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January 5, 2025 - 8:00am
Going into last year’s general election, Labour knew that the Rwanda Scheme was an expensive farce, and that Keir Starmer was going to scrap it. Like all the most dangerous will-o’-the-wisps, there was real light twinkling at the heart of this wrecker’s lantern. On Channel crossings, as on so much else, Rishi Sunak was busy defeating himself; all the Opposition had to do was watch.
Yet a more reflective Labour Party might have been haunted by the niggling thought that it would, at an increasingly imminent point, be in Sunak’s position. Shadow ministers might then have paid more attention to how and why the then-Prime Minister was failing, and perhaps thought about what they’d do instead. This is especially pertinent when one considers that figures reported this week show crossings increased by 25% year-on-year in 2024, and by over a third on the same basis in the six months since Labour took office.
Labour politicians might have noticed, for example, that the reef against which the previous government dashed itself time and again was the United Kingdom’s existing legal obligations, which conspire to make effective border control a practical impossibility. European nations do not seem to have this problem, despite being signed up to the same treaties — the first clue that Britain might be doing something wrong.
Sunak repeatedly chose what was supposed to be the path of least resistance, eschewing hardline proposals backed by Policy Exchange and the Home Office in favour of a watered-down programme which was supposed to get through the courts. When it didn’t, he had nothing left to offer.
The policy was also just designed badly. By applying the scheme to all illegal entrants, the already spectral threat of deportation to Rwanda was spread across far too many people to be an effective deterrent. Had it been applied only to people who crossed once the Act was in force, with a separate fast-track mechanism set up and resourced, the odds for those thinking about trying to cross the Channel would have been much worse.
Yet, as we move into the new year, Labour doesn’t seem to have taken any of these lessons onboard, or indeed come up with any serious plan for what it’s going to do about the problem. The party had a list of things it wanted to scrap — Rwanda, the Bibby Stockholm barge — but no replacements. What else but a lack of understanding can explain the abortive decision to start housing asylum seekers and other Home Office detainees in private rented accommodation all over the country? The same goes for promises to “clear the backlog” without a deportation plan, which can only mean rubber-stamping applications.
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SubscribeSad really. If only we’d had this positive, can do, attitude, with an army of legal experts, NGO’s, bureaucrats and activists to protect our interests in 1940. We could have created safe spaces for the Tirpitz and Scharnhorst, landing strips for the Luftwaffe and sent out the RNLI to ‘safety’ ferry the Wehrmacht across the Channel. Instead, all that death and destruction, just because of some of some old fuddy duddy, nineteenth century, notions of not welcoming and being nice to foreigners.
4 star hotels. 15 minute access to A&E. Government funded NGOs advising how to get here and stay here. Private dentistry and GPs. Not deporting even the worst convicted criminals. Refusing to investigate the most heinous of crimes. Selling the small boats back to the gangs. Equipping the Royal Navy and RNLi to become a ferry service. Quite literally billions spent from a budget that is increased without contest. Smearing anyone who questions any of this as more dangerous than actual criminals. Threatening my employment for writing here on UnHerd.
This isn’t a series of unfortunate, unexpected occurrences. These are coordinated small and big decisions taken by all levels of the state. The boats clearly aren’t seen as a problem when the entire machinery of the state is straining to facilitate them. For Starmer and the state, the actual problem is ensuring it continues in the face of serious public disquiet.
I term the NGOs the “illegals scum industrial complex”. In the US, there are thousands of organizations, employing tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. They depend in their jobs and to get salaries to have a constant flow of illegals scum to house, protect, and cosset. This is the system that needs to be dismantled NOW.
Do they get preferential access to the NHS, on top of everything else? What possible logic motivates this?
(I know you’re not a mind reader. It’s just that this makes my head hurt)
Seems to me that he simply doesn’t care – obviously continuing the insanity of welcoming unlimited numbers of undocumented, illegal, male migrants, putting them up in nice warm hotels with swift access to healthcare is not a deterrent but a huge juicy carrot that signals the country is run by useful idiots. It’s as if he is purposefully engineering all manner of crises that will ensure this country is brought to its knees and never gets up again.
The government is run by useful idiots. The illegals scum are all completely motivated with the cunning and ruthlessness of those without other options. In addition, the illegals scum lie, cheat, and are informed by lawyers how to speak to use the system.
And ensuring they get preferential access to the NHS.
And Starmer is most comfortable on his knees, as we all know . . .
In the year ending September 2024, 66% of small boat arrivals who made an asylum claim were granted asylum. Had they claimed asylum in France, the country from which they “fled”, they would have faced a system where the grant rate is less than half of that in the UK, even though the same asylum rules are applied. In other words, the same uncheckable sob-story is twice as likely to be believed by a UK asylum tribunal than by their French counterpart. When someone gets into one of those small boats, he knows that he is doubling his chance of asylum.
Reducing the gullibility level of UK asylum tribunals down to French levels is tricky as the tribunals appear to be top-loaded with Guardian readers. So how can we halve the acceptance rate to bring it down to French levels (thereby eliminating a significant pull factor)? One simple approach would be to take each case accepted by a UK tribunal and flip a coin: heads they’re in and tails they’re out. The acceptance rate is halved. This has the David Brent advantage that we only accept lucky refugees.
The only persons who take the jobs of screening illegals scum are Guardian readers. Normal non-Woke non-stupid persons are not interested in such jobs.
1) They should be. 2) More likely those with sensible views get screened out or screen themselves out because they expect to be screened out.3) Somehow the pro-migrant culture of the Tribunals have to be changed. Poland and Hungary faced the same problem in the wake of the collapse of communism namely that all the judiciary were communist approved lackeys. Steps to rebalance the judiciary in favour of genuine democrats were disgracefully opposed by the EU on the grounds of judicial independence without taking into account the background history. At least we are out of the EU and so in theory could take steps to rebalance the ideology, but it could only be done in the face of stiff and noisy opposition and few politicians will have the necessary fortitude to see the process through. You need rock bottom coupled with a Loco Milei.
If we had a government which put we natives first (if only!) we shouldn’t need the Tribunals at all. All who arrive in this country having passed through safe countries, or remain here illegally, should be automatically deported.
It would be a matter for the Home Secretary, answerable to Parliament, alone. There would be no Tribunals, no recourse to the Courts, no role for lawyers.
What other country puts asylum seekers in 4 star hotels? Start there if you want to understand what is going on. This is pure Far Left Ideology playing out in practice.
Who is more important? A native Englishman or a foreigner? Especially if that foreigner is non-white, non-european, non-Christian?
The two political parties, the media, the civil service, the lawyers all made their preference clear years ago.And continue to do so to this day.
This is Critical Race Theory in practice. CRT teaches, as an axiom, that the white European majority injures the minorities in its midst. Teaches that those minorities must be protected and helped over the majority and calls this Social Justice.
Indoctrinate that into a culture and it will start to act against its own interests.
UK is a petri dish for the Far Left.
Can anybody doubt, that the lack of will on the part of the British establishment, is anything but deliberate? Why that is so is a mystery, and humiliation,, I expect, to the vast majority of Britons.
There is a solution to the migrant issue: Abandon the asylum requirement, treat the illegals as invaders, and use a military approach. That is the ONLY thing that will work.
Kier Starmer is sleepwalking, full stop.
The number arriving on small boats is a drop in the ocean (or English Channel) compared with the number arriving legally. The fuss over small boat crossing is largely a smoke screen to cover the Government(s) inaction on the real migrant crisis.
Yes exactly right.
You are right that legal migration is far more significant, far too high and ought to be curbed but illegal migration is a flagrant expensive insult to the existing population involving mostly ruthless young males who are ipso facto lawbreakers from the start and an exhibition of either total incompetence on the part of governments and the bureaucracy or malign intent towards the existing population.
This representative of Conservative Drone proposes an ‘asylum estate’. Setting aside Kent as a reception area?
What else but a lack of understanding can explain the abortive decision to start housing asylum seekers and other Home Office detainees in private rented accommodation all over the country?
Well, there’s probably quite a few other explanations.
It ensures there’s enough young, vulnerable white girls to go round
The final stage of degeneracy includes just not caring. Not caring if the invader wins, if the oath is broken, if the sworn job is betrayed.
This is not a crisis for Labour and Two Tier. They are for open borders in private and border control in public. This suits them very well. They can just pretend that they are doing what they can, and let the millions flood in.
On another note of course, what the government could do, and the last one could have done, is to make it clear that anyone turning up would have no access to benefits, housing or health care for a minimum of five years. And stick to it, instead of doing the opposite.
Anyone wondering why the NHS is bound to fail should consider the almighty load that is bound to fall on a system that is non contributory and wide open to abuse .
KS has discovered the solution: impoverishing the country will make us much less attractive as a destination.
If you have relatives in Britain, get them out – by small boats to the mainland if necessary. The country is in its death throes and will soon be joining the Third World of failed states it seeks to evacuate.
If we declare liberalism dead then the solution is very simple, restore the border and turn back every boat. English Channel is not like Mediterranean, they’ll be fine. But if we keep playing universal human rights games ( designed for an entire different reality) then it’s nothing but a natural selection in action and any polity pursuing suicidal policy won’t survive
I generally agree but the trouble is that if we turn back the illegals, then the French (who don’t want them), will create trade issues at the border. They will use go-slows, strikes, blockades, spurious EU/ECHR issues etc. Any trade friction at the channel ports/tunnel and we are royally screwed.
Once Macron finishes collapsing, the French will start enforcement of their borders.
The author fails to appreciate that Labour welcome the arrival of illegal immigrants, because Labour see them as future Labour voters that will keep Labour in power.
Disastrous for the country.
Sickeningly cynical
Contemptible and intolerable.
Musk is in the news again. Unherd (stupid name) won’t report what is going on. If you don’t know, google the Jordan Peterson interview with Tommy Robinson.
I despise you Unherd, (in case any of you involved in this rag are reading this).
It’s all on X.
What a disgrace the UK media is for hiding everything and not allowing debate.
There will be frustration too from Starmer’s supporters. But he’s been written off before when he took on the Corbynista’s internally and faced off against a victorious Bojo across the Chamber. The early predictions were he wouldn’t last long, and yet here we are. One suspects that hardening experience makes him feel the current constant criticism just indicative of the same sort of journey and eventually his plans and project will deliver if he holds his nerve. The next General election isn’t next year – it’s 4yrs away at least.
Nonetheless whether it’s this subject or Social care there is a desire for bolder action from his supporters, let alone his detractors. Fact he and Meloni seem to have quite a respect for each other though suggests he knows some form of Rwanda deterrence needed, just not of the sort Tories had planned where we got proper grifted by a corrupt regime. Targeting the Smugglers makes sense but can only go so far. Author also doesn’t mention we returned more in last 6mths than in any of the prior 5 yrs, but he’s right about rapid construction of holding centres.
To add though, Spain had c64k illegals last year so we are doing better than some, not that this is much consolation. And here’s a thought – if the Far Right did gain some power, (or additional influence because others move their position) in key European elections next year could some of the flow through Europe diminish thus aiding Starmer? And if Syria stabilises? Point being he could get lucky in some areas. The flows of the Sahel through Libya remain challenging but a weakened Russia can help reduce the disruption and deliberate support for trafficking that Putin uses.
Absolutely, across the board. And a clear vision of what it’s all supposed to be leading to. Lucky for him if things get better by chance – but that’s not the leadership we are looking for.
“The next General election isn’t next year – it’s 4yrs away at least.”
If 2TK & Co keep shooting themselves in the foot (today’s titbit, the anti-corruption minister accepted free accommodation from corrupt family members in Bangladesh) and ignoring the will of the majority of the British people, I’m willing to bet that this parliament will not run its full term.
If the coming anti-woke tidal wave cannot sweep away this bunch of incompetent buffoons with their 156 seat majority, there may well be blood in the streets – you can push us so far, but even we Brits have a breaking point.
Those who voted for them already have buyer’s remorse, and by the time Reform and the Tories have merged one way or another (probably via a hostile takeover led by Reform), there will be an irresistible groundswell of public opinion on the issues of immigration, net zero and breakdown of the rule of law that will be impossible to ignore.