It is no disrespect – indeed, quite the opposite – to wonder why the BBC’s investigative reporter Sue Mitchell and her colleagues succeeded where the British state failed, having managed to track down and question one of Europe’s most prolific people traffickers.
Filmed casually sweeping the pavement outside one of his mini-marts in Blaby, near Leicester, Twana Jamal was confronted by Ms Mitchell with the evidence of his various crimes; at first he denied them, and then remarked: “I don’t care.”
Known by a variety of names, Jamal – an Iraqi Kurd who became the self-styled “king” of the Calais jungle and the “godfather” of the grim trade in human misery – is said to once have made some £100,000 a week in this sadly lucrative trade. And he is not the only such people smuggler identified by Ms Mitchell. More than 20 have been found to have reached the UK – some with convictions in other countries, some having claimed asylum using false names.
On the face of it, then, the BBC seems more capable of “smashing the gangs” than the combined resources of the police, National Crime Agency, Border Force, the Home Office, the Secret Intelligence Service, and all the other agencies that the prime minister gathered together for a high-profile Cobra meeting upon his election two years ago.
And yet the boats are still crossing the English Channel, in broadly the same numbers as before – and the likes of Jamal are given indefinite leave to remain in the UK, despite doing so with false credentials, violating the rules on working, and with a criminal record acquired in France, where the court paid him the backhanded compliment for being one of the most successful in his business.
Whatever view is taken of the merits of the asylum seekers’ cases and the lack of safe and secure routes – which does push innocent people fleeing torture into the hands of the smugglers – every overcrowded boat that tries to make the journey to Britain risks the lives of those onboard. The organisers care only about their profit margins.
It is an evil as well as an illegal trade, and one with a seemingly infinite capacity to adapt, and to evade detection and prosecution. It isn’t easy for the authorities, or even journalists, to catch the perpetrators – and even when they do, inevitably, others come forward to replace them. It is a business with a ready demand from migrants, be they “economic” or refugees, or with some mixture of motives; and an equally ready supply of those willing to transport them, and in hazardous ways.
That, fundamentally, is why the activity has been so difficult to close down. It’s important, in that context, to understand that the reason why the small boats have become such a phenomenon is because the previous method of choice, hiding in lorries, had been effectively eliminated through tighter security at the crossings.
To be fair, the Border Security Command – launched in July 2024, in wake of the prime minister’s first Cobra meeting – has had some success, boasting some 3,625 “disruptions” of one kind or another last year.
But it’s not enough. Certainly, it hasn’t lived up to the government’s high expectations. Its first chief, Martin Hewitt, has already resigned, reportedly frustrated with lack of progress, and a new permanent head is yet to be appointed.
Sir Keir had promised the same cross-agency approach and similar success as has been applied to the fight against terrorism. Yet Jamal is still at large somewhere in the East Midlands, driving about without a licence.
There are some obvious and urgent steps that need to be taken. Somehow, the government has to regain access to the intelligence material and asylum claim records lost when the UK left the European Union. The fact that the UK doesn’t know if an asylum seeker has already had a claim rejected in an EU nation is bad in itself; but it creates a powerful added incentive for the unsuccessful to try to reach Britain to have another go.
Fixing this data deficit should be as important a goal as anything else in the “reset” of relations now underway. There is also a growing political consensus, in Britain and in other signatory nations, that the European Convention on Human Rights can be too easily manipulated by people who themselves have robbed their fellow human beings of their rights, up to and including the right to life itself.
The backlog of asylum seekers built up when the Conservatives simply refused to process them because they were “illegal” is being cleared, but has to be eliminated in order to facilitate swift returns and close asylum hotels. Shabana Mahmood has proved determined in her mission to regain public trust in the system, against the odds.
But the embarrassing case of Twana Jamal shows just how much more there is to do to preserve the precious right of asylum from its abuse.
