Housing migrants in tents is not only wrong, it is illegal

Suella Braverman is prepared to break the law to push through her inhumane policies against asylum seekers – the country will not tolerate it, writes Lord Falconer

The home secretary is no doubt inspired in her law-breaking by the reading of polls and the output of focus groups (PA Wire)

Housing unaccompanied children in hotel rooms, imprisoning refugees without cause and preventing them from getting to court, and creating tented refugee camps in disused army bases around the country are all against the law.

The law so often gets in the way of what governments want to do because they think it will make them popular. They can’t just lock up criminals and throw away the key. They can’t just change the rules of elections to make it harder to vote the poorer you are. They can’t just throw the men, women and children who come in small boats across the Channel back into the sea.

The current home secretary doesn’t accept this legal limitation. For her, politics is everything. If it’s what she wants to do politically then she is not going to let the law get in the way. If she can’t change the law, then she will break it. And no doubt she thinks a groundswell of public opinion will either intimidate the courts or protect her position in some other Trumpian way.