We're not an ‘island of strangers', Sir Keir. We're an island of mugs

Telegraph

07-07-2025

The Labour government is facing the traditional audit of its achievements on the first anniversary of its election. The record, in fact, is nowhere near as grim as media coverage suggests: there have been some significant achievements and manifesto commitments delivered, including an extension of free school meals, the rolling out of breakfast clubs and big increases in health spending as well as a long-delayed and very necessary increase in defence spending.
But – and there is always a 'but' – on headline issues that voters care about, or about which they become angry, the government is in perilous waters.
First and foremost among such issues is immigration and the seemingly insoluble problem of the daily arrival on our southern shore of illegal immigrants who miraculously are transformed into entirely legal asylum seekers as soon as their feet touch dry land. What is the score card on this most tendentious of issues?
Well, in the first half of this year, 20,000 people arrived across the Channel – up by 48 per cent on last year's numbers. On the plus side, French police officers managed to knife one rubber dinghy recently.
So much for Yvette Cooper's promises, before and after polling day last year, that her government would 'smash' the trafficking gangs and end the cross-channel scam that has helped so many people successfully avoid UK customs and border checks.
No one listening to Labour shadow ministers before last July seriously believed that the party's alternative to the Conservatives' Rwanda scheme – increased co-operation with the French police (because no one had thought of that before) – would work. But the party needed to justify its publicly-stated intention of abolishing the Rwanda scheme, and that achievement was made all the easier by Rishi Sunak's peculiar decision to call an election before the scheme could be proven either to have been a success or a failure.
A year in office would seem to most people to be time enough to gauge the success of Labour's policy to halt the small boats. Yet judging by the numbers alone, that policy has failed. Dismally. That no one is particularly surprised at this should itself be a cause for alarm: we are sinking into a state of cynical pessimism where the daily arrivals are accepted with nothing more than a resigned shrug of indifference. That, of course, would be preferable to the government than the outrage that it would otherwise justify.
'Smash the gangs' was a handy sound bite to deploy in the run-up to a general election. It sounded robust, tough (and we know from the prime minister's own mouth that he considers himself a 'tough bastard'). This was a party that was going to get serious about the constant two fingers raised to our notion of territorial integrity every day of fair sailing conditions between Britain and France.
But of course Labour were targeting the wrong people. Targeting the 'gangs' allowed Labour to maintain their deep public sympathy and concern for those exploited by the traffickers, the real victims of the villains of the piece. That line worked for as long as it needed to – until exactly a year ago, when the ballot boxes had been emptied and put back in storage. And a year later, the gangs continue to make their money and, according to the numbers, have even increased their capacity and customer base.
The home secretary undoubtedly realises that so long as Britain is a welcoming place for new illegal arrivals, they will continue to come. Why on earth wouldn't they? By all means smash the gangs; though it will be only a matter of days, perhaps hours, until they have been replaced by new ones, so long as a willing customer base continues to demand passage across the channel.
The migrants know that once they arrive on our shores, their chances of removal are slim. Most of them will have their asylum application accepted, after which they can enjoy the full benefits of UK life. Even if a claim fails, there is no need to worry about imminent removal, thanks to the absurd judicial appeals process that our politicians have instituted, and the similarly absurd activist judges who oversee it.
And thanks to employers' very relaxed approach to checking applicants' right to work, they also know that there is plenty of paid employment to be had, just as long as they can hop aboard a dinghy at Calais.
Keir Starmer was wrong to describe Britain as in danger of becoming an 'island of strangers': we are already internationally recognised as an island of mugs. We accept thousands of asylum applicants whose last country of residence was France, where they positively refuse to claim asylum. In a normal, functional country, that alone would be a reason to reject any such application.
In case Labour ministers haven't quite clocked what is happening in our country, perhaps a reminder is in order: either this government finds a way to stop the small boats, or the next election will result in a new government that will.