Britain’s cruel immigration detention policy is rightly being attacked from all sides

It is strange that the UK should be the only nation in the European Union without a time limit on the detention of immigrants in the various centres operated by the Home Office and its contractors. So strange, and indeed unacceptable, that it has attracted the opposition of normally loyal Conservative MPs, who are voicing their concerns about the continuation of such a cruel system.

The UK’s immigration detention centres, and the private sector outsourcing firms that run them, have come under repeated attack by everyone from the UN down. Disturbances, fires and near riots at places such as Yarl’s Wood suggest that, far from the public gaze, something is very wrong with them – and indefinite detention must be one of the most potent factors in their instability.

Last week, the minister responsible for migrant detention, Caroline Nokes, wrote to the House of Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights in these bureaucratic terms: “Any time limit would require a significant and costly reengineering of a wide range of cross-government and judicial systems to mitigate these consequences. Even countries that do apply a time limit to immigration detention do not operate such a short one.”

All of which is merely a long-winded way of saying that, yes, other countries are more efficient, but it is all too much bother.

Since then, Ms Nokes has been relieved of her office, and Boris Johnson has upended the entire basis of UK immigration policy, moving to a points-based system rather than a target, and an amnesty of illegal immigrants. If Mr Johnson is to be consistent he needs also to bring his more enlightened approach to the detention centres.

Whatever the background and future intentions of immigrants, it is plainly absurd for them to be imprisoned against their will without proper judicial procedure for weeks or months at a time. They may not have committed an offence, or in any case been convicted of one. The law does not permit such lengthy incarceration before a remand hearing or conviction, not even for terrorist offences.

It is a breach of the human rights of those concerned, and, arguably, it is in defiance of the ancient principle of habeas corpus, something Mr Johnson specifically mentioned in his speech on taking office – a foundation of the freedoms Britain should be renowned for.

More prosaically, Mr Johnson, with his tiny parliamentary majority, will be facing rebellions from his own side that he can well do without in the coming months. He would also be faced with some ferocious legal challenges to the current system, where the government has a substantial risk of losing, and, thus, also losing control over the formulation of policy entirely.

This is one occasion when high principle and low political calculation coincide in a single course of action. Mr Johnson should set his new home secretary, Priti Patel, and new immigration minister to work on a radical reform of the system, humanising it and speeding up the process of sifting and accepting or rejecting the various claims.

The “hostile environment” policy is already supposed to have been abolished, and it did not work in any case, as our overcrowded and unsafe detention centres demonstrate. We can do better. We will have to.