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Telegraph
2 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
The loophole fuelling Britain's illegal migration crisis
The small boats crisis is perhaps the perfect example of British state failure. It begins with our unwillingness to reconsider refugee conventions that function as a backdoor for economic migration, is mediated by Border Force effectively serving as a ferry for anyone able to drag themselves halfway into the Channel, and is fuelled by the lure of a taxpayer-funded hotel with ample working opportunities on arrival. Between them, these factors explain why Sir Keir Starmer's promises to end illegal migration by 'smashing the criminal gangs' are doomed to fail. And they also suggest the easiest way to start cutting arrivals: smash the gig economy instead. Earlier this week, Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, directly accused a swathe of delivery companies of failing to prevent hotel migrants from finding work through their platforms. On visiting a hotel, he wrote, he found 'delivery bags' for multiple companies and spoke to a local shopkeeper who said migrants were 'regularly' riding bikes bearing the logos of these companies. At the moment, gig economy firms benefit from a glaring loophole in right-to-work checks. Companies are obliged to check the status of those they employ, but not self-employed workers carrying out contracts on their behalf. The result is that gig economy firms have no effective liability for illegal work that takes place through their platform. Many of these firms insist that they already conduct identity checks on riders who sign up for their platform, and indeed they do. It's also plain that these checks are clearly not actually preventing illegal working; as Philp observed, anyone who passes by an asylum hotel can see that there are quite evidently flaws in the current set-up. The result is a flourishing market in account buying, rental and substitution. Earlier this year, I joined several pages on Facebook dedicated to exactly this. Each had tens of thousands of members: 40,000 for one, 46,000 for another, 75,000 for a third, 51,000 for a fourth. Members discussed how to deal with identity verification on rented accounts, complained that people whose accounts they had worked on had failed to pay them, and offered accounts for sale and rent. The sums involved can be substantial. Pay £75-100 a week to rent an account, £60 to rent a bike, and graft at deliveries and you can bring in £500 a week in delivery fees while the Home Office pays for your food and board. And as you're working illegally, you're unlikely to pay any income tax or National Insurance unless you are both very conscientious and very stupid. As some have pointed out, there are asylum hotels in the centre of London. One, in particular, sits near studio apartments for rent starting at £1,600 a month. With your illegal earnings at roughly £17,860 of spending power over 52 weeks, £19,200 of Zone 1 housing services, no council tax (a £1,530 saving for our Band B flat) or utility bills (say £1,261) to pay (meals provided by your hotel), and £9.95 in weekly cash from the Government, a hypothetical boat arrival would enjoy a lifestyle that a taxpaying legal worker would have to earn more than £50,000 to achieve. Small wonder, then, that an Istanbul-based people smuggler told an undercover Telegraph journalist that Britain is the location of choice for illegal migrants because 'all you need is a mobile phone and a bike' to make 'good money'. Small wonder, either, that 42pc of the riders stopped by a Home Office enforcement team in April 2023 were working illegally. One police officer who had been out on enforcement activities noted that a force sent 'a few cars out to find people working illegally. Each car pulled over a bike, and each one took a rider in for working without a visa or overstaying. It was crazy that we had a 100pc hit rate'. More interesting was the degree to which this is coordinated. 'They have groups as well, not only to buy and sell accounts. They message each other when they start getting pulled over or get into accidents. 'You'll have a bunch showing up to help, or they'll all leave town and go to another area to work there for the day. Not the most hi-tech solution, but it works.' At the moment, the Government is making small steps towards dealing with this issue. The current immigration bill gives ministers the powers necessary to impose checks on substitutes through secondary legislation, but it hasn't set out a timetable for doing so. The bigger issue, however, is that laws only matter when they're enforced. The UK currently conducts roughly 9,000 illegal working visits each year, or 25 per day. Given that old estimates suggested that as many as 240,000 businesses may use illegal labour, even if the Government had a list of doors to knock on – and ignoring the entire issue of gig economy workers – it would take 27 years to work through the list. If the risk to businesses is tilted favourably, the risk to migrants is even lower. The entire immigration enforcement spend for 2023-24 was around £700m, while just 41pc of those turned down for asylum between 2010 and 2020 had been removed from the UK by 2022. The Government isn't going to deport them, they have no income and no assets to seize. What punishment is realistically coming? In other words, legal changes won't be enough without real teeth to enforce. As a former police officer noted, part of the problem is simply that enforcement is 'complicated by a silly division of responsibility and information'. Police, for instance, have 'almost nothing to do with immigration', and the national police computer won't show the migration status of someone stopped and searched. While it's possible to find out with a phone call, 'most officers won't even know that it's possible to check'. At the same time, with no list of visa over-stayers, police officers running into people and carrying out a check is one of the main ways we find out about illegal migration: immigration enforcement teams don't patrol or run into people in random encounters like police officers do. Like the stacks of bikes and bags at asylum hotels, none of this is hard to find. Nor is it hard to find out about the risks that these substitution practices – putting unvetted men in contact with customers – can enable. A freedom of information request submitted to the Metropolitan Police in 2023 showed that between 2019 and 2022, 38 delivery or postal workers were charged with sex offences. A harrowing story earlier this year set out how a woman was assaulted by a gig economy worker who essentially did not exist within the datasets held by the firm; no one had any record Closing the loopholes and lack of enforcement that allow illegal labour to flourish is vital to cutting off the pull factor for waves of illegal migration, and to ensuring the safety of the British public. Rather than ranting about 'criminal gangs', Sir Keir's administration should focus on what it can do on our shores.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Report: Putin accused of wielding migrants to flood UK borders
Russia is aggravating Britain's migrant crisis to overwhelm border defences and sow division in the nation, security sources have claimed. Vladimir Putin's government is believed to be providing fake documents, transport and even military escorts to smuggling gangs ferrying migrants across the Channel. The threat overwhelming migration poses to national security is so fierce that this week Nato recognised it by allowing its members to count border protection to spending targets for the first time. A security source told The Sun : 'Hostile states and malign actors are using illegal migration to test borders, cause disruption and destabilise countries like Britain. That's exactly why Nato is now treating border protection as a core part of collective defence — because the lines between traditional military threats and national security are more blurred than ever.' So far this year, over 18,000 people have arrived in small boats. This is far higher than 2018, when just 299 people crossed the Channel. The highest year for arrivals was 2022, which saw nearly 46,000 people arrive. On top of the threat to British national security, Russia's alleged actions are also harming those crossing the Channel, who are often desperate and vulnerable. Earlier this month, a man on crutches was seen hobbling over to a small boat on French soil and making his way over to England, less than 24 hours after failing in his mission. The man was spotted holding his crutch aloft like Excalibur as his fellow migrants helped him aboard. Within minutes, the rubber boat was full to bursting, around 20 migrants sitting on each side and more in the middle. It then set off across the Channel towards England, passing over the horizon within a quarter of an hour. Whether it arrived is unclear. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who scrapped the Conservative plan to send small boat arrivals to Rwanda, continues to declare he will be able to 'smash the gangs' and stop the boats with the aid of French police, who we are sending millions to. Yet the migrants continue to exploit the loophole which means once they are in the sea, even up to the ankles, police will touch neither them nor their dinghies, through fear of harming them, meaning they are free to sail to England. And police have told the Mail there are simply too many migrants, and too much shoreline near England, for them ever to be stopped - particularly as they are confident they will be welcomed here. Latest figures show £3.1 billion was spent on housing asylum seekers in hotels in 2023-24, out of a total asylum support bill of £4.7 billion. More than 30,000 asylum seekers are housed in about 200 hotels across Britain, many of whom arrived illegally in dinghies, and ministers are looking at moving them into derelict tower blocks and student digs.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Putin 'is pushing migrants to Britain' in an attempt to overwhelm borders, insiders claim
Russia is aggravating Britain's migrant crisis to overwhelm border defences and sow division in the nation, security sources have reportedly claimed. Vladimir Putin 's government is believed to be providing fake documents, transport and even military escorts to smuggling gangs ferrying migrants across the Channel. The threat overwhelming migration poses to national security is so fierce that this week NATO recognised it by allowing its members to count border protection to spending targets for the first time. A security source told the Sun: 'Hostile states and malign actors are using illegal migration to test borders, cause disruption and destabilise countries like Britain. 'That's exactly why NATO is now treating border protection as a core part of collective defence — because the lines between traditional military threats and national security are more blurred than ever.' So far this year, over 18,000 people have arrived in small boats. This is far higher than 2018, when just 299 people crossed the Channel. The highest year for arrivals was 2022, which saw nearly 46,000 people arrive. On top of the threat to British national security, Russia's alleged actions are also harming those crossing the Channel, who are often desperate and vulnerable. Earlier this month, a man on crutches was seen hobbling over to a small boat on French soil and making his way over to England, less than 24 hours after failing in his mission. The man was seem holding his crutch aloft like Excalibur as his fellow migrants helped him aboard. Within minutes, the rubber boat was full to bursting, around 20 migrants sitting on each side and more in the middle. It then set off across the Channel towards England, passing over the horizon within a quarter of an hour. Whether it arrived is unclear. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who scrapped the Conservative plan to send small boat arrivals to Rwanda, continues to declare he will be able to 'smash the gangs' and stop the boats with the aid of French police, who we are sending millions to. Yet the migrants continue to exploit the loophole which means once they are in the sea, even up to the ankles, police will touch neither them nor their dinghies, through fear of harming them, meaning they are free to sail to England. And police have told the Mail there are simply too many migrants, and too much shoreline near England, for them ever to be stopped - particularly as they are confident they will be welcomed here. A bearded middle-aged man, who could only hobble towards the waves aided by a friend Latest figures show £3.1 billion was spent on housing asylum seekers in hotels in 2023-24, out of a total asylum support bill of £4.7 billion. More than 30,000 asylum seekers are housed in about 200 hotels across Britain, many of whom arrived illegally in dinghies, and ministers are looking at moving them into derelict tower blocks and student digs. But despite Ms Reeves' pledge to end the use of hotels, the Tories pointed out that the small print of her Spending Review documents revealed that £2.5 billion will still be spent each year on asylum support by the end of the decade.
Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Times
Keir Starmer approval rating: tracking the PM's popularity
A year ago, Sir Keir Starmer walked into Downing Street with Labour's second-largest majority in history. The son of a toolmaker and former head of the department for public prosecutions was elected by a public fed up after 14 years of Conservative government. Twelve months later, the economy is barely growing and small boats still freely cross the Channel. Starmer faces a rebellion from his own party over attempted welfare reforms. All political honeymoons are short, but the Labour leader's has been especially so. When he came into office, Starmer had something rather unusual in modern politics: a net-positive approval rating. Defined as the percentage of people who approve of his job, minus those who disapprove, Starmer's rating was about +10 per cent, according to an average of multiple pollsters. By contrast, Rishi Sunak, whom he had just defeated, and Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, were both hovering on about -30 per cent. Yet in just a few months, Starmer's popularity had plummeted to below -30 per cent, making him less popular than Farage, the Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, and Sunak's successor Kemi Badenoch. Perhaps most troubling for Starmer in recent polling was the number of 2024 Labour voters who were unhappy with his position as prime minister. Only 49 per cent of those who backed the party last year thought he had done 'well'. To put this in context, he was about as popular among Lib Dem voters. Support for Starmer broadly deteriorated with voters' age. Some 80 per cent of over-65s thought the prime minister was doing 'badly'. Interestingly, despite fears Labour is losing support among the young to the Greens, more 18 to 24-year-olds thought Starmer was doing 'well' than 'badly'. So Starmer is unpopular. But how unusual is it for a prime minister to be disliked? Looking back through history, approval ratings nearly always trend downwards for prime ministers. Never mind net positive: one year into his tenure, Sir Tony Blair had an astonishingly-high net approval rating of +44 per cent. By the time he left office, he was on -27. Starmer is not Blair. But in the context of today's politicians, is he really that unloved? According to Ipsos, which tracks net favourability scores for leaders, it has become remarkably rare for modern leaders of any party to be consistently popular. Boris Johnson, often hailed by his supporters as a popular leader, only managed a net positive rating during the Covid pandemic (some of which he spent on a hospital bed). Starmer may be unpopular now, but his net favourability score is higher than Johnson's during partygate, and Sunak's when he was booted out of office. He can find solace in the fact that he remains considerably more popular than both his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn (-48 per cent in early 2020), and Liz Truss (-66 per cent at the end of her 45-day tenure). Why exactly has Starmer's popularity fallen so far, so fast? Given so many of Labour's 2024 voters simply wanted to remove the Conservatives from office, Starmer was always going to be judged on how his government delivered on actual policies. Recent YouGov polling gives a sense of which topics the government has handled well or badly in the eyes of voters. Despite recent falls in net arrivals, 74 per cent believed the government was handling immigration badly. The public also said that the government had handled taxation and the economy poorly. Starmer's government appeared to have done slightly better on issues of defence and national security. Data suggests that few people backed Labour last year specifically because of Starmer; many voted in spite of him. Yet support for his party has followed the same trajectory as the support for its leader. Labour won about 34 per cent of the vote last July; this month, according to an average of multiple polls, its share of voting intention stood at 23 per cent. Labour one year on: send us your voice notesWhat one Labour policy has affected you or your family most and why?Please share your response with us in a voice message on WhatsApp. You can reach us at +44 (0)7353096428. Reform, meanwhile, has led most national opinion polls since April. One reason may be the detoxification of its leader, Farage, who has a higher approval score than either Starmer or Badenoch.
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Plan to end asylum hotels will fail, watchdog warns
However, Mr Bolt said: 'I think there's a more fundamental issue about accommodation, or at least housing stock, there simply isn't sufficient housing stock to be able to deal with the sorts of numbers in the system. I think it's really, really challenging.' A Downing Street spokesman said he did not agree that there would be a lack of housing stock. 'I don't accept that. As I say, the Government is committed to restoring grip to the asylum system, allowing us to end the use of hotels,' he said. Mr Bolt, who previously served as borders chief between 2015 and 2021, and returned as interim chief inspector in June last year, also told peers he wrote to ministers to say he 'wasn't convinced smashing the gangs was the right way of thinking about things' in tackling Channel crossings. He said: 'It did seem to me the challenge was to change the risk reward ratio for those people involved in organised immigration crime, that's really a difficult thing to achieve, because it's relatively low cost, relatively low risk for the perpetrators and highly profitable. 'I'm not sure I feel very optimistic about the ability to smash the gangs and, in any event, it seems to me with organised crime, the best thing you can do is deflect it to something else you're less concerned about rather than expect to eradicate it.' He added that he believed the establishment of the Border Security Command has brought energy and focus to the issue, and it has been agreed with its chief, Martin Hewitt, for the unit to be inspected later this year. But he also agreed more needed to be done to tackle the issue in the UK and look at what is attracting people to come to the country. Mr Bolt said: 'The availability of illegal working, that I think is one of the issues the Home Office has tried to focus on and tried to close down as best it can and will continue to have to work very hard on that.'
