Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
wHey, it didn’t take long, did it? One of the smaller boats that arrived returned to France under much publicity One-in, one-out agreement Made our way back to the UK – in another small boat. You don’t need to be a budding Improvement Voters join the chorus of “you couldn’t do it.”
what now?
The only way for the agreement to maintain even a shred of credibility is for the person concerned to packed back to franceNo court appeals on the spurious grounds of modern slavery or anything else. Minister Josh McAllister insisted this morning that the government will continue to deport migrants Back to France “again and again”Under return deal.
Even with such decisive action, the system has been shown to have a fatal flaw: one resourceful, or desperate, asylum seeker has made it irrelevant. “One in, one out” has become hokey-kokey. Even as a pilot plan – similar to a prior plan Home Secretary Yvette Cooper Was expected to grow massively – it has been shown to be largely without practical merit.
total number that week Migrants crossing the Channel so far this year Having crossed the entire 2024 numbers, this can only accelerate the government’s search for other solutions. Of course, killing it will give you a new broom. Shabana Mehmood At worst, the latitude to rearrange a few deck chairs – and, at best, to have to go again, and this time more difficult, as the government intends. The leak of an internal departmental report in which he described the Home Office as “not yet fit for purpose” suggests at least the latter.
So what now? Moving asylum seekers from hotels to disused military bases or temporary camps is a matter of urgency. Other European countries do this without apparently violating any laws; Why can’t the UK?
The government may also consider the use of detention. There is certainly an argument for detaining people whose identities and records have not been checked, as a primary measure of national security. This could be the basis for emergency legislation, which would at least give the UK leverage over any lawyers’ appeal to the ECHR.
The concept of so-called asylum centers is also coming back into fashion, and not just in the UK, an early example of which was the Conservatives’ notorious Rwanda project. Such third country asylum centers are designed to address the problem of deporting people whose return to their home country is impossible for any reason.
Selling Rwanda was difficult, because of the country’s recent past, and because it would have taken very small numbers of immigrants. Although it would be politically embarrassing for Labor to revive a conservative policy that it scrapped as soon as it took power, it may choose to sidestep it by describing it as similar to Denmark’s alleged arrangement with Rwanda. In 2022, the centrist administration of Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, which has long been pursued “Zero Refugee” Policy Since coming to power, an agreement has been signed on the possible transfer of thousands of asylum seekers to the East African country.
Now there is news of talks with Britain KosovoAs well as sending military personnel to the wider area to provide advice on how to prevent irregular migration. Given Kosovo’s own issues, and the fact that it is not universally recognized as an independent country, it may not be a particularly wise choice as an asylum center – although, to be fair, few countries are.
Would it really not be better for the UK to make its own arrangements for granting asylum and deporting those who are not eligible for asylum? Britain is no longer part of the EU, so is not party to the Dublin Regulation, which was supposed to distribute asylum responsibility around the EU. Britain has foreign territory And the dependencies, which, frankly, are not UK, could perhaps be persuaded to help here – in exchange for a continued turning of the blind eye to certain aspects of questionable funding…?
Being adjusted here will not give any right to obtain asylum or residence in the UK – so only meeting the conditions that have actually proven effective in stopping irregular migration (short of a Berlin Wall-style force) is required. it is How did Australia stop its small boat problem?And this solution has recently been proposed by the one-time migration liberal, Tony Blair. The point is that a hub solution suggests that some, perhaps many, will be allowed to remain – and that even a faint hope will persist, as long as some remain. the boats will keep coming,
In waiting so long to get serious about small boats, Britain has been almost characteristically careless. This is, or should be, a matter of national security. That’s the whole purpose of defined borders and the visa system. The UK has a shrinking military force that it deploys everywhere, from the South China Sea (to protect sea lanes), the Black Sea and the Baltic (to help Ukraine), and now to those advisers in the Western Balkans and a new peace-keeping mission in Gaza… but not the Channel. inauthentically, Britain’s military is reluctant to get involvedNo government has pressed the issue – it has left it aside donald trump To make the case to ministers.
But perhaps, with the proven failure of “one-in, one-out”, the time has come – and I say this with reluctance – now to confront France.
If all those arriving in small boats were arriving at a UK airport, they would be returned to their departure point on the next flight. Arguing that France should stop boats from leaving was always a futile effort – not only because it was in France’s interests that irregular migrants should leave, but because France, as a free country, has no restrictions on people leaving; Nor should it be.
It is the UK’s job to protect its borders. There may be good reasons why top UK officials are against acting across the Channel, if at all (which could theoretically include military clashes with France). But how sensible it is that one of Britain’s major maritime borders is being effectively protected by the RNLI, whose priority is not border security but the rescue of people in danger at sea.
Relations with France could deteriorate significantly if Britain moves to enforce its Channel border. But now might not be the worst time to press the issue by turning back some boats or detaining their passengers until they can be taken to France… France.
There is hardly any functioning government in France at present. At best, it could choose to strengthen its own land border controls, rather than open conflict with the UK, as Germany and Poland have done, regardless of the terms of the borderless Schengen area. Aggregation around Calais may then reduce.
Any standoff with France should be a last resort. However, in the end, it may be the only one that works.