The great civic crisis of our times is state capacity. When policies favoured by voters are repeatedly met with a bureaucratic 403 error – the action you requested is forbidden by our servers – dissatisfaction with the established order grows, as does the appeal of those outside the mainstream who wish to topple that order.

If a country refuses to take back citizens who have committed serious crimes in Britain, that country is hostile to our interests and a legitimate target for sanctions

If a country refuses to take back citizens who have committed serious crimes in Britain, that country is hostile to our interests and a legitimate target for sanctions

Among those policies which the public has been told simply aren’t possible are the Rwanda scheme; withdrawal from the ECHR; the deportation of Islamist hate preachers; the restriction of social housing/welfare/non-emergency NHS services to citizens; the securing of Britain’s maritime border against people-smuggling; and most infamously Brexit, which the state was so unwilling to deliver that it took two general elections, the collapse of the two-party system and unleashing Dominic Cummings on the civil service to get it done – and even then on the most limited and compromised terms.

The political mainstream is flashing a 403 error once again, this time over Reform’s plans to deport all foreigners currently residing at His Majesty’s Pleasure, a move proposed as an alternative to the impending liberation of about 5,000 lags to ease overcrowding. There are presently 10,000 overseas nationals, roughly 12 per cent of the prison population,........

© The Spectator