Remember when Johnson’s lot promised to “take back control” of immigration? They didn’t just lose control, they misplaced the steering wheel, the brakes and the map. The Health and Care Worker visa was supposed to bring in six thousand. Instead we got nearly six hundred and fifty thousand. The Skilled Worker route as a whole came in at three times the forecast. That’s not fine-tuning a policy, that’s setting fire to it and hoping nobody notices.
Then there’s the Hong Kong BNO scheme. Sold as a gesture of solidarity, yes, but also pitched with a neat little forecast. Five years’ worth of arrivals came through in two. Student visas? Ministers pretended they weren’t really migrants, then looked the other way while tens of thousands of dependants marched through the door. Seasonal workers? The great British pickers never turned up, so the “temporary” scheme ballooned like everything else. And the asylum backlog? Bigger than ever, while taxpayers forked out to put people in hotels.
Every lever they pulled snapped off in their hands. Either the forecasts were drawn up by the same people who thought Brexit meant “sunlit uplands,” or they knew perfectly well and lied through their teeth. In the end, the slogan was right. They did take back control – and then promptly lost it again, in spectacular fashion.
And that brings us to the Channel. Brexit was sold as “taking back control.” The irony? It stripped away the very tools that gave us control and replaced them with gimmicks.
Before Brexit we were part of Eurodac – the EU fingerprint database – and the Dublin Regulation. If someone failed in France or Germany, we’d know instantly and send them back. One claim, one chance, no second bite. Numbers were small because the deterrent worked.
Defenders of Brexit sneer that Dublin returns were only a few hundred a year. True – but arrivals were only a few hundred too. Low in, low out. Once the mechanism went, the numbers ballooned.
And look at the source countries. Afghans fleeing the Taliban. Syrians from a land still shattered by war. Iranians escaping theocracy. Eritreans trapped in military servitude. Sudanese running from civil war. You can’t just phone up those regimes and book a return flight. That’s why the latest wheeze of cutting visas to India or Bangladesh if they won't take their citizens back won’t change a thing.
Worse still, threatening India, Pakistan or Nepal with fewer visas would blow back on Britain itself. Our universities depend on Indian students. The NHS and social care system depend on Indian and Bangladeshi staff. Businesses want trade deals with these countries, not trade wars. Mahmood’s “visa stick” risks damaging Britain’s economy and workforce just to look “tough” for a headline.
Bottom line: Threatening visa restrictions against India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh is irrelevant to the boat crisis - and risks collateral harm - because these countries account for almost no small-boat entries.
And here’s the rub. The real fix is obvious – rejoin Eurodac and Dublin. Re-establish the deterrent, end the second-bite claims, take back the control Brexit threw away. But Starmer won’t touch it. He ignores the root cause, hides behind gimmicks, and leaves us cosplaying toughness beside Trump’s enforcers.
And the rancid irony? The flag-wavers and roundabout-painters who voted for Brexit dismantled the very tools that kept numbers low. Now they rage at asylum hotels, blind to the fact they created the pull factor.
Brexit didn’t stop the boats. It built the pier, laid out the red carpet, and sent an engraved gold invitation card to Calais. And Labour? Instead of tearing it up, they’re still waving it around like a prop.
No comments:
Post a Comment