Labour won't be forgiven for failing to tackle immigration

Telegraph

2 days ago

If the 2024 election was in part a rebuke of the Conservative Party's total failure to control migration, 2029 is shaping up to be a far more painful experience for the Labour party.
Sir Keir Starmer may have hoped that his immigration white paper, coupled with the fall in net migration triggered by the last policies put in place by the outgoing Tory government, would buy him breathing space until the salience of migration fell again, and he would be freed to talk about other topics.
If so, this week should have shredded any such illusions. Both legal and illegal migration are running out of control, with justifiable public anger over the scale of the Government's failure to impose order.
More than 1,000 migrants crossed the Channel on Saturday while British and French rescue boats stood by to escort them in. So great was the demand to be transported into Dover that coast guards put out appeals for fishing boats to assist vessels in trouble as Border Force and lifeboats were overwhelmed by the effort of rescuing migrants.
Stunning images from France, meanwhile, showed the value of Sir Keir Starmer's much vaunted European cooperation in 'smashing the criminal gangs'. French police were seen simply standing by and watching as migrants loaded their boat for the crossing.
The current situation is a travesty in which migrants are encouraged to endanger themselves in order to manufacture a rescue on to British shores, while the French state – which has no greater wish to play host and benefactor to these people than Britain does – does little to stop them.
Sir Keir cannot divest himself of blame for this absurdity. His scrapping of the Rwanda deterrent directly removed one of the few ways in which Britain could bring itself to diminish the flow.
As a career human rights lawyer and Left-wing activist, the Prime Minister is almost uniquely ill-suited to the task of devising an alternative. He has surrounded himself with like-minded individuals, not least the Attorney General Richard Hermer, and set as his North star the gold-plated adherence to the outdated international rules that allow the vile trade in people to be carried out.
If Britain wishes to smash the gangs, it must smash the incentives that bring people here, tackling illegal employment, particularly in the gig economy, radically tightening the criteria for asylum, deporting those whose claims are denied, reducing the grounds for appeal, and ultimately revisiting the idea of a system in which claimants who arrive illegally are transferred to a safe third country.
The current illegal migration system suits no one. It enriches dangerous criminals, selects those who have the resources to make the journey to Britain rather than those most imperilled, undermines public safety and support for legal migration, and will, if unchecked, destroy what sympathy for the refugee convention remains.
This would be a tragedy. Britain is a country that is open to those who are genuinely in need. It is the task of the Government to make sure that this hospitality, and the taxpayer, are not taken advantage of. Yet even on legal migration – supposedly filtered and controlled – the evidence is that it is manifestly failing to do so.
Figures published this week show that the state is handing nearly £1 billion each month in Universal Credit payments to households containing at least one foreign national. While some may have married British nationals, the fact that these payments have doubled over the past three years suggests that something has gone badly wrong at the heart of our benefits system.
Despite the apparent beliefs of many in Westminster, Britain is not the world's welfare state. Moreover, the rationale for migration is not that it is good for the migrant, but that it is good for Britain. The people of this country accept willingly new members who pay their way, contribute, and work to assimilate into our society.
To find ourselves instead asked to pay for the upkeep of those who arrived on our shores courtesy of a system that was supposed to provide economic and fiscal strength is an illustration of utter failure.
Just as measures must be taken to control illegal migration, the flow of low-skilled, low prospect migrants into Britain must also be curtailed. The criteria for entry should be considerably tightened, eligibility for benefits confined to those with citizenship, and pathways to both that status and indefinite leave to remain tightened considerably, with rules put in place to ensure that only those who make a positive fiscal contribution qualify.
The legitimacy of the British state is based on the consent of the governed to the rule of their elected representatives. After 15 years of votes to lower migration, and 15 years of broken promises, patience is beginning to wear thin, with surging support for Reform UK emblematic of an increasing rejection of the current political establishment. Unless Sir Keir can find the iron within himself to crack down on both legal and illegal migration, he is unlikely to be granted a second term in Downing Street.