The pointlessness of ‘smashing the gangs'

Spectator

16-07-2025

'Smash the gangs' is the fascinating slogan that Keir Starmer's government has settled on for tackling illegal migration. What is the government going to do to stop the hundreds – sometimes thousands – of people sailing across the Channel and coming into England each day? 'We will smash the gangs,' they say.
The slogan is interesting for reasons beyond the tough-guy rhetoric. For it suggests, of course, that it is people-smuggling gangs that are the main problem. Perhaps our government sees them as being like press gangs back in the day, roaming around northern France, waylaying passing migrants and forcing them on to rubber dinghies to begin a new life in Britain. Or perhaps they see them as being like Al Capone's or some other mobster's gang: impossible to know how to snare until law enforcement, ever vigilant, finally catches the syndicate slipping up and visibly breaking the law.
While the eunuchs at Westminster continue this game, the results of their failure get felt elsewhere. Take Epping in Essex. Until recently, The Bell Hotel in Epping was simply a three-star hotel with a pleasant-looking breakfast buffet. Today it is a 'migrant hotel' – one of the many hotels in this country that taxpayers in our munificence have decided to block-book. Not for ourselves, of course – if you have always worked hard, played by the rules and paid your taxes then you will have to book and pay for your own hotel room should you wish to visit Epping. But if you are a victim of the smuggling gangs then a long stay at a three-star hotel will be yours as part of the welcome package. All part of that brilliant and tough plan to 'smash the gangs'.
Unfortunately The Bell has become a bit of an epicentre in recent days. That is because one of the many recent arrivals in the area – bussed in so as to disperse illegal migrants across the country – allegedly did something he shouldn't have. Specifically, a 38-year-old African asylum seeker has been charged with three counts of sexual assault. One of the charges relates to the assault of a young girl on Epping High Road. The man is accused of carrying out his alleged crimes a matter of days after arriving in this country illegally. The residents of Epping weren't thrilled to hear about this. They were particularly incensed that the authorities decided to house a lot of unaccompanied male migrants close to a school. So at the weekend hundreds turned out to protest about migrants being put up at hotels in their area.
I don't know quite what such people are expected to do. On the one hand we feel great societal opprobrium over the sexual abuse of children. Yet our society simultaneously has an attitude of near-sanctification towards anyone who can claim to be an asylum seeker. They too must be regarded as victims who are so deserving of our sympathies that the rest of us should pay for them to be put up in hotels until such a time as their asylum claims can be adjudged. Or until the Home Office system loses sight of them. Whichever happens first. So there are competing values at play.
The citizenry of Epping just suffered from this values show-down and decided that they were in favour of their daughters not being molested on the high street more than they were in favour of hosting illegal migrants. Some even held signs saying things like 'Send them home!' and chanted 'Protect our kids'. But no sooner had these locals turned out to protest than a number of 'anti-racism' groups turned up to protest them. These always-available activists materialised with their ready-made signs that said things like 'Refugees welcome' and 'Stop the far right'.
It cannot be the case that men and women who object to foreign alleged sex offenders being put up in their hotels at the taxpayer's expense should be deemed 'anti-immigrant'. Nor can it be that parents who object to our porous borders letting in people who wait barely a week before they apparently start assaulting the locals should all be deemed 'far right'. But that is where we are.
GB News contributor Adam Brooks is a local and was reporting from the scene on Sunday. As he said of the first protestors: 'These are worried mothers, worried children, there's grandmothers, fathers, uncles, grandads, and we've got an anti-racism lot that have turned up. I just cannot believe that an anti-racism mob would turn up against something like this.'
Nor could a number of other locals, who proceeded to address the interlopers in unflattering terms. And for once it must be noted that the police proceeded to do a sensible thing. The 'anti-racism' protestors were escorted out of the area. On the principle that one should congratulate people when they do something right as well as castigate them when they do something wrong, the Essex constabulary should be commended.
Of course, there is the obligatory duty to state that not every illegal migrant is a potential sex offender. But even if every single one proved to be a legitimate asylum seeker, doctors and dentists to a man, all immediately ready to join the NHS workforce (as the pro-migration lobby would have us believe), how long would it take for them to repay what they have already cost this country?
Or to put it another way: how long will it be until the citizens of Epping feel so much benefit from the illegal crossings that they are willing to overlook the odd sex crime? Anyone know? The people-smuggling gangs are a mere fraction of the problem.