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Britain has no way to protect itself from this new wave of immigration

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Even more than Brexit, no issue demonstrates the division between the country and its governing elites better than During election campaigns, and referendums too, politicians promise control and tell the voters they will get the numbers down. But between those campaigns, they hide behind the complexity of statistics and emphasise the apparently vital economic need for every kind of immigration: high-skilled, low-skilled, students, workers.But now the politicians have to contend with a new problem. In place of complicated statistics, we have the simplicity of an image: photographs showing the steady flow of human traffic, crossing the Channel from France to enter Britain illegally.Those pictures tell the shocking story of an almost . About 4,000 migrants have made the journey this year so far, already more than twice the number in 2019. Last Thursday alone, 235 crossed the Channel in seventeen separate vessels. In just a few months, Kent County Council has taken hundreds of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children into care.Under pressure from the Tories who control Kent’s council, and , who has published migrant journeys on social media, ministers promise action. They plan to deploy patrol aircraft and the Royal Navy to locate migrant vessels and return them to France. Tomorrow, Chris Philp, a Home Office minister, will seek French cooperation at a meeting in Paris.An increase in official enforcement activity, and in the capabilities of the Border Force, will make a difference. So too will operational cooperation with France. But if ministers truly want to restore border security and immigration control, they have to answer bigger questions.Why are so many people, from the safety of prosperous France, so desperate to come to Britain? Who is helping to orchestrate the dangerous journeys undertaken by the migrants? And rather than asking the Royal Navy to chase rafts and dinghies, what can be done to stop the relentless flow?have their answer. They cite the European Union’s Dublin Regulation, which says that asylum seekers must make their claim in the first EU member state they reach, and that anybody who breaches this rule can be returned to that country. Gleefully, they say Britain will be unable to rely on the Regulation when EU law ceases to apply here at the end of the year.This is nonsense. The most fervent Remainers are among those who often want ministers to ignore the Regulation and bring thousands of migrants to Britain from camps in Northern France. And the Regulation itself is not especially effective. Since January 2019, nearly 6,000 people have arrived in Britain on small boats, but in the same period little more than 150 have been sent back to European countries.A better place to start understanding the problem is our uniquely open economy and society. Unlike most European countries we have no system of mandatory identity cards. We have universal public services that are free at the point of use and rarely require users to prove they are legally resident here.We have a significant black economy, in whichcan work – often exploited by criminal bosses – without fear of identification and deportation. And we have a remarkably open formal economy too. Illegal immigrants are often able to find work in legitimate businesses, and are sometimes even issued with National Insurance numbers.Then there is Britain’s Byzantine immigration system and our easily-abused human rights laws. The usual way of claiming asylum is when the claimant is already in Britain. But this encourages many to take dangerous and illegal journeys to get here. And instead of helping those with the greatest need, it means we reward the strongest and wealthiest: two thirds of asylum seekers in Britain are men and most are in their twenties.This is well understood by the organised criminals who smuggle people across borders and make their profits from a grim trade in human beings. They have been able to exploit the destruction – by Western bombs – of the Libyan state, which previously acted as Europe’s forward border and prevented mass migration. They have exploited the moving their human cargo around with ease. And they exploit the weakness of our laws and operational capabilities: they know that once a migrant has successfully reached Britain the chances are they will stay.So it will take more than additional patrols in and above the Channel to address this serious problem. We need well-led and well-funded policing operations to break up the criminal gangs that promote and facilitate this movement in people. We need to regulate our labour market and public services better to make sure they work in the interests of people who are in the country legally. Identity cards, or perhaps public service entitlement cards, would help to achieve this without risking another inadvertent tragedy like the Windrush affair.And we need to reform the immigration system itself. should be changed to permit greater control, even if that means leaving the European Convention on Human Rights. And the asylum system should be turned on its head. The Government should develop a lasting resettlement scheme, working with the United Nations to find the world’s most vulnerable refugees and bring them to Britain. But asylum seekers should no longer be allowed to live in Britain while their claims are processed. Like in Australia, and as proposed by the EU, we should manage asylum claims in centres far away from Britain, reducing the potential for bogus applications and human trafficking.Just as with legal immigration, the scale of the change we need to tackle illegal immigration is enormous. The scale of opposition such change will provoke will be just as great. But if ministers want to deliver what consistent majorities of the country ask – border security, lower immigration, and real control – they will need to be far more radical, and reform our laws and systems from scratch.Related TopicsAdvertisementRelated TopicsWe rely on advertising to help fund our award-winning journalism.We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future.Thank you for your support.Need help?Visit ourpage.Close

Even more than Brexit, no issue demonstrates the division between the country and its governing elites better than During election campaigns, and referendums too, politicians promise control and tell the voters they will get the numbers down. But between those campaigns, they hide behind the complexity of statistics and emphasise the apparently vital economic need for every kind of immigration: high-skilled, low-skilled, students, workers.But now the politicians have to contend with a new problem. In place of complicated statistics, we have the simplicity of an image: photographs showing...

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Nick Timothy

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Britain has no way to protect itself from this new wave of immigration

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