Tough talk on the small boats crisis is no longer enough

Times

a day ago

President Trump arrived in Scotland for his golf break with a warning to Britain and Europe to get their act together on immigration. Peter Mandelson, our man in Washington, recently observed that there is always a kernel of truth in what the US president says, and there was more than a kernel in what he said about immigration.
Trump can point to his own success in bringing down illegal immigration at America's land border with Mexico. What US Border Patrol describes as 'encounters' with illegals fell more than 90 per cent last month compared with October last year, before the president's re-election. Tougher border measures and deportations are having a decisive impact.
In contrast, Trump's British hosts have a record of failure in stopping sea crossings from France, which in theory should be easier. In the first half of this year nearly 20,000 migrants crossed the English Channel to the UK, up almost 50 per cent on the corresponding period of 2024 and a record for the first half of a year. Numbers of what the government calls 'irregular' migrants keep rising, with 638 in the seven days to Friday.
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It has become the hottest of hot-button issues. A poll for this newspaper by More in Common shows that 61 per cent of people do not think France is doing enough to stop the boats, while nearly seven in ten back Nigel Farage's call for the navy to be involved. People also think the UK's pull factors are part of the problem, with 54 per cent believing it is easier to gain access to welfare in this country and 49 per cent thinking it easier to obtain asylum.
It is also being noticed in towns up and down the country, where asylum seekers are being accommodated. Last summer there were riots outside migrant hotels, triggered by false reports about the appalling Southport murders. There has already been an echo of that in Epping in recent days, where peaceful protests by local residents have turned violent thanks to the presence and influence of outside agitators. The violence has rightly been condemned but the sense of unease in many places from the presence of large numbers of young men from different ­cultures with time on their hands is real.
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The government is in a real bind on this issue, not made any easier by Sir Keir Starmer's clumsy comment that there is 'lots of housing available' for both the homeless and asylum seekers.
When Labour was elected on a pledge to scrap the Tory Rwanda scheme and ­target people smugglers, it was popular. Many people thought the Rwanda scheme was an expensive and harsh gimmick that would prove unsuccessful. It was, though, a deterrent and, as things stand, the UK lacks one, while the absence of ID cards makes it easier for illegal immigrants to slip into the country and stay here.
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, in a piece for us on Sunday, says she inherited an asylum system in chaos, and pledges to 'keep accelerating enforcement and returns'. The government will use mobile fingerprint units and digital ID cards for foreign nationals 'to take swifter action against those with no right to work or reside here'.
What Cooper describes as 'our groundbreaking new pilot agreement with France' will reduce small boat crossings, she claims, and the Border Security Bill 'will enable us to tackle illegal working by delivery drivers, seize the mobile phones of small-boat migrants, and use new ­counter-terror powers against the smuggling gangs'. It is a tough message from her, with a promise to tackle the problem with 'hard graft'.
If people are sceptical, however, it is with good reason. If tough talk solved the problem, it would have ended years ago. It is 13 years since Theresa May, as home secretary, promised to create 'a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants'.
The people smugglers would not exist if there was not a powerful desire among tens of thousands of people each year to come to this country illegally. The pull factors are still pulling them towards this country and the lack of an effective deterrent makes them think that, once here, they are likely to be able to stay. Until that changes, the problem will persist.