Of course the UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak did not offer London Bridge up for sale and I very much doubt that those who have read the title of this piece believed that the PM was enthusiastically flogging off London’s bridges or that the PM was fleecing rich tourists by pretending to sell said bridges. However Mr Sunak does have another sort of offer to sell to the country, an offer probably worse than the false offer of London Bridge and that is Mr Sunak’s new policy to deal with illegal migration.

The new policies announced by the Prime Minister are, as Patrick O’Flynn says writing in the Spectator, pretty radical, they are the ‘Big Bang’ of immigration policies that many of us who are concerned about the immigration problem would like to see. This is because as well as the short term tinkering with the immigration system that grabs headlines, policies such as moving the illegal invaders out of hotel accommodation, more immigration enforcement raids and faster processing of asylum claims, there is also the promise of root and branch reform of border control. Part of that proposed root and branch reform is for Britain to leave the international asylum treaties and have strict numerical limits on the number of those who claim to be refugees who are able to enter the UK. The PM’s new proposals also incorporate some of the aspects of the Australian policy that successfully stopped illegal migrants from entering Australia such as a new rule that states that if a person arrives illegally into the UK then they will not be allowed to stay and will be permanently refused settlement rights should they attempt to try to enter the UK illegally again.

I looked at the list of the PM’s proposals in Mr O’Flynn’s piece and thought to myself “these are the sort of policies that Britain needs’. There are some aspects of the proposals that in my view do not go far enough, for example there is a need for Britain to be more selective about how it treats the Statelessness Conventions as they are being used as a loophole to enable illegals who enter the UK to avoid being deported. By disguising their origins illegal migrants can claim that they come from somewhere other than where they are really from and if there’s no definite place of origin for the illegal Britain has to take them as Britain is not allowed under the Conventions to make individuals Stateless. It’s why Britain could only take away the citizenship of violent jihadis who fought for ISIS if those jihadis were dual nationals. If they were not dual nationals and only held British citizenship then Britain can’t cut these jihadis loose or refuse to take them back if apprehended.

The type of policy proposals announced by the PM look like the sort of policies that Britons, frustrated by decades of excessive amounts and inappropriate types of immigration could wholeheartedly support. In addition they are the sort of policies that the Conservative Party could and should have introduced years ago but might have been prevented from doing so by Britain’s membership of the European Union.

But there’s a problem here, a number of problems in fact. The first of these problems is that we’ve been here before with the Conservatives and pre-election headline announcements about controlling migration. Time and time again the British people have been shown by the Tories the policies that they will bring in to reduce immigration and remove from the UK those who are not entitled to be here or those migrants whose presence is counter to the public good. We’ve had countless promises from the Tories about immigration and they’ve all turned out to be false. When it comes to immigration the Tories have a long record of promising Britons a set of solid policies to deal with this issue but more often than not serve up a nothingburger.

Prime Minister Sunak has come up with policies that could work to stop Britain being overwhelmed but as well as the distinct and credible possibility that the PM’s proposals are just pre-election bullshit, there is also the matter of whether Sunak, if he wins the next election, will be able to get such measure through Parliament? Such measures are bound to face opposition in the House of Lords which has been stuffed by both Labour and Tory governments with liberal / left types but the measures also might end up being stymied by the House of Commons. If Sunak’s Tories win the next General Election it will be unlikely that they will win with a convincing and heavy majority. These necessary proposals to deal with immigration problems might result in them being defeated by the socialist opposition. Sunak will also face problems getting such immigration measures past his own party which is now dominated by the the sort of individuals who politically might be better suited to the Liberal Democrats. These wet ‘non-Tories’ will hold up or destroy any attempt by the party leadership to reform migration policies. This will especially be the case if the next General Election serves up a small Tory majority which will therefore give Tory rebels on the ‘wet’ side of the party an outsized degree of power.

Having seen numerous promises from the Tories that they would tackle excessive, inappropriate and illegal immigration only to see such promises being as firm as pie crust, I’m not prepared to allow the Tories to bullshit me again. I and many other Britons who voted Conservative in order that this party would actually conserve the nation, have been serially let down. Looking back at similar promises made by the Tories to deal with the immigration issue, promises that are swiftly broken, I’ve come to the conclusion that PM Sunak’s announcement is just cynical electioneering and his proposed policies will end up having little or no substance.

When reading the PM’s admittedly radical and necessary proposals to deal with Britain’s immigration problems I can’t help but think of the old saying “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” I have seen too many occasions when the Tories have fooled the public, including myself at election time, with promises to halt mass immigration and stop the abuse of asylum rules. On nearly every occasion the Tories have failed to deliver on this issue and I’m really not prepared to be fooled again by a Tory party that plainly doesn’t give a toss about the security of Britain’s borders or the cohesiveness of British society. To the Tories I say this: You can take your fake promises of immigration reform and shove it. The Tories will no longer get my vote in exchange for empty promises. I refuse to buy Rishi Sunak’s fake ‘London Bridge’ no matter how attractively it is being sold.