'The boats come because we are the weakest country in the Western world when it comes to handling unlawful immigration,' argues Ann Widdecombe
Ann Widdecombe was a former Tory MP
The deaths of twelve migrants in the channel, including women and children, is a tragedy destined to be repeated unless Starmer emerges from the fog of inaction, which he has kept up since taking office, and finds the energy to stop the boats.
For that he needs a deterrent and, having ditched Rwanda, he has none. It beggars belief that, given how high a priority illegal immigration was in the recent General Election, he got away with effectively no policy at all, other than a vague promise to smash the gangs, which he can’t do convincingly as long as they operate internationally and anonymously. He might as well promise to eliminate the entire Mafia.
The first deterrent is a simple declaration that nobody landing on our shores with no ID or fake ID will be eligible for asylum. Full stop. No ifs or buts. The next is to house all new applicants in secure accommodation instead of hotels until their claims have been rejected after which they will be returned to their home country.
We also need some offshore processing whether Rwanda or anywhere else. Meanwhile, we can also make a concentrated effort to try turning the boats around as some other countries have done effectively without danger to life or limb.
All the above is Reform policy as opposed to Starmer’s offering of nothing at all and the Tories’ investment of all its eggs in the single basket of Rwanda.
That we should also leave the ECHR to prevent such efforts being regularly frustrated by lawyers more interested in the rights of people arriving in droves from a perfectly safe country than in the rights of taxpayers to safeguard the integrity of housing and the NHS, must be a given.
Daily the boats come because we are the weakest country in the Western world when it comes to handling unlawful immigration.
When I last looked France was a safe country, under the rule of law and a signatory to all the international conventions on refugees, yet people risk life itself to get here instead of seeking a future in France.
The single biggest pull factor is the unlikelihood of ever being returned. We have no national identity cards. We do not practise routine detention.
But we do have a flourishing underground economy and the combination of those three factors make it all too easy to disappear. Add to that our tendency to give amnesties and it is unsurprising that Britain is a magnet for economic migrants.
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Once inside Britain, you are probably here for life runs the message, so send a different one which runs: if you come to Britain with a false claim or no proof of identity then you will be detained, you will be dealt with quickly and you will be removed. Who is going to pay thousands of pounds to a human trafficking agent for that?
Yet Starmer rejects all of that and as long as that state of affairs continues, the boats will come daily. It is time he was robustly challenged but the Tories are more interested in their own leadership election and also face the impossible-to-answer question of why they were themselves so helpless.
As for the gangs our PM boasts of smashing, that will happen only when the custom dries up and that in turn won't happen until there is a deterrent in something other than name only.
