WHAT happened to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s promise to “stop the boats”?
She was certainly full of big talk before the election.
In April she wrote that “dangerous crossings undermine our border security, fuel soaring profits for criminal smuggler gangs, add to the chaos in our asylum system, and put lives at risk.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
Yet between General Election day and last Wednesday, 6,859 people arrived on small boats. That is more than a third of the 20,433 who have arrived so far this year — and in just eight weeks.
Yvette was full of big ideas, too.
We were going to have new counter-terror-style powers and new international intelligence-sharing agreements to “smash the criminal gang networks”, as well as a new Returns and Enforcement Unit swiftly to return those with no right to be in the UK.
Her resolve now seems to be crumbling in the face of what many people saw as inevitable: The number of irregular migrants arriving in small boats has accelerated since Labour abolished the Rwanda scheme.
On Wednesday, 614 people arrived, following 525 who came on Tuesday.
The boats are getting ever bigger. There were an average of 66 migrants stuffed into each one which crossed the Channel. And yet still French coastguards can’t seem to spot them.
That is in spite of an agreement last year in which the then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak agreed to pay France almost £500million over three years to intercept and stop the boats.
At least the Rwanda scheme was acting as some kind of deterrent — that was obvious earlier this year, when Ireland started moaning about migrants crossing from Northern Ireland to the Republic.
Ever wondered why asylum seekers seem so desperate to cross the Channel from France when they are already in a safe country?
In 2022, the success rate for migrants seeking asylum in the UK was 76 per cent. In France it was just 29 per cent.
There is a terrible human cost from failing to stop this illegal human trade.
People traffickers who wedge 60 people in a dinghy don’t much care whether their passengers live or die. Already this year 25 people have perished trying to reach Britain, four of them last month when a dinghy partially deflated and capsized off the French coast.
There is also, needless to say, a huge cost to UK taxpayers. In 2019/20, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the UK government spent a net £230million on asylum, border, visa and passport operations.
By 2023/23 that had mushroomed to £4.2billion. That sum forms part of Rachel Reeves’ infamous £22billion “black hole” in the public finances. She claims the Government hadn’t budgeted properly for asylum claims.
But just how is a government supposed to budget for uncontrolled, illegal migration?
Reeves may find herself facing an even bigger black hole next year, given the rise in illegal arrivals.
The boats are getting ever bigger. There were an average of 66 migrants stuffed into each one which crossed the Channel
The asylum system is supposed to weed out economic migrants and help only people who are in genuine fear for their lives.
But it has proved far too easy for asylum seekers to make up stories to bolster their asylum claims — like the Liverpool bomber Emad Al- Swealmeen, who buttered up the clergy at the city’s cathedral, claiming to be converting to Christianity, while still, as a coroner established, being a practising Muslim.
We have a moral duty to help desperate people where we can, but the best way to do that is to support them close to the places from which they are fleeing — with camps, for example, on the fringes of Syria.
What we can’t do is take in everyone who could possibly claim asylum.
There are 5.4billion people living in the world’s dictatorships. The whole point of the Rwanda scheme was to help better sort out genuine refugees from economic migrants.
Anyone who is really in fear of their lives would surely appreciate the chance to start a new life anywhere.
The truth is that no developed country can simply open its doors to whoever would like to move there and start afresh. It would quickly be overwhelmed — there are 6.8billion people living in the world’s 152 developing countries.
Britain in the 21st Century is not like the United States in the 19th Century, when a country expanding across vast expanses of the mid-west was able to absorb huge numbers of migrants, who could be put to work building new towns, railways and farmsteads.
Many migrants are not supporting themselves, consuming more in public services or benefits than they contribute in taxes
Britain now is a small, crowded island with a highly developed welfare state, where it is no longer acceptable to house people in primitive conditions.
In any case, the US stopped telling the world to “send us your huddled masses” as soon as the economy matured and there was a less insatiable demand for labour. By the time the Statue of Liberty was built, the first restrictions were already in place.
Yet there are advocates for mass migration who seem to think that Britain can absorb limitless numbers of people and that they will all help boost the economy.
True, there are many migrants who are helping to staff our hospitals and care homes — sometimes doing jobs, like picking fruit, which UK workers seem loath to take up. People who come here to work, especially in occupations where there is a shortage, are very welcome.
But many migrants are not supporting themselves, consuming more in public services or benefits than they contribute in taxes.
Net migration, which stood at 685,000 in 2023, is simply far too high. Neither our public services nor the economy can absorb such numbers.
The Government has acknowledged that, in the same way it has acknowledged it needs to get a grip on illegal migration.
But what is it actually doing?
We still have no one in charge of the new Border Security Command. The Rwanda scheme has gone and the Government has announced that from January 2025, it will not use the Bibby Stockholm, the perfectly decent barge in Portland Harbour which is at least keeping a few asylum seekers out of four-star hotels.
But there is no sign of any reform to the Human Rights Act, which has been used time and time again to frustrate the return of foreign criminals and terror suspects to their homelands — such as an Albanian criminal allowed to stay on the grounds of his right to a family life, in spite of being described by the National Crime Agency as a continuing threat to the UK.
Meanwhile, other European countries are beginning to take a far tougher line.
Germany this week flew 28 Afghan criminals back to their homeland, ignoring those who complained Afghanistan isn’t safe for anyone. Maybe it isn’t, but Germany is a little safer as a result.
With other countries clamping down and our own Government dismantling what few deterrents exist, Britain is only going to become an even more attractive destination for illegal migrants
What finally pushed Olaf Scholz’s government into action was a fatal knife attack by an Afghan refugee in Mannheim in May.
Germany is also investigating a scheme to process asylum applications in Rwanda.
It is a long way from the Germany of 2015, when Angela Merkel’s government launched a “welcome culture” for migrants.
Denmark has begun to send refugees back to Syria, saying that parts of the country are now safe enough for people to return.
Italy has impounded rescue ships operated by charities which were picking up migrants in the Mediterranean and bringing them to Italy.
With other countries clamping down and our own Government dismantling what few deterrents exist, Britain is only going to become an even more attractive destination for illegal migrants.
Sir Keir Starmer and his colleagues will have to live up to their tough talk on migration — or voters will very rapidly lose patience.
