Turn the boats around

Author - Edward Howard

‘Why was the border guard so thin? Did the Romans not notice… that their way of life was changing forever?’

-        Thomas Cahill, 1995

There is no doubt about it; one of the biggest news stories currently is that of the UK border crisis, as thousands of people have entered our isles illegally – while many claim asylum, it’s hard to determine how many of these cases are legitimately genuine. With this, they have been offered four-star accommodation, free takeaway food and allowance money, among other things. With little being done to stop the current surge at many of our coastal towns and communities, total numbers for such crossings have totalled 26,767 overall (compared to 8,461 for last year) and it seems that far more are coming down the road in the imminent future. 

All of this has unfortunately come to a head with the tragic deaths of 27 migrants in the Channel the other week, due to their ship capsizing – the worst tragedy of this kind in terms of human life since records began in 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration.

One of the worrying responses from it is that it seems to have encouraged the government to further back down from their already kid gloves handling of the crisis so far – something so obvious that French President Emmanuel Macron (although not blameless in this whole mess either) stated that Prime Minister Boris Johnson doesn’t take it ‘seriously’.Most tellingly, Home Secretary Priti Patel has called upon media outlets to stop using terms like ‘migrants’, claiming that is dehumanising, all the while going from talking tough on the issue at the recent Conservative Party Conference to claiming that there was no ‘quick fix’ for the issue. 

Even worse still, there have been subsequent calls for amnesty for illegal immigrants in Britain in general. Spectator editor Fraser Nelson shared on his Twitter account a 2019 piece that he wrote calling for such changes, arguing that it would lead to ‘more tax revenue’ and would provide the post-Brexit promise of ‘better managing globalism’ (which seems to miss the point of the whole enterprise of Brexit, but never mind) – something LBC host Iain Dale concurredwith him on.

So, what is the solution to all these troubles? 

What is clearly obvious that our laissez-faire attitude towards the matter has not been either a good or helpful one. Ever since John Major government’s scrapping of the exit checks system for EU citizens in 1994 – admittedly, done as it was rather an ineffective paper-based system anyway – and Tony Blair government’s complete abolition of it in 1998, it has become impossible to find out who is in this country legally or not. Not helping this was the Blair’s government softness on asylum seeking in general, which allowed many to abuse that system – best highlighted by the initial explosion of Kosovar refugees in the late 1990s, that was only curbed due to legislation that responded to public outrage over the matter.

The results are clear, and are mostly shocking. According to the Pew Research Centre, there are currently up to 1.2 million illegal immigrants living in Britain, with a quarter of a million of them having been here for a decade or more. From this, there is already a growing industry who are uses these often vulnerable people as slave labour in the most horrific ways possible – as recent news has noted, several of those coming here illegally agree to work in slave labour conditions in the UK in order to reduce the costs of paying smuggling gangs to take them over. Such a problem can rear its head in the worst way imaginable – for instance, one of the reasons that the Grenfell Tower fire’s aftermath caused so much controversy was that there was much questioning over the accuracy of the death toll there, due to the high number of people who were there illegally, of which as some have noted, showed that the government don’t ‘have a clue… who’s in our country.

It clearly isn’t being soft that is going to work here – beyond this shambles, another reason that illegal immigration is such a problem is that there is seems to be much reluctance from much of the Home Office to deal with it head on: both enforced and voluntary removals have been in decline since 2006, reaching a low of 4,117 in total in 2016, down by 77% from a decade previously. Meanwhile, failed asylum seekers are rarely removed – over 50% have stayed in the UK out of each year’s total since 2004, something recently tragically highlighted by the attempted Liverpool Women’s Hospital bombing, carried out by a failed asylum seeker who hadn’t left despite his case falling through in 2014. The lack of proper resources (due to a shortage of funds and a useless bureaucracy at the necessary agencies) and will on behalf of government and those involved have no doubt made the problem far worse – most crudely highlighted as of late with Paul Lincoln, the outgoing UK Border Force head, calling the idea of national borders ‘a pain in the bloody arse’.

Meanwhile, offering an amnesty won’t work either, as all they’ll do is encourage illegal behaviour, as every country which has tried it is a sad yet predictable example of. Spain, of which has done this six times between 1991 and 2005, has seen the amount of illegal immigrants increase with each pass – the last one in 2005 saw 700,000 people being accepted, compared to 135,000 in 1991. With Italy, there was a similar increase in applicants in its five amnesties in the last two decades, with from 119,000 to 308,000 between 1987 and 1998. Following Ronald Reagan’s amnesty in 1986 in the United States of America, an illegal immigrant population of 3 million has exploded to up to nearly 10 times that amount in the last few years. Amnesties clearly don’t work, as they just incentivise illegal behaviour, all the while will add even further strain on our public services and societal cohesion that has been an unfortunate feature of the immigration of the last quarter-century.  

So, what’s the fix to all this then? It is clear that this is a serious issue that isn’t going away any time soon, and could hurt the Conservative Party electorally before long. While a long shot, the threat of a rejuvenated UKIP making this a tentpole issue is something to possibly take note of, with freelance journalist Steve Laws (who has done more than mostly anyone else to highlight the issue of the current crisis – as a former colleague of his at Politicalite where we covered this extensively, I can attest to that) running for them in the upcoming Southend West by-election, to replace the late, great Sir David Amess. While some have questioned the ethicacy of his candidacy (given the tragic circumstances of the by-election and how UKIP are one of the few legitimate parties to stand in it), the issue is certainly real to many who are affected by it, and of whom could turn on the Tories before long because of it if no action is taken. Polls have clearly shown this too, with a recent Times/YouGov one finding that 77% of the British public feel that the government is handling the situation of the current crisis badly, including 82% of Conservative voters. 

The solution then is obvious; enforcement of our laws work.

To this, Migration Watch UK has offered a series of wise recommendations as to change the system in our favour, which the government ought to read. These include ramping up the removals of those here illegally, boosting the funding of immigrant enforcement services by £100 million along with better training at them, increasing detention for those here illegally, reviving the successful Detained Fast-Track Policy which detained asylum applicants if a quick decision on their claim could be made, subject foreign governments to diplomatic agreements or pressure in order to encourage better co-operation in removing their citizens from this country and using our new Brexit freedoms to close routes that we were bound to under the European Court of Justice, like that of the Metock route. Not all of their suggestions are correct (like the draconian use of ID cards, of which have never worked in their intended aim and made the state increasingly authoritarian as has done so), but this template is at least a good stepping stone to combat this vast and complex issue, not least of which since it was complied in part by former diplomats and civil servants who understand the system and its current failings. 

It is clear that some in the government understand this, and some of the solutions they’re suggesting are at least in the right direction. Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab’s moves to change the Human Rights Act, while not addressing directly the current crisis, is right in attacking Article 8 of that bill, of which keeps people from being deported if they have ‘family life’ in the UK, of which should deter the ambulance-chasing lawyers who often use this as a wedge issue to frustrate deportation efforts. Meanwhile, Home Secretary Priti Patel’s plans to bring in an E-Verify system to check who enters and leaves the country is also highly welcomed, as is her going to foreign countries to sign deals to make deportation of illegal immigrants easier. While not enough, they are definitely steps in the right direction to tackling the issue as a whole – something that should hopefully culminate in the Nationality and Borders Bill once it passes through Parliament.

For this current crisis however, the solution is even more obvious still: turn the boats around. This works, as Australia (admittedly, the cliché example to bring up on this issue) proved. In 2013, the then Coalition Government of that country pursued Operation Sovereign Borders, of which among other measures, turned boats around that were arriving on their shores using their military in order to do so. This then led to the turnback of 20 boats, carrying 633 people on them, of which did much to solve a serious crisis that had begun under the former Labor government (of which led to 50K people arriving on 800 boats in that time), and similar to what the UK is experiencing now. 

Meanwhile, we can look to other countries for inspiration too; Denmark’s recent crackdown on illegal immigration is something to note, especially in its recent offshoring deals with Kosovo, something the UK seems to want to do too.This would also mean serious debate about leaving the European Convention of Human Rights, which prevents us from being harsher on these topics, of which would not only solve much of this problem, but also create new opportunities too, like bringing back the death penalty for example.

Meanwhile, we must also make the UK a less attractive destination for illegal immigrants beyond that. Firstly, we need to make accommodation liveable but not idle – housing them in army barracks and detention centres should be the first port of call, not 4-star hotels or luxurious circumstances (meaning of course, deals with companies like Serco will have to come to an immediate end). Any attempts by politicised courts and judges need to be curtailed by using legislative powers to sort out such problems, something the government seems also to be leaning on, also thanks to Raab. Secondly, we need to make the asylum process swifter and quicker to make sure that it isn’t clogged up with back records, all the while deporting those who fail immediately, as opposed to letting them stay as if they were homeless vagrants, not illegal immigrants, at that stage. 

And finally, show that yes the UK is a ‘hostile environment’ to those living here illegally. Those already here should be deported when they can be tracked and traced, and those who can’t be should be in hardships for continuing to live here – restricting their access to basic necessities like bank accounts and employment for instance are key here, something to a degree that previous governments have taken into consideration. 

Meanwhile, slave illegal labour needs to be cracked down on – enforce legislation like the Immigration Act 1971 and the Modern Slavery Act more harshly, and do the same for punishments, like fining companies and imprisoning businesspeople who knowingly employ illegal immigrants. The problem, as is ever the case, isn’t that the correct legislation is on the cards, but rather that it is, but we don’t enforce it enough. And of course, refuse to grant a full-blown amnesty, all the while happily ignore pleas by those wanting asylum seekers and illegal immigrants to work legally in industries like social care for instance.  

Yes, it’s true that many on the left will oppose such measures, as they do on anything involving cracking down on immigration, illegal or in general – some because of their moronic ‘brotherhood of man’ attitude, and others because they feel that it could benefit them electorally.

However, it is time to ignore such voices. We shouldn’t be caving in to our political enemies, especially since it is a lose-lose zero-sum game for everyone else. 

It is time we took a far stricter tone on illegal immigration, and acted in a far more serious manner than we have done in the past. There is no support for our current status quo, and it is about time it was given a wide birth. 

We need to become tough on illegal immigration, the current crisis on the English Channel and help to create long-term solutions to this issue – and yes, we need to turn the boats around.