted because they are bogus
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a belief those applications have been granted because the British government feels both Conservative and Labour that really their only option is just to wave everybody through And also if we can see that it is a deliberate willful
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misapplication of the good intentions of the Human Rights Act, then those asylum claims
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will be revoked and people told, you've come via this route, you will not be allowed to
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stay. Now the numbers are substantial, up to 400,000 potentially within the scope of
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what we are talking about today, on top of a massive problem of people illegally being
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in Britain which exists even without this being part of the equation. And I know there
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will be people who talk about administratively, how are you going to do it, what is the cost
4:00
of it going to be. Well I tell you what, with the calculations that Zia is about to show
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you the net benefit to the British economy. We're talking in the short term many, many
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billions and in the long term we're talking, we're actually talking telephone numbers in
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the long term. We're talking 60, 70 billion pounds over a lifetime could be saved by putting
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this policy in place. But it's the big principle that I want to establish that nobody will
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be allowed to stay under a reformed government and yes of course that will mean getting rid
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of the Human Rights Act. It will mean of course for the moment
4:37
disapplying the 1951 Convention which clearly needs to be updated right across the world
4:44
and I think there are actually many other countries in Europe now that have reached the same conclusion and it will mean doing those things and passing firm legislation in Parliament But the point of today press conference is to make absolutely clear that
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there is no way that British taxpayers and British people should have to live with a
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whole load of people who illegally broke into our country, who disguised their identities
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from now living off the British taxpayer, potentially for the rest of their lives, disjointing
5:16
communities and, perhaps most frustratingly of all, going straight to the top of the social
5:23
housing list. I was shocked to learn that there are 15 London boroughs that are now sanctuary
5:30
boroughs which means if you come into Britain illegally you literally go to the top of the
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list. You are literally at the front of the queue over families who have been part of
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communities and paid into systems for a very, very long time. It is unfair, it is immoral
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it is wrong at every level and it is one of those issues, I can't think of a bigger one
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in which the public's faith in the whole democratic system has broken down. Repeated promises from
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prime ministers to stop the boats or smash the gangs, all of which have come literally
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and out. And the timing of this of course ahead of the warmer summer months, where I
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have little doubt there will be many tens of thousands more people who will come into
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Britain posing a threat, not just to our finances, posing a threat to too many of our women and
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girls, but equally, given the situation the world is in, posing a genuine threat to our
