Melanie Philips writes:

The BBC reports:

The alleged leader of an al-Qaeda plot to bomb targets in north-west England has won his appeal against deportation. A special immigration court said Abid Naseer was an al-Qaeda operative – but could not be deported because he faced torture or death back home in Pakistan.

… ‘We are satisfied that Naseer was an al-Qaeda operative who posed and still poses a serious threat to the national security of the United Kingdom,’ the judgement said. It added: ‘Subject to the issue of safety on return, it is conducive to the public good that he should be deported.’

Question: if it is not ok to send al Qaeda operatives to far-flung places where they may be judicially killed, why is it ok for British forces to be hunting them down in far-flung places in order that they may be extra-judicially killed?

We all know the explanation for this. The immediate reason is the particularly obtuse interpretation of human rights law by the English judiciary, which has extended the definition of torture to include deporting anyone to any country whose standards of human rights are lower than in Britain. Which is just about everywhere on the planet.

Not so! Canada has a pretty good human rights record too. And we take anyone; we send terrorists to live in Brantford or Montreal where they are sponsored by the Anglican Church of Canada.

So ship your al-Qaeda operatives to us where they can join their friends: we’d love to have them.