If ever you doubt that the United Kingdom is a magnet for illegal migration, consider the Government’s boast earlier this month that handing over the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) will “close an illegal migration route”.
Forget people chancing the English Channel: the Chagos Islands have received hundreds of refugees from Sri Lanka, across over 1,800 kilometres of open ocean. This would prompt a sensible government to perhaps change the law. Instead, Labour has decided to hand the BIOT — home to a strategically vital military base — to Mauritius, ignoring both the international legal position and, if you care about such things, the views of the native Chagossians.
Even pretending that ceding sovereignty were the only way to solve the immigration issue, this would be ridiculous. Given the scale of the problem, a few hundred Sri Lankans aren’t even worth the money Britain will now have to pay Mauritius to lease its own base.
But the icing on the cake is that Labour has now announced a bold plan for tackling the issue: paying the remote Overseas Territory of St Helena millions of pounds to house anyone who arrives on the island until the handover is finalised.
The Helenians are understandably unamused — and not merely because of the downgrade, given that the last person we exiled there was Napoleon. St Helena’s population is just 4,500, so even a few hundred refugees is going to have a huge impact. No wonder the Government apparently failed to consult them.
On one level, that last point is another lesson in power from Labour. How often did Conservative proposals to use Ascension Island for offshore processing founder on local opposition? But if the Government pressured the Helenian authorities to accept the deal, it will also be yet another worrying signal to our remaining overseas territories.
However, the real question is this: if processing asylum seekers in St Helena is actually helpful (as in, stops them getting into Britain), why not simply roll out such a programme rather than surrender the British Indian Ocean Territory at all? After all, the £6 million Labour is paying for the processing deal is almost certain to be a mere fraction of whatever sum Britain ends up paying Mauritius for the privilege of leasing back its own base.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeThe Conservatives might take it up with gusto, but the legacy media mostly aren’t interested.
Have I Got News for You, flagship topical political satire show, leading with a joke about a Tory Minister who left government years ago.
10 o’clock news broadcasts on the two main channels BBC and ITV leading with items nearly word for word copying a Hamas press release.
The less said about Channel4 the better.
And Ofcom’s staff has just ballooned to over 1400 to begin the task of “regulating” the internet using its new powers under the Online Safety Act so expect sites like this to feel the warm embrace of Ofcom like GB News already has.
I am not *that* surprised that HIGNfY is still going. What surprises me the most is that people under 70 actually watch it.
I’m well over 70 but would rather watch paint drt
Once Ofcom has threatened the big internet companies with fines larger than their UK revenues because of a post by Sally from Redcar and the internet becomes a digital version of Keith Starmer’s dreams* we’ll all be flocking back to the BBC. At least that’s what they hope.
*Starmer claims he doesn’t dream. And I can believe it.
It is “Saint Helenian”, not “Helenian”. And the last person exiled there, if you do not count Boer prisoners of war, was Dinuzulu, whose descendants are still there.
We can’t solve Third World problems by evacuating the Third World, period.
Resolving imperial leftovers isn’t easy. The best way to deal with them is all at once.
I wonder what emogi is used for a snigger, but not enough to find out.
Ship them to Matamoros. Then they can just walk across the Rio Grande.