The Conservative Party is taking inspiration from the Trump administration in crafting its immigration proposals, according to Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp.

Speaking at a fringe event at the party’s annual conference in Manchester today, Philp said he had “recently met with JD Vance at his holiday hideaway in the Cotswolds” and that the US Vice President discussed “the success the Trump administration has had with removals”. The Shadow Home Secretary added that US “border crossings have totally dropped since they reintroduced a deterrent which had completely vanished under Biden.” Last month, US Customs and Border Protection reported a 93% drop in border crossings from the peak under the previous administration. “We need that,” Philp stated.

He also referenced a recent immigration deal signed between the US and Rwanda, under which the African country has agreed to accept up to 250 migrants. “The USA is now using Rwanda, possibly even facilities that we paid for because Labour cancelled the plan just before it was going to start,” Philp said.

The Tory Rwanda plan, announced by Boris Johnson in 2022, would have sent illegal migrants to the country for processing asylum claims. However, it faced significant legal challenges which blocked the first scheduled flight, and the Labour government ended the scheme on its first day in power. Last summer, then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper accused the Tories of wasting £700 million on the failed policy. In a separate speech on the conference main stage today, Philp acknowledged that the previous Tory governments — of which he was a part — “failed” on immigration.

During the fringe event, the Shadow Home Secretary spoke at length about a possible removals process, saying: “Common sense tells you that when you establish a deterrent, the crossings stop.” He told the audience he was also inspired by Australia’s example. “I also met with former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott last night,” Philp said, “and he had massive success with his Operation Sovereign Borders in 2013.” Australia experienced a significant reduction in small-boat crossings from Indonesia as a result of Abbott’s policy, which intercepted vessels at sea and removed arrivals to an island for processing.

Philp was speaking on a panel with Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel and former Greek immigration minister Notis Mitarachi. The Greek politician said that the Rwanda scheme, while previously “heretical”, has become the “European standard” for countries trying to deal with spikes in illegal migration.

At the weekend, the Conservative Party announced its plans to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) should it return to government at the next election, arguing that the treaty thwarted the democratic process and made immigration policy near-impossible to change. Philp told the audience today that “reforming the ECHR is impossible and even the Secretary General [of the Council of Europe, Alain Berset] recently essentially admitted it.” He also highlighted the example of Attorney General Richard Hermer, who last month “admitted that claiming you can reform the ECHR in any sensible time frame is a ‘political trick’”.

Both Philp and Patel criticized what they referred to as “asylum shopping” and its rise in Britain. “I think the concept of asylum shopping, where people just pick the jurisdiction they find most congenial and go there, is not how the refugee convention was originally intended to operate,” Philp said. “The way that the courts hand down judgments on who can and cannot stay in this country has completely departed from common sense.”

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Max Mitchell is UnHerd’s Assistant Editor, Newsroom.

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