The British state is dysfunctional when it comes to keeping out muggers, rapists and terrorists. But, oh boy, does it come down hard on purveyors of unfashionable opinions.

The openness of our borders is laughed at around the world as an example of state failure. Yet, at the same time, ministers love banning people on the grounds that they might use hurty words.

The most recent case involves two Turkish-American commentators: Cenk Uygur and his nephew Hasan Piker. They have said some pretty obnoxious things: Israel runs US policy, rather Hamas than Netanyahu, maybe 9/11 was provoked by American policy blah, blah.

But here’s the thing. I read similar things every day online, posted by dimwitted British Lefties.

In what conceivable way would the presence of two more Corbynites at a London conference, or at the Oxford Union where they were scheduled to speak, tear our society apart?

The kinds of people who are influenced by the Uygurs and Pikers of this world already know about them, and will continue to download their broadcasts and follow their inanities online.

Indeed, the two US citizens can still speak remotely at British conferences – except now with vastly more public interest as a result of their bans.

Perhaps the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, was looking for political balance. The Government attracted some controversy when it banned several activists who had been scheduled to speak at a Tommy Robinson rally last month.

Some of those denied entry were elected representatives: Dominik Tarczynski is a Polish MEP, and Filip Dewinter, a Flemish separatist and opponent of mass immigration, sits in his regional parliament.

Again, nothing that either man says is unfamiliar in Britain. Both speak English and Tarczynski often posts in our language. What difference would their physical presence have made?

The answer, surely, is almost none. If you want to hear people complaining about immigration and Islamisation, you have plenty of home-grown options; and if you particularly want to hear from Dewinter or Tarczynski then, just as with Uygur and Piker, they are only a few clicks away.

Why do ministers make such frequent use of a law that was designed for a pre-internet world? The power of Home Secretaries to bar individuals whose presence ‘may not be conducive to the public good’ dates in its current form from 1971.

For decades, that power was understood as part of our security system.

A foreign spy might not break any British laws – might give no hard proof of being a spy. But if our intelligence services have reason to suspect him, here is a mechanism to deport him.

Similarly, we might find ourselves at war with another country, and we might have reason to believe that some of that country’s nationals are a fifth column in Britain. Again, if they do not break any laws, on what other grounds might we remove them?

Until this century, this was largely how the Home Secretary’s powers applied. Various Soviet agents were booted out under that clause as, during the Gulf Wars, were some Iraqi nationals deemed dangerous.

But ministers can rarely resist expanding their powers, and it was not long before ‘may not be conducive to the public good’ was held to cover bloggers, YouTube influencers and rap musicians whose lyrics were deemed too violent.

Earlier this year, the rapper Kanye West, who now calls himself Ye, was prevented from appearing at a London music festival after some rambling statements that seemed to glorify the Nazis – even though his shows in Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands will still go ahead.

It is odd enough that this ministerial trigger-happiness, under both parties, should have coincided with the spread of the internet, which made bans redundant. Even odder, though, is that the growth of the use of these powers should have been accompanied by the collapse of border control.

What, after all, is the worst that Piker or Tarczynski or Ye could do? Say the wrong thing? Post a vicious meme?

One thing I can guarantee that none of the people on the banned list would do is gang rape a woman on Brighton beach, as three men who had entered the country on small boats – an Iranian national and two Egyptians – did last year.

I am pretty certain that none of them would abduct and molest an underage girl in Nuneaton as another small-boat arrival, an Afghan, did last year, four months after entering the country.

If ministers want clear-cut examples of people whose presence ‘may not be conducive to the public good’, they should start there.

There is something almost pathetically performative about going after the easy cases while giving up on the truly outrageous ones.

Every week, we read of crimes by Sudanese, Afghan, Somalian and Iraqi nationals who should not have been in the country at all. Yet ministers pat themselves on the back for banning people who have said things which, while they may be disgusting, are not illegal.

The bans have also brought out all the usual double-standards that free speech always exposes.

People who had nothing to say about the exclusion of Right-wing agitators are now posing as veritable Miltons in defence of free expression.

Jeremy Corbyn and Zack Polanski, for example, say that keeping out Uygur and Piker is the action of an authoritarian government.

The essence of free speech is that it must cut both ways.

If you truly believe that we have the right to say anything we like, up to the point of harassment or criminal incitement, then you should apply that principle consistently, something most people find very hard to do.

I have been disappointed to see the number of people who opposed cancel culture during the height of the Black Lives Matter madness but who are now demanding the removal of the President of the Oxford Union, who has Palestinian origins, because she is too anti-Israel.

If you don’t support the rights of people with whom you disagree, you don’t believe in free speech at all.

Perhaps it is too much to expect consistency. We are a species of social primates, and ‘my tribe good, your tribe bad’ is hardwired into our moral outlook.

Free speech, free assembly, free worship – all depend on a liberal culture that must be inculcated from childhood. We have stopped teaching people how to maintain an open society.

Still, I hope we can all agree that some crimes are worse than voicing the wrong opinions. Last year, dog-walker Wayne Broadhurst was stabbed to death in Uxbridge, west London.

His alleged killer, Safi Dawood, had entered the country hidden in the back of a lorry in 2020, and had been granted the right to remain in 2022.

When the British state allows such men to stay, but then histrionically refuses entry to irritating American influencers, we have a problem.

• Lord Hannan of Kingsclere is Director of the Institute of Economic Affairs.