Johnson (L) accused Starmer (R) of deploying Orwellian language over the small boats crisis. (Image: Getty)
Boris Johnson has accused Sir Keir Starmer "changing the language" around the small boats crisis to mask his inaction on the issue, as he suggested Britain is slipping into an Orwellian nightmare.
In a piece for The Daily Mail, the former Prime Minister claimed the current PM's government has decided it is "no longer acceptable" to point out the scourge of criminal gangs who organise the perilous journeys across the channel to Britain.
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"Far from deterring the gangs, Labour have announced an amnesty for 100,000 who were going to be deported – so that they will now be claiming asylum in the UK, and, inevitably, living here," he claimed.
"Instead of tackling the problem, they appear to be changing the language we use to discuss it so that we should no longer refer to the cross-Channel traffic as ‘illegal’ migration, but only as ‘irregular’ migration," he added.
Mr Johnson, 60, lauded the generosity shown by the UK to people fleeing Hong Kong, Afghanistan, and Ukraine in the last few years, and claimed Labour's language "lumped" them together "with the law-breakers".
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Sir Keir Starmer (Image: Getty)
"It is a moral and political disaster, because of course it will only encourage indiscriminate prejudice against all immigrants, legal or otherwise," he argued.
"It is also an abuse of the language. You might as well say that shoplifters are no longer guilty of theft but ‘irregular’ shopping and that those drunk at the wheel are guilty of ‘irregular’ driving."
However, the term was actually used by Mr Johnson's own government, with former Immigration Minister Chris Philp championing changes to immigration rules in Parliament back in 2019 that he said were "vital to curb irregular migration".
Meanwhile, Sir Keir has frequently referred to illegal migration in relation to the crossings, including at the European Political Community summit in July.
Mr Johnson also said the Rwanda scheme, which would have seen people identified by the UK as being illegal immigrants or asylum seekers being relocated to the East African country for processing, asylum and resettlement, would "unquestionably have worked" had it remained government policy.
The plan, put forward by the former Tory government, had been condemned by human rights groups and ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court.
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Mr Johnson insisted the now-scrapped Rwanda scheme would have proved effective. (Image: Getty)
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In response, the then government introduced a bill to decide in UK law that Rwanda is a safe country, with the legislation ordering the courts to ignore important sections of the Human Rights Act and other British laws or international rules.
It was scrapped after Labour came to power in July, before any flights had taken place, with Sir Keir saying his government would tackle the issue by "smashing" the people smuggling gangs behind the crossings.
Mr Johnson, who resigned as Prime Minister in July 2022, ended by quipping that "Starmer’s Britain" was "twinned with Orwell’s 1984", the 1949 dystopian novel and cautionary tale about authoritarianism and the distortion of language to control the masses.
In response to his article, a Home Office spokesperson said: "Boris Johnson must be existing in a parallel universe. Far from being a deterrent, the Rwanda gimmick was a distraction from the hard work needed to end dangerous small boat crossings.
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"The Tories spent ￡700million to return just 4 volunteers. It’s very weird that they are clinging to the fantasy that this was the answer when over 2 years they didn’t manage to get a single deportation flight took off, and when 65,000 people arrived on small boats after they signed the Rwanda deal.
"Far from offering an amnesty, a Labour Government has increased capacity for removals of those who have no right to be here, and have already overseen 9 returns flights in the last 6 weeks. By the end of the year, we will have removed thousands of those here illegally," they added.