Woke charities undermine Britain's borders

Yahoo

05-03-2025

Eight hundred million. That's the number of people worldwide with a potential claim to asylum in Western countries, once you include the 120 million who have been forcibly displaced, existing refugees, those in modern slavery and the millions who, as per the Refugee Convention, have a 'well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion'.
Our system is struggling to cope with an annual inflow of 100,000. The Institute for Public Policy Research think tank believes the cost of housing and supporting the average asylum-seeker has reached £41,000 per person per year. The majority of these would-be refugees now cross the Channel in flimsy, crammed dinghies. On the night of November 23 2021, one of these vessels capsized. Tragically, 27 drowned.
As this was the deadliest day on record, and because our gutless politicians love to kick a can down the road, an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding these fatalities was announced in 2023. This followed the publication of a report by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch, which itself recognised that the 'operational picture' in the Channel had changed significantly since the tragedy. So why was the Cranston Inquiry, which launched this week, ever signed off?
Already, the British taxpayer has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on this exercise. In 2023-24 alone, it cost us £500,000. Yet it's almost guaranteed to tell us nothing we don't already know, while adding to the pressure for liberalisation of our asylum arrangements, and quite likely for compensation to survivors and relatives.
The calls for more money to patrol our waters will grow shriller – even though by mid-2022 the Ministry of Defence was putting the cost at £34,000 a day (which sounds like an underestimate). That's nearly £12.5 million a year before inflation, on top of the £470 million we are paying the French over three years to supposedly try to control migration.
If we must have an inquiry, let it add the role played by taxpayer-funded refugee organisations to its terms of reference. Let it scrutinise the charities which oppose government efforts to clamp down on illegal migration and lobby for measures which are tantamount to open borders, and do so on the public purse.
Responding to deaths in the Channel, the Refugee Council published a briefing paper recommending we open up more safe and legal routes. The charity received more than £10 million from the government in 2023-24, has over 300 staff, lists among its achievements 'successfully challenging' the state's efforts to identify the age of young people seeking asylum, and boasts of its role as 'a leading voice' opposed to the Rwanda scheme.
Then there's Refugee Action, which receives more thasn £5 million in government contracts. It 'helps overturn asylum rulings by providing expert legal advice' while campaigning for 'policy changes to improve the asylum system overall'. This indirectly encourages migrants to risk their lives and those of their children – something which is rarely acknowledged.
Opening up legal routes, as these organisations endlessly demand, only eliminates the boats if everyone who applies is admitted. Otherwise, there's still an incentive to make the crossing. It's a view people are free to argue, but not one the taxpayer should be funding these pressure groups to advance, given the obvious risks associated with allowing migrants into the country at levels we cannot conceivably integrate.
Issa Mohamed Omar was one of the survivors on November 24 2021. His testimony to the Cranston Inquiry this week was harrowing. But one line stood out. 'The smugglers told us that we would be accepted as asylum seekers once we entered British waters,' he said. 'This was always my understanding and intention'. So long as this is the understanding and the intention, people will choose to journey from the safety of Northern France.
Indeed, over 600 people crossed the Channel on Monday, the highest number so far this year. For all Keir's tough talk of smashing gangs, there are only two ways to 'stop the boats': make clear that people who gamble with their lives won't gain from it, or else let everyone in. When the EU came to an agreement with Turkey in 2016 that irregular migrants travelling to Greece would be immediately returned, Aegean crossings fell from over 800,000 in 2015 to less than 50,000 in 2017. Deterrence works. There's no need for an open borders experiment.
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