There’s a Simple Reason Why Britain Is the Illegal Migration Capital of Europe

When do we say enough is enough? At what point do we finally accept that the status quo is intolerable, and will only deteriorate if we refuse to change course? Perhaps we’ll be pushed beyond our limits by the news Britain might now be the illegal migration capital of Europe. Or on hearing that some 973 people crossed the Channel in a single 24-hour period over the weekend. Nearly 1,000 people, to be housed, processed, or alternatively slip between our fingers, melting into the population. Arriving in one day.

For me, it’s the human tragedy piled upon human tragedy. The moment we say the boats must be stopped, whatever it takes, is when a two-year old is trampled to death after being crammed onto a boat with 90 migrants on board. When a toddler is crushed and suffocated in some filthy, cold dinghy packed – if the images of these vessels are any indication – full of fit, young men.

According to reports, those injured in this harrowing incident were cared for in Northern France. But others, presumably witnesses to this crime, were allowed to continue their journey to Britain. It is inconceivable that the police would display such nonchalance in any other scenario. Had a child and three others died on Lake Windermere, would local cops have waved their fellow voyagers on?

Immigration laws, the American economist Thomas Sowell once said, are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them. This recent Channel tragedy, which was far from a lone incident, exemplifies how we treat these illegal migrants as victims without agency – in much the same way the Left do drug addicts. It’s true that narcotics dealers will use devious means to get vulnerable “customers” hooked. But many of those users are still entering into a voluntary exchange.

The Home Office estimates around a fifth of illegal migrants are aged 17 and under. Some will have been trafficked against their will. But what of the others, including Ardit Binaj – the Albanian who came to Britain illegally in 2014 in a lorry before being arrested the following year for burglary? He spent six months of a two-and-a-half-year jail sentence in prison here, but just five months after being deported, re-entered Britain, had a baby and married his Lithuanian girlfriend, who had leave to remain. He has now won a right to stay in Britain under the ECHR.

Most would consider the injured party in this exasperating tale to be the people who were burgled and robbed. Or perhaps British taxpayers, who paid to house him in our jails. Yet we cling to the narrative that none of these illegal migrants – which include Binaj when he first entered the UK – is making a conscious choice to leave a safe country to come to Britain. We do so, I suspect, because it allows us to duck difficult decisions about how we deter people from crossing the Channel.

As an island nation, our pull factors ought to be weaker than elsewhere in Europe. Yet researchers at Oxford University have this week suggested some 745,000 illegal migrants are living here – more than double the number resident in France. Other analysis suggests this may be an underestimate, with the true figure closer to 1.2 million. Why? We have a large number of migrant communities which can host illegals, relatively lax rules which allow them to work and a Home Office which refuses to crack down on numbers. Nearly 68,000 asylum claims were granted in the year to June – more than triple the 21,436 in the previous year.

Labour believe they can stop the boats by “smashing the gangs”. They can’t. In the 10 months to November 2023, Immigration Enforcement made 230 arrests for people smuggling, 110 of whom were convicted. Yet still tens of thousands are making the journey.

The criminals involved in this heinous trade procure cheap, unsafe vehicles, before charging extortionate prices for each place on a boat. Given the extraordinarily high profits, breaking one or two gangs will have little impact. In fact, removing some of the bad guys will mean migrants have difficulty finding boats, driving prices up. As returns for the smugglers increase, more bad guys will enter the market. And we’re back to Square One.

How do we know this? Because it’s analogous to the “War on Drugs”. The only way to stop the boats is to crush demand. We could do that by detaining migrants, denying access to benefits, and threats of deportation. Of course, we could do it by nodding all applicants through. But it’s doubtful even Yvette Cooper believes the current “strategy” will stem the tide.