Latest news with #migrationPolicy
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
French police fire tear gas to stop migrants boarding small boats
French police used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse hundreds of migrants in northern France before wading into the waters to try and prevent them from boarding boats off the Channel coast. The police operation off Gravelines, northern France, came just days after the French interior ministry confirmed it would aim to intercept boats within 300 metres of the beaches to stop them leaving for the UK loaded with migrants. Until now, the French have refused to intervene in the waters because they claimed maritime laws prevented them from taking action that could put lives at sea at risk. But government sources told The Telegraph ministers overseeing migration policy had given the green light to do so while 'respecting' the 'law of the sea'. Officers with riot shields waded waist-deep into the Channel on Friday morning to try and stop people boarding small boats that had come to collect them from further down the coast. Shortly before, they appeared to have let off clouds of choking smoke as the migrants rushed towards the water. Images showed several of them carrying children wearing orange life jackets treading through the waters to avoid the police. Despite the officers' efforts they were ultimately overwhelmed by the sheer number of people, according to reporters at the scene. Some 14,812 migrants have crossed the Channel so far in 2025 in more than 260 boats, up nearly 32 per cent on the same period in 2024. It represents a record high for the first six months of any year since the first boats arrived in 2018. On Wednesday, dozens of migrants reached the UK as people smugglers took advantage of the first good weather and calmer seas since May 31 when a record 1,195 people were intercepted. It is expected to push crossings past 15,000 for 2025. The Government has vowed to crack down on people smugglers and illegal migration with Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, announcing in Wednesday's spending review that the Border Security Command would be funded up to £280 million more per year by the end of the review period in 2028-29. The images of police entering the sea were in stark contrast to other occasions in 2024 when they were filmed standing by as migrants entered the water. France said in June that it intended to come up with a more interventionist strategy in time for the Franco-British summit, which begins on July 8, when Emmanuel Macron, the French president, will travel to London for a state visit. France is expanding its naval forces with six new patrol boats that will not only rescue migrants but could also intercept the 'taxi boats' before they leave for the UK. The first of the boats, the 46-metre long Rozel which can carry 20 paramilitary police officers, has already been put to sea. The EU border agency has warned that people-smuggling gangs are adopting a new tactic of simultaneous migrant boat launches to outwit French police. In an update Frontex, which has committed aerial surveillance and extra staff to the Channel, said smuggling networks providing the small boats were adapting to increase the number of successful crossing s. They have already switched to using 'taxi boats' where dinghies are sailed from inland rivers and waterways to pick up migrants in the shallow waters off the beaches. But Frontex said the smuggling gangs were also using 'simultaneous departures'. It said: 'This tactic puts more lives at risk in an already dangerous stretch of water as it hinders the search and rescue efforts of the national authorities.' The risks are compounded by the increasing numbers being crammed into the flimsy dinghies. There were 54 migrants per boat in the year ending March 2025, compared with 50 in 2024 and 29 in the year to March 2022, according to Home Office data.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Mass migration isn't Britain's lifeblood. It's an economic disaster
Within hours of stepping up as Reform chairman on Tuesday, David Bull triggered his first media controversy by remarking that 'immigration is the lifeblood of this country – it always has been'. As popular as this sentiment is with Britain's politicians, it isn't true today and it certainly wasn't in the past. From 1066 through to the end of the Second World War, the population of Britain has been marked by relative stability. As a crude illustration, as late as 1951 the total non-White population of Great Britain was estimated at about 30,000 people, or about 0.07pc of the population. Today it's roughly 20pc, and on course to pass 50pc by the end of the century. In other words, the population changes induced by migration over the past seven decades are essentially without parallel in 1,000 years of British history. Even within this modern period, however, it's not quite right to say that migration has been Britain's lifeblood. It would be more accurate to say it's been the default policy of a state that keeps repeating its mistakes. A brief summary of the last 70 years might fairly cast British migration policy as a mixture of blunders, unintended consequences, and myopic pursuit of short-term objectives, right from the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948. As other writers have pointed out, while the narrative promoted today is 'you called and we came', internal government communications show that efforts were made to dissuade Caribbean migration in ways that wouldn't imperil the precarious bonds with Britain's colonies. Shortly after the ship's arrival, Britain adopted a sweeping nationality act that permitted anyone with a passport issued by the British government to enter the country. This act, while 'never intended to sanction a mass migration', combined with policies aimed at attracting workers in specific fields to create a mass inflow. Now, where have we heard that before? Then, as now, policy revolved around the needs of the NHS – newly established in 1948 – which had outstripped training capacity and needed workers. Then, as now, the role of migration in propping up a state approach to healthcare which would otherwise have failed was indispensable. But while important to the health service, the proportion of total migration accounted for by this demand was relatively small. By 1958, 210,000 non-white Commonwealth migrants were living in the UK. In the same year, of 8,272 junior doctors in Great Britain 3,408 had been born elsewhere. Other figures, frustratingly only for 1965, suggest that there were about 5,000 Jamaican nurses and other workers staffing hospitals. Combine these figures, and you get an estimate of about 4pc of the new population working in the NHS. Allow for dependents and missing data, and you might hit 10pc. Either way, to claim that the entirety of mass migration was justified by the NHS was well short of the mark. Similarly, a narrative of labour shortages was constructed that took as granted a nationalised, unionised economy with rife overmanning, built to obtain full employment. Comparisons of vacancy lists to unemployment naturally resulted in the conclusion that labour was needed; the unwillingness of the Government to relax its grip on the economy or exchange rates meant that other routes to adjustment were difficult to follow. In other words, migration in the post-war period was in part essential to the state's ability to carry out its plans, and in other part an unintended consequence of those efforts. By 1962, the Government was taking steps to restrain the inflow, wary of the scale of the political backlash it had triggered. Usually, history doesn't repeat itself. Westminster, however, is gifted with a wonderful form of amnesia, and has managed to do so not once but twice. First we had the New Labour loosening of migration policy in pursuit of ill-defined fiscal goals, alongside an unwillingness to restrict movement for newly joined EU member states. Predictions that 13,000 workers a year would arrive from Eastern Europe turned out to be off by a few thousand percentage points, and eventually popular unrest again led to legal changes, this time in the form of Brexit. Yet almost the moment Boris Johnson took office he set about repeating the mistakes of his predecessors, implementing the greatest liberalisation of Britain's borders in decades. The reasoning is almost painful to read: worries over shortages of workers even as the ranks of the economically inactive swelled, issues with pay in care homes downstream of government cuts to local authority budgets, the need to prop up a university sector which had seen tuition fees frozen, the NHS trotted out as the symbolic argument for migration when just 3pc of the 1.2m inflow in 2022 consisted of doctors and nurses. And again, following vehement expressions of popular dissatisfaction, we find ourselves with a government promising long overdue action, and an opposition seeking to capitalise on this sentiment. There is a limit to how many times a country can repeat a mistake without doing lasting damage. Research from the Office for Budget Responsibility has made perfectly clear that staying on our current course is unaffordable. Without reforms to Indefinite Leave to Remain, the care worker element of migration from 2021 to 2024 could cost the exchequer a lifetime sum of £61bn to £84bn on its own. The sheer size of the failure means that it must be at least partly undone, and Labour has made some noises about doing so. But it would be a mistake to assume that everything before 2020 was good. Previous waves of migration have amply demonstrated how selecting the wrong migrants can lead to costs that linger for generations. Despite large flows of recent migration – which tends to be fiscally positive in the years before workers age – it is still the case that black and Asian households in Britain receive more in state benefits than they pay in taxes, suggesting that previous migrants and their descendants may not have had the economic success we might have hoped for. Similarly, certain groups remain highly dependent on social housing. The grand experiment of the post-war era is over. The results are in. Immigration might be the lifeblood of the British state, but it is hard to argue that it's been an unequivocal success for the British people. The efforts to make it central to our shared understanding of history are less about genuine interest in our island story than they are justifying the mistakes of generations of politicians, the forging of a US-style narrative of a nation of immigrants for a very different country. This isn't a game Reform needs to play. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Mass migration isn't Britain's lifeblood. It's an economic disaster
Within hours of stepping up as Reform chairman on Tuesday, David Bull triggered his first media controversy by remarking that 'immigration is the lifeblood of this country – it always has been'. As popular as this sentiment is with Britain's politicians, it isn't true today and it certainly wasn't in the past. From 1066 through to the end of the Second World War, the population of Britain has been marked by relative stability. As a crude illustration, as late as 1951 the total non-White population of Great Britain was estimated at about 30,000 people, or about 0.07pc of the population. Today it's roughly 20pc, and on course to pass 50pc by the end of the century. In other words, the population changes induced by migration over the past seven decades are essentially without parallel in 1,000 years of British history. Even within this modern period, however, it's not quite right to say that migration has been Britain's lifeblood. It would be more accurate to say it's been the default policy of a state that keeps repeating its mistakes. A brief summary of the last 70 years might fairly cast British migration policy as a mixture of blunders, unintended consequences, and myopic pursuit of short-term objectives, right from the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948. As other writers have pointed out, while the narrative promoted today is 'you called and we came', internal government communications show that efforts were made to dissuade Caribbean migration in ways that wouldn't imperil the precarious bonds with Britain's colonies. Shortly after the ship's arrival, Britain adopted a sweeping nationality act that permitted anyone with a passport issued by the British government to enter the country. This act, while 'never intended to sanction a mass migration', combined with policies aimed at attracting workers in specific fields to create a mass inflow. Now, where have we heard that before?
Telegraph
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Why Albania snubbed Starmer over asylum seekers
Sir Keir Starmer was embarrassed by Albania's refusal to host Britain's failed asylum seekers, but the rebuff should have been foreseen. Edi Rama, Albania's prime minister, has made it clear that he has eyes for just one foreign leader when it comes to 'return hubs' for migrants on Albanian soil: Italy's Giorgia Meloni. 'We have been asked by several countries if we are open to it and we said no because we are loyal to the marriage with Italy,' Mr Rama, a 6ft 7in former professional basketball player, said at a joint press conference with Sir Keir in Tirana. There are two key reasons for this. One looks to the future while the other is rooted in the past. Firstly, Albania calculates that by accommodating the Meloni government's desire to outsource its migrant problem, it gains a powerful ally in its campaign to be made a member of the European Union. Mr Rama, who was re-elected for an unprecedented fourth term this week, says he wants his country to be admitted by 2030 and having the Italians onside could be a big help. Italy was one of the founding members of what was originally the EEC and is the bloc's third-biggest economy after Germany and France. Since her election in 2022, Ms Meloni has shown herself to be a leading figure in Europe, a wily politician who can navigate the corridors of power in Brussels while still courting the likes of Donald Trump and Viktor Orban. Albania is also showing the rest of Europe that is willing to help the 27-nation bloc with one of its most intractable problems of recent years. Britain after Brexit holds no sway in such admission decisions. Even if there were financial incentives from the UK, joining the EU would probably be more valuable for Albania, and a deal with Sir Keir's Government could upset that process. The second reason for Albania's preferential treatment of Italy is historical. When communism collapsed in Albania in the early 1990s, tens of thousands of Albanians fled across the Adriatic to Italy, many of them in rust-stained ships. Mr Rama has repeatedly said that Albania owes a debt of gratitude to Italy for taking in so many Albanian migrants, who still make up a large diaspora. 'I have been very clear since day one when we started this process with Italy that this was a one-off with Italy because of our very close relation but also because of the geographical situation, which makes a lot of sense,' he said at the press conference with Sir Keir. Ermal Pacaj, a centre-Left mayor in northern Albania, where the Italians built their two centres, told The Telegraph during a visit: 'It's a way for Albania to repay Italy for welcoming and integrating our people.' There is, perhaps, a crumb of comfort for the British Prime Minister. Albania might have given preferential treatment to the Italians but that does not mean the migrant processing plan worked. In fact, opposition parties have decried it as an astronomically expensive fiasco, saying that so far it has cost around a €1 billion (£840 million). The original aim of the accord, which was drawn up in 2023, was simple: Italian navy and coast guard vessels would intercept migrant boats in the Mediterranean and instead of allowing them to land on Italian soil, transfer them to Albania. There they would be received in a small facility in the port of Shëngjin, before being taken by bus about 15 miles inland to a second, much larger facility, constructed on a disused Cold War military airfield. Those whose applications were turned down – expected to be the vast majority – would be repatriated to their home countries. The aim was to process as many as 3,000 migrants a month. That, at least, was the theory. In practice, the entire project has been blocked by the courts. Italian judges have ruled that migrants can only be sent back to their home countries if those countries are deemed to be safe in their entirety. They based their decision on a ruling handed down by the European Court of Justice in October. All of which has meant that the scheme has so far been a debacle. The handful of Bangladeshi and African migrants who have been taken by ship to Albania have eventually been brought back to Italy, by order of the courts. 'Giorgia Meloni's Albania project has officially failed,' said Matteo Renzi, a former prime minister and the leader of the centre-Left Italia Viva party. Deeply frustrated by the courts' challenges, Ms Meloni and her ministers have vowed not to give up on the Albania plan. 'We are convinced that we are right and so we are moving forward,' Antonio Tajani, foreign minister and deputy prime minister, said earlier this year. Italy may have a special relationship with Albania but as far as the migrant processing plan goes, it has yet to bear much fruit.
Sky News
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
Sir Keir Starmer in Albania to tackle 'revolving door' of migration
Sir Keir Starmer is in Albania to announce an expanded crackdown on migrant smuggling gangs in the Balkans - a key staging post on the route to Britain. In the first official visit to the country by a UK prime minister, he hopes to reinforce this week's tough message about slashing levels of both legal and illegal migration. Sir Keir is relying on "smashing the gangs" as the government's policy to tackle small boat crossings, which remain at a record high this year; passing the 10,000 mark last month. But working with officials in Albania is seen as a success story in stopping migration at source, partly due to the actions of the previous Conservative government which Sir Keir will build on. In 2022, arrivals from Albania accounted for around a third of all small boat arrivals - a higher number than from any other country. Over the past three years, those numbers have been cut by 95%. The number of Albanians returned to their home country has also more than doubled to 5,294 last year, from just over 2,000 two years' earlier. The prime minister will join Edi Rama, prime minister of Albania since 2013, at the Port of Durres on Thursday to see UK-backed efforts to tackle smuggling gangs and the criminal activities that fund them. A programme to detect migrants attempting to travel using fake or stolen documents will be expanded, with the UK donating new anti- forgery machines. The government will also invest a further £1m in DNA technology to detect serious criminals on the streets of the UK. Sir Keir is also expected to express concerns about a "revolving door effect" in which a migrant is returned home, only to evade law enforcement and leave the country again. He will support programmes in northern Albania - where migrants come from - to reintegrate young people and provide them with employment opportunities, the government said. The prime minister will announce that the joint migration taskforce, with Albania and Kosovo, signed at the end of 2022, will be expanded to include North Macedonia and Montenegro. The National Crime Agency will share intelligence with law enforcement agencies in these countries and deploy UK funded drones to detect gangsters funnelling migrants through the Western Balkans corridor and on to the UK. The countries of the Western Balkans - including Serbia, whose government signed an agreement with Sir Keir last year - have for around five years been the key corridor to Europe for migrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Sir Keir will say: "Global challenges need shared solutions, and the work the UK and Albania are doing together is delivering security for working people in both countries. "Our joint work to deter, detect and return illegal migrants is further proof that intervening upstream to protect British shores and secure our borders is the right approach. "Every step we take to tackle illegal migration overseas, cripple the criminal networks that facilitate it and stem the finance streams that fund it is delivering safer streets in the UK, and reducing the strain on taxpayer funded services." On Friday the prime minister will attend the European Political Community summit in the capital Tirana, a forum for European leaders to discuss security challenges in the wake of the war in Ukraine. It's expected to be a chance for the UK to discuss key points of a forthcoming defence pact with the EU and the terms of a "reset" of relations ahead of a summit in London next Monday.
