Given the unusually fine weather – coupled with the world’s many conflicts, and regions of endemic poverty – it should not come as a great surprise that yet another small boats record has been broken. New Home Office figures show that, since Labour came to power after the general election, more than 50,000 migrants have arrived in the UK via the English Channel.
A few weeks ago, the numbers of refugees and economic migrants arriving via the English Channel reached a record rate for the time of year – 25,000 by the end of July, and, thus, the fastest flow since 2018, when such movements were first monitored. The new headline figure is different, and even more “political”. At this rate, 2025 will set a new record for a calendar year.
The political reaction has been predictable. Labour says it is “unacceptable”, while the Tories accuse the government of having “surrendered our borders”. A little over a year ago, it was the Conservative government admitting the flows were unacceptable, and the Labour opposition laying the charge that the Sunak government had surrendered our borders. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage and Reform UK continue to pretend that solving this complex and intractable problem is simply a matter of willpower and a willingness to break international law and start a naval conflict with France.
To borrow a recently fashionable phrase, the Reformists are the least serious people in British politics since… well, they persuaded the nation that Brexit was a good idea.
Of course, in some ways, taking the Guinness Book of Records approach to the immigration statistics is playing the old immigration numbers game in an even more unhelpful way. The numbers may be large by recent trends, but they are rarely placed in context. Even a figure of 50,000-plus would, for example, only represent about 4 to 5 per cent of the total of gross, entirely lawful immigration into the UK on work and study visas.
Not all will be able to make a successful claim for asylum. If any commit a criminal offence, they are liable to be deported – and much more rapidly under the latest proposals from the home secretary, Yvette Cooper.
Contrary to some lurid and confused headlines, asylum seekers are neither responsible for most sexual offences in Britain, nor the same as those predators of Pakistani heritage who inflicted their appalling crimes on young girls for most of the last two decades. They were not responsible for the Southport murders; and they are mostly quite anxious to go to work, even if it is illegal for them to do so.
The economic case for migration also stands. Despite an uptick in unemployment, there is a labour shortage in many parts of the UK, and it is almost as bad as it has ever been since Brexit in agriculture and the hospitality, health, social care and leisure sectors. A policy of “net zero” migration, as advocated by Reform UK, would cause chaos in care homes, on farms and elsewhere, and inflict grievous damage to the economy. Those who want to reduce regular, lawful, documented and visa-based migration, such as Mr Farage, need to come up with some better ideas about how the demographically challenged and ageing British nation can undergo the renaissance they so cynically promise.
Ministers have a duty to take on the myths and legends of irregular migration. But they are also under an obligation to “stop the boats”, something all parties actually agree about: this trade in human misery is dangerous and, indeed, unacceptable.
Politically, Labour may have given the impression before the last general election, analogous to the way it approached economic policy, that fixing the problem of irregular migration would be easier than it has turned out to be. That is not to decry its efforts.
Sir Keir Starmer was perfectly sincere in his belief, based on past experience as director of public prosecutions, that the criminal gangs engaged in human trafficking are susceptible to the same methods as gangs involved in terrorism and drug peddling. He was also right to rebuild cooperation with European neighbours, as with the “one in, one out” deal with France and changes in German law to make obtaining and running the boats more difficult.
Yvette Cooper seems fully aware of the need to stop using so-called “migrant hotels”, and to clear the huge backlog of cases left behind by the Sunak administration – people supposedly destined for Rwanda who were never going to get there because the Rwanda scheme was so small.
Without condoning the ugly violence and vicious Islamophobia that disfigures too many local demonstrations, it is plain that the public is impatient with the lack of tangible progress. It is unfortunately not yet clear that Labour is making the requisite moves to “smash the gangs” and “turn the page and restore order to the asylum system so that it operates swiftly, firmly, and fairly”.
The best thing that Sir Keir and Ms Cooper can do in these circumstances is to level with the electorate and explain why this intractable challenge will have to take time, and that they will do whatever is necessary to get the numbers radically lower. If stopping the boats were as easy as some claim, it would have happened by now.
Nonetheless, the government needs to provide more evidence of progress, if only to counter the propaganda and misinformation so widespread on social media. In short, the public would like to hear about record-low numbers of small boat arrivals.
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