Piers Morgan brought out the bulldog in Rishi Sunak during their interview on Thursday evening. ‘If you come here illegally – if you’re an illegal migrant here – then you will not be able to stay here,’ thundered the Prime Minister, in as much as he ever can thunder.
People who arrive in Britain illegally, like the 46,000 who made the journey across the Channel last year, will be deported if they are judged to be ineligible for asylum. Sunak also promised that claims will be heard ‘in a matter of days or weeks, not months or years’. Failed applicants ‘will be sent to an alternative safe country, be that where you’ve come from if it’s safe, or indeed Rwanda’.
It was just the sort of fiery rhetoric that should boost the morale of the Tory rank and file, were it not for the fact that they’ve heard it all before. On the eve of the 2019 General Election, Boris Johnson made a pledge to the British people: vote for me and I will put an end to uncontrolled immigration. ‘The problem…is there has been no control at all and I don’t think that is democratically accountable,’ Boris boomed to Sky News.
The number of migrants arriving in Europe in 2022 was the highest since 2016
Sunak should be given time to make good on his promise, even if the smart money is on his failing to stem the small boats arriving in southern England. As for sending people to Rwanda, that too may prove more difficult to achieve than he imagines, as the Danish government has recently discovered.
Last week it was announced that Denmark has abandoned talks with Rwanda over its plan to send failed asylum seekers there. Instead Mette Frederiksen’s coalition government has proposed an EU initiative to establish migrant reception centres outside of the EU where asylum seekers and migrants can have their claims examined before a decision is made. Currently, only about one fifth of people arriving in Europe illegally are ejected.
Denmark’s solution is not new; in an interview with The Spectator last August, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni proposed the EU setting up ‘hotspots in Libya to process asylum requests’. According to Denmark’s Migration and Integration Minister, Kaare Dybvad, his government has scrapped talks with Rwanda ‘because there has been movement on the issue among many European countries…[and] there are many now pushing for a stricter asylum policy in Europe’.
Mette Frederiksen was recently described by one French broadcaster as ‘the face of the anti-immigration left’ in Denmark, a moniker bestowed on her after her government adopted its ‘Zero Refugee’ policy. The policy was criticised by Human Rights groups, the UN and the EU – particularly in 2020 when Denmark became the only EU country to withdraw residency permits for Syrians. Nevertheless, Frederiksen has been a hit at the polls. Last November she was returned to power with her Social Democrats achieving their best result in twenty years.
One of those who has been critical of Denmark’s hardline approach to mass immigration is Ylva Johansson, the EU’s Commissioner for Home Affairs. Last year she described their Rwandan scheme as ‘a flagrant crime against basic human rights’.
Last week, however, Johansson admitted that the current immigration numbers are unsustainable. There were 330,000 illegal entries into the EU in 2022, 90 per cent of whom were men, a great many from countries where there is neither war or oppression. ‘We have a huge increase of irregular arrivals of migrants,’ Johansson conceded. ‘We have a very low return rate and I can see we can make significant progress here.’
The difficulty for the EU is agreeing to a solution that suits all 27 member states. Some countries, notably Germany, see migrants as a way to boost its workforce. ‘We want to conclude migration agreements with countries, particularly with North African countries, that would allow a legal route to Germany but would also include functioning returns,’ said Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser last week.
Other smaller countries, such as Denmark, Sweden, Holland and Latvia, want the EU to reduce immigration and instead focus on providing developmental aid for third world countries who send the most migrants to Europe. The issue will be one of several discussed by EU leaders at a summit in Brussels next week.
But these are discussions that have been kicked around the EU for years. One of Emmanuel Macron’s first keynote speeches after coming to office in 2017 was at the Sorbonne in September that year. In ‘A Sovereign Europe’, the new president of France outlined his vision for the EU, which included the creation of ‘a common area of borders, asylum and migrations, to effectively control our borders, welcome refugees with dignity, integrate them fully and swiftly send those who are not eligible for asylum back to their home countries’.
None of these laudable aims have been achieved. On the contrary, the number of migrants arriving in Europe in 2022 was the highest since 2016; France was one of the countries that received the most.
Arguably no European leader has shied away from confronting the challenge of mass uncontrolled immigration quite like Macron, a pusillanimity that he inherited from his predecessors. There have been 30 immigration bills in France since 1980 – the latest was unveiled on Wednesday. It is the second such bill in Macron’s presidency. The first, in 2018, was a failure and expectations for this one are low.
The interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, has said the 27-article bill will streamline the asylum claims system, making it easier to deport failed applicants along with any migrant who commits a crime. Critics on the right claim the bill does not address the fundamental issue at the heart of the country’s migrant crisis: how to prevent people arriving in France in the first place. They fear the bill will actually attract more migrants because one of its articles allows for the regularisation of undocumented workers in employment sectors where there is a shortage of manpower.
If the bill is to be passed, Macron will need the support of the centre-right Republicans. But the signs aren’t good. Bruno Retailleau, their Senate leader, condemned the bill because ‘it does not allow us to regain control’.
‘Control’ is the key word in Europe’s migrant crisis. The EU lost control on 31 August 2015, the day Angela Merkel opened the continent’s borders with her cry of ‘We can do this’. Europe couldn’t – the number of arrivals has simply been too great. Now time is running out, and electorates are fast losing patience with politicians who make grand promises and then fail to deliver.
Bruno Retailleau cautioned Macron on Wednesday that if he does not bring mass immigration under control there will be ‘insurrections at the ballot box’. That warning should sound throughout Europe.
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