Well, it’s official: Britain is facing a mass migration crisis. On a trip to Washington Priti Patel used the term yesterday as she turned her guns from the French to the EU’s system of open borders instead as ‘they do not have border controls and border checks’. She told reporters there:
There is a mass migration crisis. I’ve said this from day one – from the minute I walked into the Home Office… there isn’t a silver bullet. There’s no point saying, “Well you could just push boats back.” It will not stop it. There all sorts of issues with criminal gangs, smugglers etc.
The admission comes as Patel approaches the two-and-a-half year mark in her post as Home Secretary. During her time there all sorts of promises and briefings have been made about the ways in which she intends to tackle illegal small boats going across the Channel, yet numbers have continued to rise to more than 1,000 a day as of earlier this month.
Back in October 2019 she vowed to halve migrant crossings – then a tenth of the current level – by the end of the month and make them an ‘infrequent phenomenon’ by the spring of 2020. Instead migrant numbers hit a record 1,185 in a day last week. Announcements to use the Royal Navy to patrol the Channel and, er, allow the UK Border Force to turn back migrant boats have come to nought, with numbers continuing to rocket despite the first instalment of a £54 million UK cash payment to France.
As colleagues’ frustrations continue to mount – with angry MPs confronting Boris Johnson about it on Wednesday – Mr S thought it might be worthwhile to remind his readers of just some of the times Patel promised tough action. But – as today’s Daily Mail notes sadly – again and again, her vows come to nothing…
15 October 2019: ‘I am absolutely committed to doing everything in my power to stop these dangerous Channel crossings which are putting vulnerable lives at risk.’
23 October 2019: ‘[As for] small boats coming to Kent or to Dover… a great deal of work has taken place in preventing people trafficking through those particular routes.’
11 May 2020: ‘Extensive work continues… on illegal Channel crossings. Criminal investigations of perpetrators facilitating illegal migration are underway and we are working with our Ministerial counterparts in France.’
7 August 2020: ‘The number of illegal small boat crossings is appalling and unacceptably high’
28 September 2020: ‘When it comes to convictions, we are of course working with the courts, the Crown Prosecution Service and our intelligence networks to ensure that more work is taking place to pursue those who are responsible.’
8 October 2020: ‘I am fixing our broken asylum system and accelerating our operational response to tackling small boats.’
28 November 2020: ‘We are already seeing fewer migrants leaving French beaches… we will introduce a new asylum system that is firm and fair, and I will bring forward new legislation next year to deliver on that commitment.’
6 July 2021: ‘Access to the UK’s asylum system should be based on need, not the ability to pay people smugglers’
20 July 2021: ‘The public are rightly angry that small boats are arriving on our shores, facilitated by appalling criminal gangs who profit from human misery and put lives at risk’
15 November 2021: Joint statement ‘More must be done to stop the dangerous crossings… and make this deadly route unviable.’
18 November 2021: ‘The real problem on illegal migration flows is the EU has no open border protections whatsoever – open borders. On stopping crossings, France can’t do it on their own. They simply can’t.’
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